Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - Lessons of the Revolution (1918).djvu/15

 ting from the revolution? We all know that a;l along they hoped for freedom, peace, bread, land.

Now what are the actual facts?

Instead of freedom the arbitrary rule of the past is being restored. Capital punishment is being introduced at the front, peasants are brought to trial for «wilfully» seizing the landlords' lands. The printing establishments of the Labor press are raided. The Bolsheviks are arrested, not infrequently, without accusation, or on the pretext of charges which are simply calumnious.

It may be argued that the persecution of the Bolsheviks is by no means a violation of freedom, since only certain persons on specific charges are thus persecuted. But such arguments bear the earmarks of premeditated untruth. For why, should printing offices be raided, newspapers suppressed for the crimes of individuals, even if these crimes are proven and sustained by law? It would be altogether different if the government declared criminal the entire Bolshevik party, its ideas and views. But every one knows that the government of free Russia never could, and indeed never attempted to do anything of the kind.

And look at the venomous slanders launched against the Bolsheviks! The newspapers of both landlords and capitalists have been furiously attacking the Bolsheviks for their campaign against the war, against the landlords and against the capitalists. These newspapers openly demanded the ar-