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3

Follow Us!

By Maxim Gorky

THE victors, who a short time ago, proclaimed to the whole world that they were destroying millions of men for the victory of justice and the happiness of all peoples, have now forced the conquered German people to accept the terms of an armistice which is ten times harder than the Brest-Litovsk peace and which threatens the Germans with inescapable hunger. From day to day the cynicism of the inhuman policy of the imperialists becomes clearer and threatens more and more openly the peoples of Europe with new wars and fresh bloodshed.

President Wilson, who yesterday was the eloquent champion of the freedom of peoples and the rights of democracy, is equipping a powerful army for the " Resto= ration of Order," in Revolutionary Russia, where the people have already realized their lawful right to take the power into their own hands and are striving with all their might to lay the foundation for a new political order. I will not deny that this constructive work has been preceded by an often unnecessary destruction. But I, more than anyone else, am justified and in a position to explain, that the cultural meta-morphosis which is going on under particularly difficult circumstances, and which calls for heroic exertions of strength, is now gradually taking on a form and a compass which has up to the present, been unknown in human history. This is not an exaggeration. But a short time ago an opponent of the Soviet government and still in many respects not in agreement with it, I can yet say, that in the future the historian, when judging the work which the Russian workers have accomplished in one year, will be able to feel nothing but admiration for the immensity of the present cultural activity.   .   .   .

Is it because of the slight transgressions of the Russian Revolution against humanity, is it because of the lack of high-mindedness on the part of the Russian workmen towards their conquered class enemies, that the imperialists of Europe and America are taking the field against Revolutionary Russia? No, the case is not so beautiful or so idealistic as the papers of Europe, France, America and Japan represent it. The matter is much simpler. The imperialists of the three continents fear the operation of the new influences which may hinder the fortifying of political conditions and institutions that can strengthen their power over the wills of the people; conditions, in consequence of which a'smalI minority disposes of the wills and lives of the majority, that minority which evoked the senseless, bloody battles.

One would think that all sensible and h o n o r a b l e men must see clearly the hypocrisy and the stupidity of the foundations of the capitalist system. It seems as if this were the time to convince all honorable and thought-

ful men that capitalism has lost its constructive force and is a relic of the past, is a hindrance to the development of world culture, that it calls forth enmity between individuals, families, classes and nations and that the beautiful dream of the great brotherhood of nations cannot be accomplished as long as the irreconcilable struggle between labor and capital still survives. I do not deny the services of capital to the working portion of humanity, out of the flesh and blood of which it created the bases for a transition into a new, perfect and just order of society by means of Socialism. But now that the damnable war has disclosed the complete shabbiness, inhumanity and cynicism of the old system, now, its death sentence has been pronounced. We, Russians, a people without traditions and on that account bolder, more rebellious and less bound by the prejudices of the past, we have been the first to tread the path which leads to the destruction of the outworn conditions of capitalist society, and we are convinced that we have a claim on the help and sympathy. of the proletariat of the entire world, and also of those, who, even before the war, criticised sharply the present conditions of society.

If this criticism was honest, then all honorable men in Europe and America must recognize our right to shape our destiny in the manner we think necessary. If any of the intellectual workers take a true interest in the solving of the great social problem, they must protest against those who strive for the reestablishment of the old regime, who wish to destroy the Russian Revolution by the shedding of Russian blood, to subject Russia to their rule in order later-to exploit it as they exploited Turkey and other countries, and as they are now preparing to exploit Germany. This is the true wish of the imperialists. This is their sacred task.

The leader of the campaign against Russia is Wood-row Wilson. The torch of the Russian Revolution which throws its light over the entire world, is held firmly by the hand of Lenin. The proletariat and the intellectuals will choose which one represents their interests most nearly, the representative of the outworn, life-destroying minority rule, or the leader and teacher of new social ideals and emotions, who is the embodiment of the beautiful ideals of the workers -of freedom of labor among all peoples. . . .

Existing under the menace of conquest by the robbers, they proclaim to the workers and to honorable men in all the world: Follow us to a new life, for the creation of which we are working without sparing ourselves or any-thing or anyone else. For this we are working, erring and suffering with the eager hope of success, leaving to the just decision of history all our acts. Follow us in our struggle against the old order, in the work for a new form of life,. for the freedom and beauty of life.

THE LIaE1ATou, a monthly magazine, June, 1919. Twenty cents a copy, $2 a year. Vol. 2, No. 6, Serial No. 16. Published by The Liberator Publishing 0o., 34 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Application pending for entry as second class matter at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March, 3, 7879.

4

THE LIBERATOR

Vol. 2, No. 6 (Serial No. 16)

EDITORIALS

IF there had been no disinterested idealism introduced into the war by Woodrow Wilson, and the Allies had simply proceeded to " lick " Germany in a straightforward fashion, the terms imposed upon her would no doubt have been extremely severe. The victors would have taken away all of her non-European territory, and probably about a quarter of her European territory, reducing her empire from 1,236,-600 square miles to about 16o,ooo square miles, They would have robbed Germany of her navy, demolished her army, deprived her of the right to build a new navy or organize a new army, razed her principal fortifications to the ground, and prevented the rebuilding of them, emasculated her national stronghold, the Kiel Canal, taken a bloody vengeance upon some of her military and political leaders, stolen her marine cables, stolen her merchant marine, deprived her of the freedom of the seas, placed her under heavy economic disabilities, exacted money payments to the extreme limit of her productive ability over several generations, and united in a League or Alliance to perpetuate their ascendency and the subordination of the rest of the world. In other words, they would have reduced Germany from a first-class to a second-class power for all time. And the bulk of the advantage, both in territory and in world-control, would have gone to England. There is no doubt that some such cynical and irresponsible butchery of one empire in behalf of another would have been perpetrated, if it had not been for Woodrow 'Wilson's disinterested ideal-ism.

But that is just a summary of what has happened with Wilson presiding over the job. So what did his disinterested idealism amount to? It amounted to a heroic determination to surround himself and the general public with a blinding vapor of self-righteous emotion all the time that the job was being done. That determination he carried out. That is his contribution to history.

The International Class Struggle

I N this ultimate exposure of the piratical purpose at the heart of the war for democracy, how happy are all the revolutionists who oppose it-and how humbly penitent, if they ever failed or faltered for a moment in loyalty to the great truth that it was entrusted to them to know! Let

June, 1919

there be no more failure and no more faltering. These imperialistic pirates who have ripped open and mutilated the wounded body of the German nation after surrender, are at the same time engaged in the cold-blooded murder by starvation of hundreds of thousands of men and women and little children in the towns and cities of European Russia. They are starving them because that is the only way they can prevent the truth that has been demonstrated in Russia from becoming known to the whole world. And while they are starving them, they are supplying arms and ammunition and soldiers to the few remaining minions of the Czar and of Big Business to shoot them down. And they are raiding and slaughtering the people of Hungary in the same deliberate manner and for the same desperate purpose. Remember with what horror we read only a year ago that the Germans were " closing in on Petrograd " and " plunging toward Moscow " in violation of an armistice and of the rights of a defenseless nation? Remember how these Germans were played up in the papers as dishonorable robbers and butchers of men, until even some of us socialists who ought to have known better, were almost ready to enlist against them under the colors of the Allies? And now in the same columns of the same papers we read that the Allies are " closing in on Hungary," the Allies are " plunging toward Budapest," in violation of an armistice and of the rights of a defenseless nation. Do we have to be instructed that the Allied Governments, too, are dishonorable robbers and butchers of men? It is all very plain now even to the mind of a child. The war for democracy, the war that we who love the people of the world and care about their peace and freedom and happiness, have to wage, is the war between the Communist International and the League of Imperialist Nations. The line is so clearly and fearfully drawn that there can be no doubt and no confusion in the heart of any socialist any longer.

We cannot treat with these, the murderers of our comrades. We cannot send delegates to them to plead and persuade, to beg for amnesties for our prisoners, to pray for the incorporation of social reform measures in the constitution of their League of Nations, as the Berne conference did. It is time for all pleading and appealing and associating our-selves with these governments to cease. It is time for us, in every act of our organization and in every word from our press and our platforms, to wage the class war against them.

That is the reason why the entire Socialist Party of

i   THE LIBERATOR

Italy, through its executive committee, has withdrawn from the old international which organized the Berne conference of Social Patriots, and affiliated itself with the third inter-national summoned by the Soviet Government in Moscow.

That is the reason why the Socialist party of Switzerland, although the Berne conference was held in their own capital, refused to send delegates to that conference.

That is why the Socialist parties of Serbia, Rumania, Denmark and Norway refused to send delegates to that conference.

That is why Loriot, the spokesman of the Left Wing of the French movement, denounced the Conference, saying:

" You have come together not for the purpose of finding a Socialist solution for the tragic problems that have followed in the wake of this greatest of all capitalist crimes, but for the purpose of finding some sort of justification for the governmental, nationalistic, chauvinistic nee-war-Socialism that flourished upon the ruins of the Socialist movement after the outbreak of the war.

