Page:Karl Radek - Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism - tr. Patrick Lavin (1921).djvu/17

10 scale that even approximately accurate computation is impossible. According to British official figures more than 3,200 Irishmen are interned—all without trial. About 1,500 others are serving sentences of penal servitude or hard labor, and about 1,000 are in custody awaiting trial or interment. Armed raids on private houses are of daily occurrence.

In brief reference to destruction of property may close this fearful record, which, with all its horror, can convey but a faint idea of the torture inflicted upon the brave Irish people. Some of the houses were selected for destruction because their occupants had "lent moral support to the rebel cause!" We shall confine ourselves to the period from January to May of this year. The figures include buildings damaged only, as well as those utterly destroyed: Shops, 417: creameries, 7; farm houses, 165; farm outbuildings, 32; factories and works, 5; crops, 72; halls and clubs, 28; private residences, 233; other premises, 55.

But to return to our fair-weather revolutionaries of the literary world. America, of course, supplied many examples of literary apostasy. Suffice it to name but one—Jack London. The list of names of members of this unholy fraternity could be considerably extended by additions from many other countries, but none other need be mentioned than that of Herr Karl Kautsky, whose disgraceful attack on Communism and Communists occasioned the present pamphlet.

Until recently those who professed to be Socialists could have been divided into two sections—on the one hand, the followers of Marx, and on the other, those who, without reading Marx, were convinced in some mysterious way, that he was "all wrong." Now, however, the position of affairs might be accurately described by paraphrasing the statement of an English statesman, famous in his day, so as to make it read, "We are all Marxians now." Kautsky's facility in quoting Marxian Scripture in an attempt to justify his reactionary attitude, reminds one of the dexterity attributed to the Enemy of Man in handling, Christian texts to suit his own purposes.