Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Twelve Days in Germany (1921).pdf/55

 means the following. It you take Berlin, for instance, it means that bankers, generals, and manufacturers edit thirty-four big dailies. The workers, even if you count as workingmen's papers the organs of Scheidemann and Hilferding, possess only three daily papers. In fact we have only one genuine labour paper in Berlin—"Rote Fahne," the Communist organ. "The liberty of the press" in Germany means that workers are left without their paper, and that all the best printing machines are working for the bourgeoisie.

During the last few weeks the bourgeoisie of the whole world has opened an even more violent campaign of calumny against Soviet Russia. It is clear now that this was part of the military plan of the Allies who backed Baron Wrangel. But this campaign of calumny became a fine art in Germany in connection with our arrival there.

Sometimes we ask ourselves why people lied every day for three years running. Surely no one believes them! But in reality this is not so. A man who every day reads a cleverly propagated lie, ends by involuntary falling under its influence. Take, for instance, our delegates. Of course, we were fully aware that the bourgeois press tells lies about Soviet Russia. We spent only a few days in Germany. And still, when we read in all the papers "extracts" from the Moscow "Pravda" (they afterwards turned out to be false) on this or that event at the front, we involuntary inclined to think that there must be a particle of truth in them.

The forgers of the bourgeois press perform their work artistically. The bourgeois papers very cleverly forged the famous "passage" from the Moscow "Pravda" concerning Comrade Budenny's alleged treachery and alliance with the Whites. They do the same in all instances.

Of course the workers place no faith in the bourgeois press. They know that the bourgeois press is lying about Soviet Russia. But still we must, not delude ourselves. The bourgeoisie is most adept and even talented in using the "liberty of the press," that principal weapon which still remains in its hands. One of our chief tasks abroad must be to organise a daily and methodical means of information to keep the workers in touch with everything that is taking place in Russia.