"You are here, not in order to give expression to your determination to fulfill your Socialist ideals, but in order to document the agreement of the International with the policies of Wilson, the representative of American multi-millionaires.

" You have met, finally, and above all, to condemn the tremendous struggle for freedom that is spreading out from Russia all over Western Europe. . . ."

That is why the socialists of the Left Wing in almost every other country have their own organization and their own spokesmen and their own press, through which they have repudiated the Berne Congress and the old international which organized it.

And that is why at last, even in the United States, we have a Left Wing, with its own organization, and its own spokesmen, and its own press. We know that the international class struggle is being fought to a finish in Europe, with all the weapons and forces of propaganda that are available on either side. There is no middle ground left. Every thinking man and woman there is either for the revolution or against it. And every one here too. And we are for it, and we can not tolerate the silence of the official party in this the most critical hour in all the history of the revolutionary hopes of mankind.

The Last Excuse

THERE have been three pale ghosts of reasons advanced for Allied intervention in Russia: First, it was necessary to " reconstitute the eastern front " against Germany. Germany is vanquished, the eastern front is west of Poland, and this pale ghost is fled.

Second, it was necessary to " extricate the Tchecho-Slovaks from Siberia." The Tchecho-Slovaks have been offered free transportation home to their own country by the Soviet Government, and two thousand of them are in jail for refusing to fight the battles of the Allies. This ghost is making but rare appearances.

Third, it was necessary to re-establish " democracy," which had been overthrown in Russia when the Soviet government dissolved the Constituent Assembly. Now comes the news, in a letter from Maxim Litvinoff, that " the committee of the Constituent Assembly has proposed to the Soviet Government an alliance for joint action against Koltchak"

Thus vanishes the last pale ghost of a reason for invading Russia. But Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson and Clemenceau and the Mikado-champions of democracy, champions of the Tchecho-Slovaks, champions of an " eastern front " four thousand miles from the enemy, champions of any bundle of the old clothes of a dead pretense that will cover their naked imperialistic designs, continue to ship arms and ammunition and soldiers to Koltchak to do murder in support of the corrupt and bloody regime of the Czar.

An International Civic Federation

GOMPERS has crowned a brilliant career in the misguidance of labor by getting incorporated into the treaty of peace a provision for an International Civic Federation. It is to consist, first, of an annual conference of four representatives from each state, two from the government and one each from the employers and the workingmen-leaving labor in a safe minority of one to three. Then there is to be also an international labor office " to collect and distribute information throughout the world," and this is to be under a governing body consisting of twenty-four members, twelve representing the governments, six the employers and six the employes-leaving labor in a safe minority of six to eighteen. And these eighteen can reject any delegate that they don't like, so that if the workers of some country should ever happen to send up a real man, he wouldn't even be allowed to come in and make a noise, to say nothing of exercising an effective franchise. Intelligent working men will have no more to do with the International Civic Federation than they have had with the National one.

There is also included in this treaty a Labor Charter or Declaration of Principles, of which the eight hour day and equal pay for men and women are the only ones which have a definite meaning-and these are subject to " exceptions necessitated by differences of climate, habits and economic developments." Especially-we should say-habits. In other words these principles are to be adopted where the working-people have the strength to enforce them, and not where they haven't.

" The charter," says Sylvia Pankhurst in her valiant little Worker's Dreadnought, " bears a striking resemblance to that adopted by the Government Socialists at Berne. We should not be surprised by that fact; it is not a chance coincidence. The approved policy of all Government Socialists, and of the weaker reformist Liberals, is always to find out what the Government means to give and then to ask for that. . . . A poor programme, but all that the League of Nations has to offer the workers, to prevent them turning

June, 1919   7

to Bolshevik Socialism, which will make the workers the rulers of the world and its destiny."

Feminism

T O all true rebels it is understood that those who do not possess economic privilege or physical prowess must win liberty and the equal rights of life by some kind of militant solidarity. Therefore the hearts of rebels the world over have been with that small group of women fighting for the rights of their sex in Washington the last four years. They are the only Americans who kept up the banner of revolt throughout the reactionary hurricane of the patriotic war. They know that they will have to keep it up through all wars, and through peace and reconstruction-and through revolution too. For the right of women to be as free and as happy as men is a right not included under, and automatically provided by, any of the other conditions of democracy. It is a right that women, conscious of their sex and the problems of their sex, must imperiously take and establish for themselves.

With those revolutionists, therefore, who condemn the rebels of the Woman's Party as " fighting on a side issue," we have no sympathy. It is their own issue, but it is not by any means a side issue in the progress of mankind towards liberty.

We do think, however, that these women could deploy their forces in a way that would bring a more substantial and lasting victory to their own cause. They are spending their precious talents of organization and revolt in winning a place in the political government, an institution that is crumbling and whose power is of the past. And while they so brilliantly and beautifully assault this decaying fortress, the great forces of the future are assembling and gathering momentum, and they are missing the place of vantage in those forces.

The American labor movement is more anti-feminist than the American government. And it is the government of the future. Assuming that this future is not too distant, would it not be more far-sighted to seize a place of power in the American labor movement than in the senile and bankrupt institutions of the ruling minority that it will displace?

At a meeting of the famous strike committee of the " Seattle Revolution," I heard some of the men who lead the left wing of the American Federation of Labor talk about their wives.

" I want to ask the brothers here," said one of them, " if any of them thinks that, aside from what he might have done, his wife would have held out for another day even if we could have won our demands? "

"Nam!" was one answer. "Ask 'em what the women are good for anyway!" was another, which brought a derisive laugh, and settled the matter finally for a good many of those present. That was in a state in which women have enjoyed political citizenship for a number of years.

I recalled a speech I heard Bill Haywood deliver in the Paterson Silk Strike years ago, in which he told fifteen thou-

sand men and women assembled together in a meadow that somebody had suggested to him that they should send away the women and children and let the men continue the strike: " I say send away the men and children, and let the women continue the strike. You will be more likely to win it!"

In the conflict of these two attitudes in the labor and socialist movements the big battle of feminism is being fought. The battle at Washington, authentic and inspiring though it be, is little by comparison.

Some of the big generals are in the little battle.

Dreadful Bombs

A BOMB was mailed by some criminal patriot to Ex-Senator Hardwick of Georgia, one of the few " wilful men " who stood behind La Follette in the United States Senate throughout the war, a man who is about as near radical as a Senator can come. The bomb exploded in his house, injuring his wife, and blowing the hands off of a colored maid.

Some other criminal patriots, who are trying to get public opinion behind their own attempts to destroy radicals, read about it. " Fine idea! " they said. " Only it should be worked the other way. The bombs should be mailed to the reactionaries, and discovered in the Post Office. Then every-body's sense of security and decency will be outraged, and we can do anything to the reds we want to ! "

So a couple of dozen nice, respectable, delicate bombs were manufactured, wrapped like the one that went to Senator Hardwick, set up on a shelf in the Post Office,' and discovered. They were manufactured by a man so careful and so expert in chemistry and general mechanics, and the diabolical art of wrapping up packages in brown paper, that nothing Iike them for elegance and efficiency was ever seen. But at the same time the man who manufactured them and wrapped them up was such a blundering damned fool that he mailed them without enough postage to carry them through the mail! That is how they came to be " discovered."

They were addressed to all the people that a most ignorant and superficial outsider might think would be chosen by revolutionary labor as the ones to get rid of. They were not addressed to the people that revolutionary labor would like to get rid of. One was addressed, for instance, to the Immigration Commissioner, Frederic C. Howe-obviously in revenge for the deportation of I. W. W's. But everybody even remotely in touch with the matter knows that Fred Howe did everything in his power, short of resigning his office, to prevent those deportations.

Another strange thing is that two or three of these bombs did have the proper postage on them. The assassin must have been drunk or extravagant that morning. And these two or three have been rattling round the country quite a good deal, with several curious people taking a peek at them, but none of them has even so much as bit off a postmaster's finger. In one case we are told that the " mercury had so eaten into the detonating device " that the bomb was just

8   THE LIBERATOR

on the point of exploding when it was opened. In another we learn that the bomb was not opened at all and that it still resides in a room in one of the public buildings in San Francisco-the " mercury " gaily devouring the detonating device the while! A third bomb, being regurgitated through some obscure self-protective instinct from the maw of the Post Office, was returned according to its label• to Gimbel's Department Store, in New York, and there it fell into the hands of an old man who wrestled around with it for a while, and finally laid his teeth into it and got it open, with-out overthrowing the republic or even interrupting the tranquil flow of profits over the novelty counter.

We heard one of the gentlemen to whom the bombs were addressed remark that they seemed to be so nicely and charmingly constructed, that he thought he would go down with the additional postage and get his for a souvenir and emblem of his dangerousness to the cause of revolution.

