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LEFT BOLSHEVISM 96 BOLSHEVISM vist Party" elaborates its principles. Since it is the aim of the workmen and peasants to wipe out the bourgeofsie, he states, this class must be denied all great liberties, including the right of suffrage. Admitting the charges of suppression of the press, of arbitrary arrests, of the denial of the right of free assemblage, of violation, assassination, and tyrannical methods, the author draws a distinction between the press of the bourgeoisie and that of the workingmen, between gather- ings of friends of the Government and those opposed to it, between strikes of laborers against capitalists and strikes of bourgeois intellectuals against the pro- letariat. The only question is as to what class is using these weapoas and against what class they are directed. The con- clusion drawn is that liberty of person, speech, press, and assemblage is the right only of those who favor the existing order and should be denied to those who oppose it. To those who assert that that kind of "liberty" is not worth having, a bullet is the sufficient answer. An invasion of personal liberty that tended more perhaps than any single previous measure to merge the individual in the mass was the mobilization of labor on military lines in the early part of 1920. The laborer was not henceforth to own himself, to sell his services to whom he chose in the labor market or to choose his own place of residence. Trotzky was frankness itself in discussing the plan. Under the proposed regime, he admitted, each workman was to be a soldier of labor who could not freely dispose of himself. If an order were given him to move to another position, he would have to obey it. If he disobeyed, he would be a deserter and be punished as such. The masses of workmen were to be moved about, ordered and sent from place to place like soldiers. Compulsion, he de- clared, had always existed in some form or other; under capitalistic forms of gov- ernment, men had been driven by the blows of economic necessity and the urge of hunger; under the labor militarization plan, they would simply be sent from factory to factory, not by their own will and consent, but in obedience to a single economic plan. To explain the matter further and emphasize the necessity of the new policy, Lenine amplified the subject in a letter that he addressed in March to all branches of the Communist party. The social aspects of the theory have come in for severe criticism, especially the attitude taken by it toward the home. It is alleged that the sacredness of that institution has been profaned, and that a state of affairs prevails that is es- sentially the practice of the doctrine of free love. It is but fair to say that the so-called "nationalization of women," which was alleged against the system, has not been sustained by the facts. There seems to be little doubt that in the early days of the Soviet Government, two or three local Soviets promulgated de- crees in their districts establishing this revolting perversion, but the experiment was short-lived and has not received thr sanction of the ruling authorities. A^ was pointed out, however, in the United States Senate report previously referred to, a condition exists as to marriage and divorce that destroys the sanctity of the marriage relation and can be made a ve- hicle of unbounded license. The mar- riage bond can be severed at the merest whim of either party to the contract and there is no limit to the successive unions that may be contracted. It practically establishes a state of free love. Bolshevism is the avowed enemy of re- ligion. Atheism is taught to the chil- dren. All chui'ch property has been con- fiscated, and the clergy and all others connected with religious institutions have been disfranchised and deprived of the right to occupy public positions. The Sunday school has been suppressed and all teaching of religious doctrines in public, either in schools or institutions of any kind, is expressly forbidden. The recognition of a Supreme Being in judicial oaths has been prohibited. Un- der the old regime, it was obligatory on every newspaper or periodical printed in Russia, on Easter Sunday, to carry as a headline, "Christ is Risen." On Easter Sunday, 1918, the Bolshevist papers sub- stituted the headline "One Hundred Years Ago To-day, Karl Marx Was Bom." As regards secular education, the Bol- shevists have made some progress in re- ducing the immense proportion of illit- erates among the Russian people. Schools have been established in all parts of the former empire. A decree issued by the Government reads as follows : "The whole population of the Soviet Republic must be able to read and write. All Russians between the ages of 8 and 50 who are illiterate are bound hereby to learn to read and write in the Russian language or in their original tongue as they please. All literate persons may be called upon to teach the illiterate. The period in which illiteracy is to be abol- ished shall be fixed by the municipal or provincial Soviet in each district. For adult citizens undergoing instruction in reading and writing, the working day is abridged by two hours during the entire