Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/102

 to stay at home organized a village soviet, secured arms and began to rule their particular city or village. Private property was declared abolished, and those who formerly had worked so that they might maintain themselves and their families had to maintain now a whole flock of idle commissaries and their guard. The commissaries issued decrees as to what each man should pay, and the guardsmen went around to collect with loaded rifles and a string of bombs around their belt. They went from house to house, handed the “bourgeois” the order to pay, searched the quarters, turned everything upside down, and when they collected the money, arranged drinking bouts in the offices of the local Soviets, bouts which ended in disgraceful orgies. If anyone dared to protest, he was shot. Just to look with hatred or contempt on a Red Guardsman was sufficient ground to take him to jail as a counter-revolutionist.

Freedom of speech was abolished, newspapers suppressed, every liberty done away with, even the freedom of thought. The old warcry of liberty, equality, and fraternity has received much abuse, but never such shameless perversion as at the hands of the Russian Bolsheviki.

Now that the war is over, secret documents are beginning to appear that shed much light on things only suspected or whispered, while the fighting went on. On December 14th the press bureau of the new German Austrian Republic published ten documents taken from the secret archives of the War Ministry in Vienna; a number of these papers have a special interest for the Czechoslovaks, for they describe the attitude of the Czech people in the early days of the war.

On November 26th, 1914, Archduke Frederic, commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian Army, addressed a note to the Austrian premier, Count Stuergkh, with reference to treasonable sentiments and acts in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. This document is of sufficient interest to be given in literal translation:

“From numerous reports of military commanders, from anonymous complaints and confidential communications I have received the impression that the military and patriotic feelings of several classes of Czech population of Bohemia and Moravia in these difficult times are not what one would desire and that Russophile currents make themselves felt here. A memorandum addressed by me to the minister of the interior on November 1st with reference to this matter under No. 9082 has not yet been answered. I am convinced that these conditions may be traced partly to the slow ordinary procedure before criminal courts in cases charging high treason or crimes against the military power of the state; it would be different, if the state administration would see to it that the state police supervising societies, meetings and the press, public corporations, as well as supervision of mails, would do their duty zealously. In the matter of criminal trials I am addressing a petition to His Majesty that he would place the courts of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia under the General Army Command and that he would most graciously order the introduction of field courtmartial procedure. I feel compelled to request your excellency most strongly that you would give your special attention to the above described conditions which already have an effect on our military power and may be of the very greatest importance; you are requested to call forth all the powers of the state to put a stop to the above described treasonable efforts. In any case it is necessary to extend special provisions, decreed on account of the war, to Bohemia and to that part of Moravia and Silesia which is not in the war zone. This refers to the ministerial decree of July 31st, relating to the possession of weapons, ammunition and explosives. The principal thing however, is to carry out the existing orders energetically and purposefully for the suppression of the above described evils. Persons who make themselves in any way suspicious or spread secretly discouraging reports in public places should be placed under observation or interned. The right of house search should be exercised against all who are suspected of hostility to the state with thoroughness and without any regard to political influence or to the sentiments of a particular locality. Letters in my opinion are not censored with sufficient strictness. (In this connection it may be mentioned that in 1916 and 1917 Czechoslovak soldiers in Russia received postal cards from relatives in Bohemia addressed directly to A. B. 3rd Czechoslovak Regiment, War zone, Russia. These cards frequently read: We know what you are doing and God be with you. And next to the censor’s stamp the Austrian censor who was a Czech himself added: God bless you, and signed his name). It would also be desirable to issue a general order that only open letters may be turned in at the postoffice and forwarded. The activity of all societies, even when no political tendency may be shown in it, should be suspended or greatly circumscribed in all cases where it does not serve strictly patriotic purposes. No meetings should be allowed except for the same purpose. A more intensive exercise of the press police I hold absolutely necessary. The power to stop the publishing or distribution of printed matter should be used most widely. All newspapers with tendencies hostile to the state should be completely supressedsuppressed [sic] and the re-appearance