Lenin the Communist

HERO-WORSHIP of Lenin is a very different thing from revolutionary socialism. And yet Lenin is in the position of leadership, and he not only leads, but in his mind and character he typifies the proletarian revolution-its scientific spirit, its abandonment of ideologies and stage-eloquence, its inflexible will, its simplicity, and courage, and generosity, and consecration. Therefore a slander against Lenin is an offense to all revolutionists, and it is surprising to find such a slander in Pearson's Magazine. Frank Harris is not a scientific socialist, but he is a good literary rebel, and he is enough the man of the world to know that this exceeding prig and little political Oscar 'Wilde portrayed in his May issue as " Lenin the Aristocrat," could not by any caprice of destiny have become the leader of a proletarian revolution.

Harris attributes his information to a man who says that he worked with Lenin in Switzerland, and knew him so well that Lenin intrusted him with complete power of attorney on his departure. And his information is-to put it briefly-that from insisting upon " Lily of the Valley " perfume, and changing his silk underwear some five times a day, to flirting with handsome Junker girls from Berlin, and despising the smell of the masses-Lenin has all the attributes of a smooth rich fatuous egotistical Russian noble snob with personal magnetism. The picture is so elaborately akin to the idea which certain infants and infantile hot-house spinsters and side-board ninny-whoops have of the nature of a " great man," that I almost think it is a sincere creation. I think Frank Harris interviewed a man who really did think he had been intimate with Lenin, and if the interview had lasted a little longer he would probably have admitted that he is Lenin. I was on the trail of such a lunatic myself the other day, but by good luck I missed him and arrived instead at the Soviet Bureau, where I had the pleasure of showing Harris's article to a Russian Bolshevik, one of several in New York who actually worked with Lenin in Switzerland.

He was the organizer there of a Russian Workingmen's Union. It was not necessary to do this, because the article contained internal evidence that its statements were not true. For instance, this " intimate friend " says that he " had to translate many passages from Wilson's books for Lenin," whereas it is well known that Lenin reads, writes and speaks English with the utmost fluency. But it is interesting to have these facts from an authentic source.

Lenin was not of noble birth. He had no income. He lived, as Trotsky did in New York, on the small earnings of revolutionary writings and lectures. It was his principle never to sell anything to a capitalist paper, and he never did. When Bebel favored giving higher pay to editors than other Socialist workers, Lenin-an editor-opposed it. He lived in a simple house with his wife-also a veteran of the revolution-who acted as his secretary, and to whom he was altogether devoted. He worked at a plain uncovered table in an ordinary kitchen chair, and he was accessible to anybody who wanted advice. Indeed he would leave home and go any distance to explain a point-no matter how trivial-to any group that was working for the revolution. Unlike Plekhanoff, who dressed as a rich man and always lectured in evening clothes, Lenin wore the clothes of a workingman. He liked soft-collars and usually worked with his collar unbuttoned and no neck-tie (and no $i,ooo pearl in his neck-tie!) and like all men of great concentration he was " absent-minded " and did not always notice when his coat was torn or minus a couple of buttons.

My informant has known Lenin for fifteen years, and worked for his principles for twenty, but he admits that he doesn't know as much about Lenin's underwear as Frank Harris does.

What he does know about him accords with this story attributed to the members of the recent American Commission to Moscow. People are always trying to get Lenin to eat more food than is allotted to him as his share in the scheme of distribution, but he won't accept it. He saves what he has sometimes, however, and puts it away in a bureau drawer, and if somebody sneaks in and adds some-thing to it there, he is too preoccupied to notice the difference, and he eats all there is.

It was upon the question of militant organization that the Russian socialists split in the year 1903 into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Lenin wanted no members admitted who were not revolutionary socialists willing to work under the control of the central committee. He wanted the press controlled by the committee. Martov wanted to admit anybody who would declare himself a socialist. Plekhanov was with Lenin at that time. Trotsky tried to bring the factions together and Lenin attacked him. Lenin never cared how many or how few people he had with him. He didn't seem to notice it. He always stood to his principles, and although he seems today to be a master of revolutionary tactics, it is only because he never did anything, and never could do anything, to get people to follow him, except tell the truth and ex-plain it.

June, 1919   9

Events of May Day   Popularizing the Constitution

ON May day of 1919 the American Socialist Movement received its baptism of blood. For many years May day on the continent of Europe has had more the character of a ceremonial sacrifice than a Sunday School picnic, and that has been one of the reasons for the more militant spirit of European Socialism. We shall now see this militant spirit arise in America.

In every case the blood was shed as a result of unprovoked aggression upon peaceful parades or assemblages of Socialists, or upon the offices of Socialist newspapers. Several thousand crimes were committed against socialists; none, according to the papers, were committed by socialists. Yet the unanimous conclusion arrived at on the day following by the papers as well as by the wise men at Washington, was " More Drastic Legislation Needed To Curb Reds."

Of course the result of this placing of Socialists and their papers beyond the protection of the law, will be that editors and others who have a certain amount of vigor and prudence will prepare to defend themselves against criminal marauders with lead-pipe and fire-arms. It seems unfortunate that a civilized government even though it is firmly in the control of capital, cannot summon up enough sporting-blood to give some elementary routine protection to both sides of this struggle.

We learn from one who helped to organize the Cleveland May Day parade that " every man who carried a red banner was a uniformed soldier from over the seas, and the man who planted the banner on the grand-stand, and resisted when he was ordered to drop it or take off his uniform, had seen four years of service and received eleven wounds in the ` war for democracy.' "

THE members of the National Security League announce a campaign to "popularize the constitution." They little know how popular the constitution has become since it was suspended for the duration of the war and after. American citizens were conscripted for service on foreign soil in violation of the constitution; the powers of Congress were taken over by Woodrow Wilson and by Committees of big business in violation of the constitution; American officers have accepted titles of nobility from the British king in violation of the constitution; anti-war agitators were denied the writ of Habeas Corpus -in violation of the constitution; conscientious objectors were tortured in prison in violation of the constitution; the I. W. W. was deprived of the rights of a defendant through a conspiracy between the Post Office and the Department of Justice in violation of the constitution; agitators of Bolshevism are being deported to Europe in violation of the constitution; Eugene Debs and hundreds of other social idealists are in jail in violation of the constitution; Woodrow Wilson is waging his private and personal war against Russia in violation of the constitution; Nlollie Stimer and her associates have been condemned to spend twenty years in prison for questioning the divine right of Woodrow Wilson to ship American citizens half way round the earth to be murdered in this war in violation of the constitution. The constitution is popular. It is more popular than it deserves to be. The National Security League has the rougher task of popularizing the dictatorship of a ruling class of less than ten percent of the people, who after perverting to their purposes all the other forms and safeguards of political democracy have at last laid violent hands on the constitution itself.

MAX EASTMAN.

Freedom of the Seas

10

May Day in Ft. Leavenworth

By a Socialist C. 0

WHILE Cleveland was having its fatal May Day demonstration and while other free American cities were engaged in bloody rioting and fighting between citizens and police, with soldiers pitching in on both sides and shavetail ex-officers going into "action " for the first time, the militant Socialists imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth were observing the international revolutionary Labor Day under U. S. military sanction.

The open air red flag parade was witnessed by a crowd of soldiers who offered no opposition but viewed it with apparent approbation. The one day stoppage of prison work by the celebrants met with the approval in advance of the prison authorities who made special arrangements to permit the rebel group to assemble and observe the day. Civilians and Q. M. sergeants and children on their way to school looked with amazement on the unprecedented prison scene as it unfolded itself behind the double lines of barbed wire surrounding the stockade-annex of the Disciplinary Barracks.

The sensational feature of the day that will make it a bright red memory for the amazed officers, the grinning soldiers and the triumphant laborites was this grand parade through " Wire City." It formed in front of the Bolsheviki Barracks, as the Socialist prison quarters are jocularly called, right after dinner. Red flags and banners were distributed among the 90 or 100 marchers. The winter hoods issued by the prison clothing department and lined with flaming red flannel were worn turned inside out. The covers of the Liberator bearing pictures of Lenine and Lincoln (Liebknecht's had been lost) were tied on brooms and borne aloft as sacred emblems. The Russians, as citizens of a bonafide revolutionary country, held the place of honor, leading the parade and chanting the Revolutionary Dead March and other Bolshevik songs. Then came Italian Socialists and Anarchists, American Socialists and aliens and Pacifists and, bringing up the rear, the handful of I. W. W.'s.

In and out between the stockade buildings the remarkable demonstration proceeded while sentries looked down dumb-struck from the watch-towers and the guards on duty within stood passively by. After the parade was half over, it re-versed itself so that the I. W. W., starting up their songs, led the rest of the procession until it disappeared within the Bolsheviki Barracks. One soldier was observed leaning out .of a window-the guard's barrack, waving a red ribbon. Many others cheered and applauded.

