Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/99



Like every other institution in Russia, the press has been profoundly affected by the revolution. Before the great upheaval there were practically no labor papers, now there are hardly any others. About the only journals existing at the present time are those of the Communist Party, the Government, the trade unions, the co-operatives, and other institutions friendly to, or at least tolerant of, the Communist revolution. There is no important oppositional press. By the hard logic of circumstances virtually all of it, imperialist. capitalist, clerical, liberal, and pseudo-socialist, was destroyed in the bitter revolutionary struggles.

From the beginning of the revolution the workers realized that one of the greatest dangers they had to combat was the poisoning of the people’s mind by the enemy press. Hence, making no bones about the matter, they took the situation seriously in hand, set up the Revolutionary Press Tribunal, and declared war on the journalistic hangers-on of the exploiting class. As fast as these were caught in counter-revolutionary activities their journals were put out of business. "Reactionary," "liberal," and "radical" papers alike went down in the struggle, until finally the purely working-class press remained practically alone in the field.

Much adverse criticism has been expressed over the suppression of the so-called liberal and radical press, but it was an imperative necessity of the revolution. In the crisis it proved a buttress for the capitalist system and it had to go. The working-class, beset by a multitude of dangers, was fighting its way out of Czarism and toward liberty. Within the country the whole capitalist and intellectual classes were sabotaging the industries and bringing the people to ruin; while on its borders raged the armies of the whole capitalist world.Defeat for the workers meant the triumph of black reaction and the inauguration of the most terrible massacres in the history of civilization.

In such a desperate situation there could be only two sides to the struggle: that of the workers, and that