Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/57

 violation of personal rights. But not so would the Communists have acted. The Government of Russia conducts such operations on an incredible scale. Whole buildings of great size are stuffed from floor to ceiling with pamphlets and leaflets printed in every well-used language in the world, and a tireless and powerful propaganda in the principles of Communism is carried on at the expense of the Russian State in every country in the world to which Bolshevist agents have access. Here is the last sentence in the section devoted to Education in the Communist Manifesto of 1919:

"To develop the propaganda of Communist ideas on a wide scale, and for that purpose, of taking advantage of the State means and apparatus."

Our first public reception in Petrograd was at a dinner given to us by the Petrograd Soviet. It was held in a great room which had formerly been a stable but had been converted into the hall of a very fine public assembly-room. All along the walls were banners specially prepared for our coming, on some of which were sentences in English, tendering us good advice on the lines of "Go thou and do likewise." Some of the thoughts so advertised were very fine, and one I cannot refrain from mentioning, representing as