Suddenly the soldiers hushed and the deferential demeanor a soldier learns to display before his superiors indicated the appearance of officers on the scene. From the Bolsheviki Barracks came deafening cheers for the revolution, for Karl Marx, for Eugene Debs, for Lenine, Trotsky and Liebknecht. One of the " agitators " responsible in large part for arrangements went out and met a lieutenant-colonel, a captain,

a lieutenant, several corporals and a number of buck privates.

" This must be stopped. I feel that you men have abused the privilege I gave you," declared the senior officer. He was smilingly assured that there would be no more disturbance, since the parade was over and the rest of the program was chiefly speech-making. He was informed further that there had been no thought of abusing any privileges since permission had been given to " observe the day," and no May Day anywhere could be properly " observed " without red flags and a parade. The celebrators were so hilarious and also so completely satisfied with the success of their demonstration that they were content to let matters rest. Speeches were made, discussions went on and a general rejoicing was everywhere evident.

The program as posted on the bulletin board in the morning read (names omitted) :

9 a.m.

" The International," by all Revolutionists.

" Dead March," by Russian chorus.

Address: " Karl Marx," by   

" The Red Flag," by all Reds.

12 noon.

Open Air Parade Through Wire City.

" Hold the Fort," by I. W. W. choir.

Address: " The First of May," by    
" Stung Right," by all Reds.

6 p.m.

Open Air Singing Between No. 6 and No. 7 Barracks. I. W. W. vs. Socialist-Quoits Contest.

Address: " The American Way," by    
Discussion of Revolutionary Methods.

1.

2. 3. 4.

1.

2. 3. 4.

t. 2. 3. 4.

5. " The Marseillaise," by all Reds.

The panic of the officers caused the remainder of the singing to be omitted, and a delay in supper forced postponement of the Wobbly-Socialist horseshoe throwing contest, but the speaking gained in nerve and spirit, and as reports drifted in of the glad surprise with which the other prisoners heard of the affair and of the helpless consternation among the authorities who had to recognize that nothing unlawful had occur-red, the memorable day drew to a jubliant close.

Permission for the observance had been won by reminding the officials of similar permission granted to the Jews for commemorating Passover and the like, indulgence granted to Seventh Day Adventists and others. And it was not stretching the truth at all when the representatives of the militant Socialists said to the executive officer what all revolutionaries can proudly say: " The First of May, May Day, is the most sacred day in the year to us, as sacred as Passover to the Jews, as Christmas to the Christians, as the Fourth of July to nationalistic Americans. May Day is our international revolutionary memorial day."

11

Art Under the Bolsheviks

From Documentary Reports, Decrees and Plans of the Soviet State

'      THAT is the position of art and artists in Bolshevik
►+ ►~ Russia ?"

The American newspaper reader is not supposed to care about such things-otherwise he would have been elaborately misinformed Iong since. He is supposed to be more interested in the fate of Grand Dukes than in the fate of musicians and painters and novelists; which accounts for the fact that we have not been regaled with stories of the Five Great Artists Slain in a Well by the Bolsheviks. No, we are not supposed to mind what happens to Beauty and its lovers any-where; and so it has not been necessary for Mr. Sisson to discover documents proving that secret agreements existed between Lenin and the leader of the Kaiser's orchestra to the effect that Wagnerian opera should supplant Serge Diaghileff's Ballet; nor has Mr. Simmons thought it proper to re-veal to the Senatorial Investigating Committee that the Anarchists of Vladimir and Saratoff had passed a decree declaring that,anybody caught whistling a tune or drawing a picture should be shot against the nearest wall. Nor have renegade socialists like Spargo, Walling, Bohn and Russell been called upon to verify these sinister rumors out of their own inside knowledge of the Socialist movement . . . But there are people in America who are interested in art; and accordingly a little of the poison-gas of American journalism has been allowed to drift in their direction, through the proper mediums of publicity. In artistic circles one may hear of "poor Z , the composer, starving to death-yes, of course-the Bolsheviki care nothing about art! Pool

fellow, so gifted---what a pity!" Z    meanwhile is hav-
ing the time of his young life; he is a member of the local Art Collegium, associated with the most eminent and earnest painters, sculptors, and architects of his town, free for the first time to take their work seriously and as a matter of public importance; he is the head of a sub-section which is organizing huge concerts for enthusiastic working-class audiences; and he has the chance for which he has always pined, of writing just exactly the kind of music he likes, and giving it straight to the music-loving masses of Russia. And any American composer or director who is worth his salt would jump at the chance to stand in his boots, even if he had to live on a low-protein diet and wear his last year's shirt in the bargain !

An example of the sort of silly tattle spread by counter-revolutionary emigres and solemnly recorded in the moreor-less artistic magazines of this country is an article by William Trevor Hull which appeared in Vanity Fair last June. It describes the alleged looting of a famous Russian art gallery by the Bolsheviks-the paintings of course being sold "to the Germans." "Outside the ruthless and unnecessary destruction of French cathedrals by the Germans,

in the present war," says Mr. Hull, " no such piece of cynical vandalism has been perpetrated anywhere in over a hundred years. It is the supreme example of the systematic looting of the country carried out under the direction of the so-called authorities of the present so-called Russian government."

Outside the utter violation of every tradition of intelIectual honor by the governmental experts who pronounced the Sisson forgeries authentic, no such piece of cynical slander has been perpetrated in the history of antis Bolshevist agitation. It is the most wanton example of the systematic lying about Russia now in progress. That lies about this idealistic government should be spread in the name of Christianity is bad enough, but in the name of art-somehow it seems worse.

Botticelli and the Bolsheviks

At the very time when this picture of Bolshevik indifference to art was being given to America, the administrators of the Bolshevik State were actually concerned, to a degree that would seem incredible to an American politician, over the fate of a Botticelli . . . Probably Senator Knute Nelson. does not know whether Botticelli is a wine or a cheese-and cares less. But Bolshevik Russia does care. May-June, 1918, was a crowded and tragic time in the history of the Soviet Republic; the Germans were advancing-Petrograd might be lost-the Revolution was in its hour of fieriest trial: but when it was reported to the Collegium for the Protection of Art that this painting, " belonging to the citizen Mrs. E. P. Meshersky," was about to be shipped abroad, the matter was deemed of so much importance that it was at once brought before the Soviet of People's Commissaries in Moscow, which on May 30 passed a special decree requisitioning this painting and declaring it the property of the Russian people. A " flying detachment " was dispatched to capture the painting, which was then placed on exhibition ! The citizen Mrs. E. P. Meshersky probably .did not like this high-handed procedure; she probably called the Bolsheviks thieves; but Russia has that Botticelli safe and sound!

At about the same time the Soviet appropriated 250,000 rubles to be spent in purchasing historically important objects of art which were being thrown on the market by emigres, and which were in danger of being irretrievably lost by being smuggled abroad ; and organized the "flying detachments " mentioned above, to be sent on hurry calls through the provinces to intercept " disappearing" art. These facts appear in the " Report of the Activities of the Section Devoted to the Care of Museums and the Preservation of Objects of Art and Relics of the Past, People's Corn-

12   THE LIBERATOR

missariat of Education, for the period of May 28-June 28, 1918."

Preserving the Past-for the Future

Museums! Relics of the Past! Are the Bolsheviks interested in preserving the relics of the past?

They are. You will notice that the Section Devoted to Museums, etc., is a part of the Commissariat of Education. In the report of Lunacharsky, commissar of education, printed in these pages last month, you will have observed that libraries, theaters, potteries and moving-pictures are all part of the Bolshevik plan of education. Education in Bolshevik Russia comprises everything that educates. And museums are accordingly an important part of the Bolshevik educational system---particularly in the department of art. The aim is, of course, to " democratize and popularize " the museums-to make attendance easier, and to facilitate the study of the museums' contents by lectures and lecture-cycles; in addition to which, " excursions and tours within reach of the masses," and " the widest distribution of care-fully executed reproductions of works of art," were being planned. These are forward-Iooking activities which (the doubting observer might say) are within the imaginative scope of a group of enterprising politicians who are not interested in art but who want to make a showing; but as earnest of the enthusiastic commonalty of Russian art-lovers and the Bolshevik State, is the report of investigations " of an artistic and scientific character " in regard to "ancient fresco works and iconography" ! For in that month of anxiety, the Soviet found time to send art committees to various cathedrals to find what neglected treasures might be concealed by dirt and kalsomine. "At the Blagovyeschenck Cathedral of the Kreml, following the washing and cleaning of mural paintings, several ancient frescoes have been discovered . . . At the Archangel's Kreml Cathedral, several ancient ikons have been singled out for complete restoration; the work is in charge of prominent and experienced iconographers . . . It has been decided to under-take a scientific expedition for the purpose of examining the Burilinsk Museum at Ivanov-Voznesensk . . ."

