Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/83

 Rh as you will but he will still remain savage; so the bourgeoisie does not change his nature.

We must recall in this connection that the civil war is looked upon by the Bolshevists as likely to last a generation or more and that all non-Bolshevist working men are labelled "bourgeois."

Without counting irregular executions, assassinations, massacres and military killings of many different kinds, the Extraordinary Commission, in the pamphlet quoted, confesses that it executed 2,024 persons for the sole fact of belonging to an anti-Bolshevist organization—such organizations, as we have said, being always labelled for Bolshevist purposes as counter-revolutionary or bourgeoisie. This does not include 3,082 persons executed for insurrection and 455 for inciting insurrection. The immense scope of the Extraordinary Commission and the use of the death penalty for offenses for which it has not been used in civilized countries for centuries, is shown in Chapter 2 of the pamphlet quoted:

The sphere of the labors of the Extraordinary Commission was determined by the activities of the counter-revolutionary elements; but, as there was no domain of life into which the counter-revolutionists had not intruded themselves, and where their destructive work was not manifested, the Extraordinary Commission often had to enter quite positively into all phases of life: stores, transportation, Red army, navy, militia, schools, consulates, industry, assessments, etc.

But the Extraordinary Commission had to interest itself not only in direct counter-revolutionary work. There are acts committed by no means intended cer-