Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/146

 or approved candidates during an election. And as all the printing-presses likewise are the property and under the control of the Government, its opponents find it well-nigh impossible to have their case presented to the electors.

The Mensheviki have secured a little more than a quarter of the seats on the Moscow Soviet, in spite of all difficulties, which fact speaks volumes for their probable real strength. One story was told us of a factory which voted for an opposition candidate to Lenin by a proportional vote of something like seventy to eight, and when ordered to conduct a new election for the purpose of reversing the decision had the courage to stick to their guns and record seventy and eight the second time; but such instances are not numerous, for the fear of authority is very great.

Theoretically "All Power to the Soviet," a favourite piece of rhetoric, is a true saying, or was so. For I discover in reading carefully the Thesis of the Executive Committee of the Communist International recently published to the world, that a new line is being taken. The pretence of democracy is vanishing. Every species of tyranny by the Communist party over the rest of the proletariat and people is justified, as it always has been in the writings of the principal men of the Communist Movement, until Communism becomes the accepted creed of mankind