In the light of these facts, it is not surprising that the museum experts of Russia are busy creating a " science of museums," that they are planning to publish a "special magazine " devoted to their work, that they are organizing " regular congresses of museum-workers " and establishing " exemplary exhibitions demonstrating the process and development of museum activities." The report deals at length with the rearrangement and proper cataloguing of museum contents, the training of purchasing agents, the establishment of provincial museums, and puts forth as a matter of immediate importance the founding of new institutions "in those fields of art hitherto quite neglected in Russia, for instance a museum of Oriental art, a museum of sculpture, and a museum of the newest art."

Here is the report of these alleged art-haters, on the Kremlin gallery:

" The picture gallery at the former Kremlin . . . has been little accessible. The hanging arrangements do not meet the most elementary museum requirements. Without any system, the paintings have been permanently set into the walls and are separated from each other by only a narrow framework, making an intelligent examination of the Gallery impossible. Moreover, many pictures, owing to differences in atmospheric pressure, have suffered consider-ably: they show cracks and in many places the paint has deteriorated-all this threatening ruin to the pictures. The system of cataloguing was arbitrary, paintings of the Dutch school being attributed to Italian masters, and first-class works left unclassified while second-rate things were ascribed to first-class masters.

"The Collegium has decided to remove from the Pal-ace's Gallery paintings interesting from the point of view of scientific examination, and transfer them to the gallery of the Rumiantzev Museum where, after restoration and investigation they might be exhibited for popular examination. Among these are a few pictures of the Rembrandt School, two Netherland primitives, one Florentine portrait of the 16th century, a sketch by Rubens, and a number of paintings by Italian masters of the 17th century . . ."

What of Living Art and Artists?

So much for the relics of the past! Such facts as these together with the nationalizing and protecting and subsidizing of all important collections (including the famous Tretiakov gallery in Moscow), sufficiently establish the reverence of the Bolshevik State for the art-treasures which have been handed down from the generations before. But more important than this is the question of what it is doing for the art and artists of the present.

What can a State do for artists? The Bolshevik State has done one thing that no other State has ever thought of doing. It has given them a chance to do something for themselves. It has not " patronized " them-it has not thought up silly bureaucratic schemes for making geniuses by state-pensions----but it has turned over the artistic destinies of Russia to her artists. For when we have spoken above of the activities of the Bolshevik State in regard to art, we have been describing the activities of the artists of Russia as a regular part of the Bolshevik State. In Russia the lawyers do not legislate for the artists; the artists legislate for them-selves, upon the understanding that they are not legislating for themselves alone, but for the Russian people, in whose education art is an important thing. The artists, to become a part of the Bolshevik State, have only to join the artists' union, which sends delegates to the Soviet, and to the Collegium which has matters of art especially in its charge; the Collegium makes plans which are co-ordinated with the plans of the other departments of the People's Commissariat, and enacted into the necessary legislation by the Soviet ... It is a government by experts, the only check being that the decisions of the experts must be in con-

13

"Bolshevism, my clear ? "

14   THE LIBERATOR

s

formity with the revolutionary will of the democratic masses, as expressed in the Soviet.

What, then, have the artists of Russia seen fit to do in behalf of living Russian art and artists?

Russia's Art Program

We have here the report of the Moscow Art Collegium, at least one of whose membership of painters, sculptors, architects and educators our readers will recognize by name-Konchalovsky, Konekov, Mashkov, Tatlin, Ivanov, Morgunov, Madame Tolstoy, Udaltzeva, Schusev, Noakovsky, Theltovsky, Vesnin, and the Commissar of Art, Malinovsky. These are all distinguished artists and per-sons interested in artistic culture irrespective of politics. So far as is known, Malinovsky, the Commissar of Art, is the only one of them who is a member of the Bolshevik party. All joined the Collegium as representatives of artists' unions and art organizations. The Collegium laid out for itself the following program :

" 1. To organize state art education: by

1. the establishment of art studios meeting the requirements of the new Russia; and

2. propaganda of art among the large democratic masses.

To effect contact with the world's artistic centers. To promote the growth of art: by

(a) organization of state competitive examinations; (a) organization of artists' trade unions, mutual aid societies, etc.; and

3. organization of decorative artists' committees and scenic art workers.

To organize the preservation of the arts of the past and present and plan for the protection of art in the future."

Destruction and Construction

In accordance with this program, one of the first things they effected-an act which will meet with the sympathy of every revolutionary artist and art-lover in America-was the formal dissolution of two reactionary art institutions which stood blocking the path of artistic progress in Russia-the Academy of Art and the Moscow Art Society; all the funds and properties of these institutions were turned over to the Commissariat of Education, which used them to create an Independent Art School and to further the task of democratic art education. The decree discontinuing the Moscow Art Society is dated July 12, 1918.-" There is," as the translator of this decree notes, quoting Strindberg, " so much that only needs to be destroyed!"

On July 18, the Moscow Soviet, after hearing the report of Prof. Bokrovsky, authorized the Commissariat of Education to prepare a list of great men, " worthy of being honored with memorial statues by Soviet Russia." The list as finally decided upon included thirty-one revolutionists and social workers (including, along with Spartacus, Danton, Marx, etc., the name of Plekhanov, up to his death a fiery

opponent of the Bolshevik party!) ; ten novelists and poets, including Tolstoi and Dostoevsky; three philosophers and scientists; five artists; three composers (Musorgsky, Skriabin, Chopin), and two actors.

But, more significant than such a list, is the set of terms of competition, as drawn up by the Art Collegium and approved by the Soviet. We quote from the Collegium's report:

" The difficulty consists in preventing the necessity for speed in the execution of the plan from interfering with the artistic excellence of the work; for the State, no matter in what condition it is at present, cannot and must not be the imitator of bad taste.

" For this reason the Collegium has adopted entirely new principles, which up till now have never been tried, either in our own country, or, so far as is known, anywhere else in the world.

In Behalf of Young Artists

" It has been determined, on the one hand, to open the competition as widely as possible and thus attract the youngest and newest forces among the sculptors; and on the other hand, to interest the great masses of the people and make them participate so far as possible in this work of artistic creation.

" Formerly, under the bureaucratic regime, such competitions were restricted to famous artists, or to such as were economically secure and could afford, without thought of the loss of time, to participate. The results of those competitions are sufficiently known: their works are now being cleared off the city squares. All the young artists, quartered in garrets and dark rooms, without any civic rights, were forgotten and shelved. Everything new in art was persecuted. We are all familiar with instances of this treatment. Such was the condition of the artist, and especially of the beginner.

" There is only one way out: to attract young and fresh forces in art, those artists who heretofore have been denied the opportunity of doing public work-and to give them an opportunity of expressing themselves freely in a free re-public.

State Support for Artists

" Therefore, abolishing all kinds of restrictions, the Collegium considers it advisable to give the sculptor his opportunity for free expression, by securing him economically during the time of his work.

The Collegium also considers it necessary, in deter-mining the awards of the competition, to abolish the customary jury, and establish a jury of the people themselves for the judgment of all the projected works, at some place especially designated for that purpose."

The terms as announced to the Moscow Professional Union of Artists-Sculptors, are specific; any member of the union may compete, and will be paid for his three months' work, " including expenses of material, casting and placing

June, 1919   15

of the cast." The subsidy, " amounting to 7,910 rubles for each monument," will be paid in two sums-4,000 rubles at the time of commencing work, the rest six weeks later. Any-one receiving funds and not completing his work, without satisfactory excuse, will return the money, and the union holds itself responsible for his doing so. Any one not a member of the union may also compete, but he will not be paid for his work unless it is considered worthy of attention.

" These monuments," to quote again from the Collegium's report, " will be erected on the boulevards and in the squares, etc., with citations carved on the pedestals or on the statues themselves, and these monuments shall serve as street platforms from which shall flow into the masses of the people fresh thoughts to inspire the mind . . . It is believed that the execution of this plan will introduce a great stimulus into our dead artistic reality, and throw a spark into the artistic consciousness of the people."

Art for the People

What is especially noteworthy here, aside from the plan for encouraging young artists to come before the public, is the mingling of revolutionary and artistic enthusiasm-as if they were indeed one and the same thing. We in America, in the midst of our own " dead artistic reality," are so much under the spell of the " art for art's sake " philosophy that it may be hard for us to understand this. It may be difficult for American artists, disgusted as they are with the results of academic jury methods, to have any confidence in " a jury of the people themselves." But it is necessary to understand that in the fiery crucible of revolution the hopes of art have become one with the hopes of mankind. This is the finest thing about the program of the Russian artists under the Bolshevik state: they do not despair of the people, they do not despise nor turn from the people. ' A new beginning has been made, and the people, while acquiring all the knowledge of art history and technique that enlightened educational methods can give them, and gathering strength and confidence for participation themselves in the joyous labors of art, are meantime to be the judges of whether art is doing what art must do to be alive-expressing their will, their love, their pity, their hopes and fears, their enthusiasms and their dreams.

Tolstoi was right after all: art must be of and for and by the people! And in Tolstoi's own land his revolutionary aesthetic philosophy, which unites in fecund marriage the too much separated forces of beauty and of truth, is being made the basis of artistic culture.

That this is true is shown most clearly of all in a document dealing with the " Main Problems of the Art Sections of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies." Each Soviet has its Section Devoted to the People's Education, and to the latter is usually attached an Art Sub-section. For the guidance of these art sub-sections, a report was drawn up in which their principal problems are outlined. These problems are stated to be four:

"First, the socialization of art. There are two steps by - which this can be best and most easily accomplished. The preliminary step consists in the external beautification of cities, chiefly of course large cities-turning them not only into village-cities, park-cities, garden-cities, but into museumcities-museums of magnificent buildings, beautiful monuments-in a word-make them resemble that picturesque London of the future described by William Morris in his utopian ' News From Nowhere ' . . . Something has al-ready been done in that direction; suffice it to mention here the erection of fifty statues in Moscow in honor of leaders and heroes of the world revolution, the erection in Mars Field of memorial monuments to the victims of the Revolution, the decision of the Penza Soviet to erect a monument to Marx, etc . . .

Art as a Communal Emotion

" The other step in the socialization of art-turning it into a communal emotion-is the holding of solemn and sumptuous national and revolutionary Socialist holidays:-similar to those which were so frequently and gorgeously celebrated during the days of the great French Revolution, when famous artists, such as David, and prominent composers, had charge of these feasts and beautified them with their compositions. At these revolutionary and Socialist festivals, art, music, songs, decoration, ought to play an important role. And the ceremonial pageant, already a thing of beauty, ought from time to time, at large squares, and especially, in summer, beyond the confines of the city, to arise to the dignity of a real festival of art.

" The second problem to be solved by the art sections will consist not only in evoking in the large masses of the city populations an interest in all things artistic, not only in the democratization of artistic appreciation, but also in laying the foundations of a genuine proletarian socialist art.

" The best means for solving this second problem include the staging of such plays as represent bourgeois society from a critical point of view, satirizing its manners, heroes, favorites and ideals; or such as invest with tragic dignity the struggle of the workers against their oppressors, or celebrate the revolutionary effort of the working-class for emancipation, and finally such as concern themselves with the birth of a new socialist culture and morality.

" The accomplishment of this aim, the planting of the seeds of a proletarian Socialist art, can be considerably aided through the organization at People's Houses and Workers' Clubs, and on some solemn occasions at theaters, of specially arranged literary and musical evenings-devoted from be-ginning to end to this particular theme of the occasion, for instance the Idea of the Revolution, the significance of May First, proletarian poetry, etc. But it is necessary not only to socialize and democratize art, it is also a matter of the utmost urgency-and this constitutes the third problem of

the art sections-to prepare the masses of the urban population for the comprehension of aesthetic values, to give them

16   THE LIBERATOR

an artistic education. It is clear that the following measures should be undertaken to accomplish this:

1.  The publication of small handbooks, inexpensive but well printed, on the history of Russian and West European art, in order to give the workers a familiarity with and an understanding of the works of the great masters of painting and sculpture;

2.  The publication at popular prices of reproductions of representative specimens of Russian and European art, especially of works dealing with social themes-the toiling life of peasants and workers;

3.  The arranging of lectures on art, which in a popular way, and with the aid of moving-pictures, will ac-quaint die toilers with the evolution of art styles, the influence of social conditions on art, and the technical aspects of the art of different epochs; and-

4.  The building by the art sections of special art libraries and reading-rooms.

The Masses as Creators of Beauty

" The fourth and last and perhaps the most essential and important problem is to make the proletariat capable not only of comprehending and criticizing things beautiful, whether in the form of stage representations or the creations of brush or chisel, but also capable of themselves creating those beautiful things: first, in forms inherited from the past, and, then in new forms corresponding to the psychology of these new classes. The establishment of schools of drawing, modeling, acting and stage-decoration, and the creation of People's Art Academies, with lecture-halls and studios, should be used in the task of transforming the toilers from passive observers and critics of beauty into creating artists-builders of a new proletarian Socialist art which we believe will surpass in its grandeur the art of the past.

" With these aims in view, committees should be formed for the beautifying of cities, the organization of national holidays and pageants, the giving of revolutionary Socialist concerts and performances, and the founding of lecture-courses, libraries and schools-committees representing the soviets, labor organizations, artists, actors, stage directors and specialists in the history of art.

" Our duty lies in making art a communal joy, not only in making the great masses of the urban population interested in art, but particularly in strengthening and promoting the artistic aspirations of the revolutionary proletariat-giving then so far as possible a thorough art education, but crowning the work by training them for active artistic creation. To prepare the ground for a new art created by a new people-such is the aim of the art sections of the Commissariat of the People's Education."

These are magnificent aims; the record of work actually accomplished under the conditions confronting these enthusiasts can scarcely be expected to be as exciting as these plans. Yet, besides patience and the tenacious holding on to these

purposes in spite of discouragements, there is matter to en-hearten us by its sturdy realism in the report of the Art Educational Section of the Moscow Soviet.

Art Education: The Theatre

It deals with efforts in the more direct and emotional and democratic arts of music and the theater. The report begins with the confession that "much time"-all too much time!-has been occupied with "administrative activities," to the loss of the art-educational side of the program; and some of these administrative activities have a quaint enough flavor to our minds. For instance, it was necessary, besides the ordinary work of managing the State Theaters and Dramatic School, and participating in the management of People's Houses and the Soviet Theater, and the general supervision of Moscow theatrical activities, to solve any number of ticklish problems in regard to the " requisitioning of premises occupied by theaters and by members of the theatrical and musical professions, and the issuance of permits for the removal of valuables contained in safes." That is to say, as a member of the bourgeoisie, Mr. X. may be considered to be occupying too many rooms; as an artist or musician, however, he is properly en-titled to extra studio-space. And so with the contents of certain safes; as private property their status is different from what it is as a part of the appurtenances of stagecraft, which is now an affair of the people. One gathers from the report that the tact of the art-section resulted finally in the enthusiastic adherence of actors and musicians to the program of the Soviet; but everyone knows how difficult actors and artists are to handle ! The report passes with manifest relief from a sketchy account of these troubles to its work in art-education.

" The October Revolution," it remarks, " temporarily frightened away many individuals in the theatrical profession from Soviet activities; but they have gradually come back. A number of conferences with the Actors' Trade Union resulted in an agreement as a result of which the Moscow theaters (the Little Theater, the Art Theater and its studios, the Komissarjevski, the ' Bat,' etc.), hold performances in co-operation with the art-section. During the summer season, the section staged many performances, aided by the cast of the Komissarjevski Theatre, the House of Free Art, the `Bat,' and Voljanin's Players.

Music

" Simultaneously, the organization of district concerts was in progress. The section organized over two hundred such concerts in Moscow and vicinity. A Soviet of Music was organized, with the object of introducing greater system as well as to effect democratic control of Moscow musical activities. Meetings of the Music Soviet were at-tended by all the prominent leaders of the musical world. As a result of its discussions, a bureau was elected, comprising the chief musical personages, to outline a plan of Soviet musical work. It was decided to organize a music corn-

June, 1919   17

mittee of thirty persons, fifteen representing the musical world, and fifteen from labor bodies, including two representatives of the students in music schools "-which now, presumably has the musical activities of Moscow in its charge.

of our theatrical enterprises; the word should probably be translated as " spiritually strengthening " for it is certainly not intended to exclude tragedy. The preliminary list of dramatists contains the names of Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgeniev, Tchekhov, Gorky (whose " Night Asylum " is hardly optimistic in the vulgar bourgeois sense of that word!), Calderon, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Beaumarchais, Moliere, Schiller, Ibsen, Shaw, Romain Rolland, Verhaeren and Hauptmann, besides others not known to the American public.

The Theatrical Section's report describes its plan of " establishing a whole network of theatrical schools." These schools, according to later information, are already functioning throughout Soviet Russia. They are divided into two grades; in the lower grade is taught the technique of dramatic art-diction and plastic gesture; in the secondary grade, the pupils receive individual instruction at the studios of the teachers. The object is to develop the individual capacities of each student. General science, with lectures and laboratory work, is also a part of the teaching at these schools. No fees are charged. . .

The People's Theatre

The theatrical activities of the section met an instant and wide response. " Constant requests from various localities in regard to the character of plays to be staged at the People's Houses, as to what plays are on hand and how they may be'

obtained, has brought into existence the Repertoire Commit-tee of the section. This committee has worked out a list of plays suitable for performance, has read others, and is preparing a more detailed list of carefully selected plays. The following principles "-and , here again we find the characteristic Russian unity of artistic and revolutionary enthusiasm-" have been accepted by the Committee as the basis of the repertoire :

" i. The list can include only plays the artistic value of which is beyond reproach.

" 2. These plays, by the impression they create on the audience, must coincide with the spirit of the times-that is, they must evoke a vigorous disposition intensifying the revolutionary fervor of the masses.

" The Committee is preparing for publication a book which will include, in addition to a list of plays, a brief summary of them, and stage directors' notes regarding their production. This book ought to aid local players in the selection of plays, as well as in the improvement of staging. The Committee is also preparing for publication a number of out-of-print plays, and a collection of articles on the history and theory of the theater; also books dealing with practical questions in regard to the technique of the theater.

" We are also issuing our own magazine, the Izvestia of the Art Educational Section. Judging by, the demands for the magazine from the provinces, the need of such a publication is tremendous. . ."

The report goes on to outline this section's specific plans for the summer season, which include the staging of Verhaeren's "Dawn," the organization of district theatrical performances, symphonic orchestras, chamber concerts, out-door concerts, children's theaters, pageants, etc., " not only to offer to the people sensible and artistic recreation, but also to involve the masses themselves in active artistic creativity."

We now come to the report of the Repertoire Commit-tee mentioned above, which specifies more in detail the principles which underlie the selection of plays, as follows: " Plays on the repertoire list must be artistic, and

adapted to stage presentation. 2. They should

heighten and strengthen the revolutionary spirit of the masses. 3. They should be optimistic in spirit." If there is a shock for the sympathetic American rebel in that last specification, it should be remembered that "optimistic" means something different

in Russia from what it means to the pursy backers   Sacred to

the Memory of Russia and Hungary

A Theatrical Academy

A Theatrical Academy in which the theory of theatrical and dramatic art will be taught, is to stand at the head of this chain of schools. In the lower schools, the training not only includes acting, but stage managing, scenic art, properties, stage mechanics and electricity, and the work is done largely at the various theaters. The report concludes with a list of teachers (and how strange it sounds to one accustomed to American ideas of " education "!)-" M. P. Zandin, scenic director of the Maryinsky Theater-scenic decoration; S. A. Yevsetjev, director of properties-shops of

18   THE LIBERATOR

the Maryinsky Theater=properties; F. P. Graff, technical director of the Maryinsky Theater, stage technique," etc.

Another report deals with theatrical performances at shops and factories. " Many shops and plants in Moscow give their own performances. These, though of an amateur character, are a source of inspiration to the workers of local factories, who are the actors at these performances.

" Especially successful were the performances at the Einar' Chocolate Factory.

" Performances have also been given at Zindel's shops, Prochorov Dry Goods, etc. At the latter, dramatic courses. have been opened for workers wishing to receive dramatic education."

We have quoted at some length these accounts of Soviet theatrical activities, for the sake of the emphasis they give to the view, so novel to the general public in this country, of the theater as the very basis of education. If education is to mean a learning of the art of living, it must begin at the very beginning, and teach men and women to enjoy themselves-the absence of which knowledge makes alcohol the sinister necessity it is at present to our sad and soggy population!-to be children again, to play, to have beauty, to have art, and to share deep emotions with others. Upon this foundation alone can there be securely built in the masses the fabric of common aspiration and common knowledge and common struggle for the greater freedom and wisdom and happiness which the future holds. . . .

But since the printed word is the chiefest liberator of the human soul, it will he appropriate to conclude this ac-count with the report of the Literary Publication Board of the Commissariat of the Peoples Education. " On December 13, 1917, at a session of the Literary Publication Board a committee was named to draft a decree ordering the establishment of a Technical Board to take charge of state printing shops, including all those printing shops which had been nationalized after the October revolution. This committee was composed of representatives from the Literary Publication Board, the Commissariat of the Interior, Printers' Trade Union, and a committee of workers employed in state printing shops.

" In February, 1918, owing to energetic activity of the Soviet and representatives of the printing trades, publishing business on a large scale was made possible. The state commission on Education made up a list of Russian novelists, poets and critics, whose works were declared a state monopoly for five years. This Iist includes the names of over fifty Russian classics, such as Soloviev, Bakunin, Belinski, Garshin, He•rtzen, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Kolzev, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Pushkin, Tolstoi, Turgeniev and Tchekov, and others.

" On July 4th at Moscow there was established a committee on Literature and Art. Among its members are the writer V. Bruisov and the painter V. Grabar.

" A committee was also formed to publish popular scientific books. This committee has two sections-political

economy and natural science. The latter includes Professors Timiriazov, Michailov, Wolf, Walden, and others.

"A number of brochures, original and translations, have been already published by the committee, the subjects being astronomy, physics, meteorology, botany and pedagogy. As regards the publication of text-books, the state Commission already on Dec. 4, 1917, created a special commission to take charge of the work.

" A semi-annual appropriation of 12 million rubles has been granted to the Literary Publication Board. The appropriation for the second half year may reach 20 millions."

This was the beginning of the literary activities of the Soviet State, which have since flowered in the magnificent edition of the world's best literature, under the editorship of Maxim Gorky, by which the greatest literary master-pieces of all ages have been made accessible, in small, beautifully printed and inexpensive volumes, to the Russian masses. We may freely assume that the same principles of selection obtain in this edition as in the selection of plays, and that the works chosen are those which will not merely acquaint the worker of Russia with the art of story-telling and the characteristics of human nature in many lands, but will above all teach him courage and confidence in his destiny, teach him with their satire to scorn the ideals of bourgeois and capitalist society, deepen his sense of community with his fellow-workers in their world-wide struggle for freedom, and make him face the future with a clear and unshakable resolution, an indomitable will to victory and freedom. It is the most stupendous single educational enterprise ever ventured upon by any State; and it is a part of the most far-reaching plan for intellectual emancipation in human history. These efforts and these accomplishments would have been impossible without the generous and devoted co-operation of many minds -" one common wave of thought and joy lifting mankind again." But they were set on foot, initiated at the most desperate moment of the Revolution-as these documents bear witness-by Nicolai Lenin. To his realistic, scientific, patient and undiscouraged faith in the possibilities to be achieved by education, we owe, so far as we may be said to owe a revolutionary renaissance to any one individual, the example which Russia amid her agonies has set for us all over the world to follow.

k LOYD DELL.

Octave

I T was your face, I think, that held me first,

Your tumbling hair like some wild cloud the moon Flames joyous through; and though your ' sandal-shoon Enthrall me I'd remove them if I durst,

And roll your home-spun stockings down, lips pursed To whistle, for your dance, a nimble tune.

You kneel and drink of this cool spring of June; For dew the clover has no sweeter thirst.

Stirling Bowen.

19

By John Kenneth Turner

T HERE is no need to waste words as to what Wall Street wants in Mexico. It wants political control sufficient to insure the fullest capitalistic protection for its property interests, present and prospective, regardless of democracy, the rights of Mexicans, or anything else. Having failed to procure such control by less hazardous and expensive means, it has definitely reached the conclusion that nothing short of military occupation will do the trick. Wall Street wants an army in Mexico, now, as soon as the thing can be arranged.

But who, forsooth, is Wall Street? Can Wall Street send an army to Mexico? Exactly haw? Is Wall Street the commander-in-chief of the army of the United States?

There is a notion current, especially among radicals, that Wall Street compels the President to do things-to go to war, for example. It is a superstition. Wall Street can let its wishes be felt upon the President and upon the country. It can fake atrocities. It can set the press aflame with lies. But there is no evidence that it could send an army abroad without the consent of the President, or cause Congress to declare war against the wishes of the President, or pull off a revolution to unseat a President opposed to aggression.

Unless you lay your finger definitely upon the responsible power in this matter you can neither assess the danger nor mitigate it. If an American army again invades Mexico before March 4, 1921, it will go by command of one Wood-row Wilson, for reasons that Wilson personally considers good and sufficient.

Very well, is Wilson capable of aggression upon Mexico?

If you accept any of his acknowledged war " objectives " as sincere, or any one of a variety of promises of equality to Latin American states, or any one of at least a score of categorical pledges to respect the sovereignty of Mexico, the conclusion must be that interventionists may roar but Mexico will remain, for the time being, safe.

However, there are other things to consider-other words; acts, also.

Many American radicals will remember how their breasts swelled with gratification at the following:

"Until the recent revolution in Mexico eighty per cent of the people never had a ' look in' in determining what their government should be. . . . It is none of my business and it is none of yours how long they take in determining it. It is none of my business and it is none of your how they go about the business. The country is theirs. The government is theirs. Have not European nations taken as long as they wanted, and spilt as much blood as they pleased, in settling their affairs? And shall we deny that to Mexico because she is weak? No, I say! " (Indianapolis, Jan. 8, 1915.)

But how many remember this one, five months later:

" IT IS TIME, therefore, that the Government of the United

States should frankly state the policy which . . . it becomes its duty to adopt. It must presently . . . lend its active moral sup-port to some man or group of men, if such may be found, who can . . . set up a government at Mexico City which the great powers of the world can recognize and deal with. . . . I, therefore . . . call upon the leaders of Mexico to act. . . . If they cannot accommodate their differences and unite for this great purpose within a very short time, this Government will be constrained to decide what means should be employed by the United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve her people." (Note to Carranza, June 2, 1915.)

Put one beside the other and see what a pretty parallel they make. Here is another:

"We will aid and befriend Mexico, but WE WILL NOT COERCE HER; and our course with regard to her ought to be sufficient proof to all America that we seek no political suzerainty or selfish control." (Annual Message, Dec. 7, 1915.)

Parallel it with this:

" The Government of the United States . . . desires General Obregon and General Carranza to know that it has, after mature consideration, determined that if . . . American should suffer .. . because they fail to provide means of protection to life and property, it will hold General Obregon and General Carranza personally responsible [and] ... will take suck measures as are expedient to bring to account those who are personally responsible." (Note of March 9, 1915.)

Another characteristic declaration that delighted us in the beginning was:

"Eventually I shall fight every one of these men who are now seeking to exploit Mexico for their own selfish ends. I shall do what I can to keep Mexico from their plundering. There shall be no individual exploitation of Mexico if I can stop it." (Blythe Interview, Saturday Evening Post, May 23, 1914.)

This pledge was reiterated at intervals as late as the 1916 campaign. But eventually another kind of fighting was hinted at, thus:

" It becomes the function of the Government of the United States ... to call the attention of the Mexican Government to the necessity which may arise to impel it to protect the property of its citizens in Mexico." (Note of April 2, 1918, threatening Carranza on account of oil taxes.)

One kind of words to the great American public   another kind to Mexico!

Meanwhile, in action, "the eighty percent" was receiving scant consideration. Hardly one important effort to put into effect the promises of the revolution but met with' opposition from the government of Wilson.

Agrarian reform was opposed always. Representations were made against Carranza's original land decree, at the be-ginning of 1915, and a warning entered against its application to foreigners. Confiscations of vast holdings, for non-payment of taxes, non-compliance with the terms of concessions, or for other reasons, met with repeated objection. Even expropriation of the estates of counter-revolutionary

20   THE LIBERATOR

plotters evoked protests against " any action that savors of confiscation."

From the beginning, also, representations were made .against every measure seeking to conserve the oil and other mineral deposits for the Mexican people, or even to tax oil or mining properties adequately. Representations were made against the control which the Constitutionalist Government sought to exercise over the bank monopoly at the capital; against various features of the new Constitution, including the article denying to foreigners privileges not ac-corded to Mexicans; against special taxes upon the rich; against the taking over of certain public utilities. Representations were even made on behalf of the property and persons of Mexicans of the old regime, of Spanish priests, and others identified with the counter-revolution.

In the unending stream of representations appeared numerous direct threats and ultimatums, while resort was made to various forms of coercion, including naval and military demonstrations. Hardly an item of domestic policy escaped interference, which was invariably on behalf of special privilege.

Finally, the army of the " punitive expedition " was held in Mexico for nine months after the Villa chase was definitely abandoned, nine months after General Scott, acting for the United States, had signed a memorandum to the effect that the dispersion of the Villa bands had been completed. Meanwhile, Franklin K. Lane and his associates on the American-Mexican Joint Commission, were attempting to browbeat the Mexicans into yielding the guarantees demanded by the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims, the Dodges, and the Dohenys. Although, in explaining the expedition, the President had declared that the troops would not be used in the interest of " American owners of Mexican properties," "so long as sane and honorable men are in control of the government," the public statement of Lane, issued at the end of November (1916), after a long interview with the President, was nothing more nor less than an acknowledgment that the troops were being held in Mexico for that purpose and no other, and a threat that they would remain there until an agreement was reached regarding such little matters as oil and mining taxes.

Intervention is intervention, even though it does not go beyond the field of diplomacy-and it is successful intervention exactly to the extent to which it succeeds in imposing the will of the stronger government upon the weaker.

The actual accomplishments of the government headed by Carranza have been greatly minimized in this country. It is a part of the pro-intervention propaganda, a part of the preparation for another little war against " autocracy " -in Mexico. Some radicals have been influenced by this propaganda. They ought to know that, were Carranza really a reactionary, the American press would not be reviling him as it reviles no other political figure this side of Soviet Russia.

Two facts that stick in the mind of American radicals

are that Carranza once broke a strike, and that Carranza never came to an agreement with Zapata. Carranza broke a strike in the national cartridge factory. That action was taken as a military measure, at a time when American troops were galloping southward from the border, and Mexican labor elements generally accept the circumstances as justification. The misunderstanding with Zapata was due in part to unfortunate clashes of authority at first, and in part to Zapata's incapability of understanding that there was any problem in Mexico except the agrarian problem.

So far as the writer's observation has gone, the present government of Mexico has earnestly sought to carry out the full program of the Mexican Revolution, and has carried out that program as far as that was possible without involving itself in war. If Mexico has not realized the highest hopes of the revolution, the primary responsibility rests upon us, not upon the Mexican government.

While all our maneuvers have not yet procured from Mexico an express acceptance of the authority of the United States to dictate in Mexican affairs-an object tirelessly sought-they have greatly hampered the realization of the far-reaching economic changes without which genuine democracy is impossible.

It is obvious that sweeping reforms cannot be applied to the fraction of a given industry controlled by natives, with-out at the same time applying them to the fraction con-trolled by foreigners.. It is easily understood how a government, say, in the United States, which essayed to lay taxes upon corporations owned entirely by Americans, while remitting taxes upon similar corporations having foreign stock-holders, could not last.

Wilson has not yet engaged in a war of conquest on Mexico. Numerous persons credit the fact to " Wilson principles." But what principle could hold him back from a war of conquest upon Mexico, while, at the same time, permitting him to wage a war of conquest upon Haiti and Santo Domingo?

It must have been a question, not of principle, but of expediency. There must have been arresting circumstances in the case of Mexico that did not apply to her weaker neighborhoods-circumstances which any other President equally with Wilson would have had to consider.

A circumstance which any one can see as conceivably decisive is-RELATIVE POWER. Haiti and Santo Domingo could be conquered almost in secret, without even calling the matter to the attention of Congress, without selling " Liberty " bonds, without conscription, without a vast machine of education and terror to keep the people under control. But Mexico could not be conquered person-ally and privately.

What has been going on in Haiti absolutely disposes of any theory that Mexico owed her safety at any time to the fact that Woodrow Wilson happened to be President of the United States.

The Mexicans are not looking for trouble. All they ask

21

of us is that some of the pledges of our " war for democracy " be carried out in their quarter of the world. They decline to recognize the Monroe Doctrine only because, wherever its application is urged nowadays, it is discovered that the purpose is to further some American aggression.

Yet the difference between the Governments of the United States and of Mexico is very sharp, and will remain so either until the United States genuinely recognizes the independence of Mexico, or until Mexico accepts Wall Street's view of the " protection " due to its vested interests.

For Wilson's l1vlexican policy in action is a consistent policy of intervention, to control'Mexico politically for the benefit of American capital; ultimately to go to war if the desired control cannot be fully realized by less expensive means. It is precisely the Wall Street policy.

To the extent that the Wilson policy has protected American capital from Mexican reform it has been successful. To the extent that it has weakened Carranza it has been successful. To the extent that it has prepared the public mini to accept war when the time is ripe it has been successful.

Even the Wall Street press which shouts for war does not want war until a successful war can be " put over." It

shouts for war even when it knows that the time is not ripe; for that is one way to ripen the time. Wilson, who wants the same thing that 'Wall Street wants, professes to want something else; for that, also, is one way to ripen the time.

Circumstances have changed in two years. We have a much larger army, and our people have gone through a course of discipline. The Monroe Doctrine is, in a manner, recognized by our allies. Which means that we are to have a freer hand in the Western Hemisphere.

Two years ago we withdrew our army from Mexico only to prepare it for action against Germany. Now we are through with Germany. Should an American army return to Mexico this year, in larger force and for a longer stay, the issue will be between democracy and-well, the thing Wilson declared was dead when he announced the armistice terms to Congress.

I do not say that it will go, but I do say that " Wilson principles" will not keep it from going. I look eagerly for arresting circumstances, and I do not see as many of them as before. A circumstance that may-or may not-a circumstance that might prove arresting, is the public temper. Where is the public temper?

A Meeting of the League for Peace

22

Charles Hemenway Goes to war

By Viola Paradise

M R. CHARLES HEMENWAY decided to enlist the day Old Tumbletop fell into the little cement gold-fish pool in the garden. Old Tumbletop had acquired the last part of his name two years before at the age of ten months, from a propensity to tip over head first, in his reckless experiments in ambulation. The first part of his name had been added when his little brother, now just a year old, had entered the family, and distinctions had to be made. However, Young Tumbletop soon became Floptop, and later, when his accurate young parents observed that he did very little of either tumbling or flopping, but was on the other hand very timid, he came into his baptismal name of Charles Edward,-although he was frequently referred to as The-Pink-and-White-Thing.

Although Old Tumbletop did not hurt himself when he fell into the pool, and although his father knew that the water was not deep enough to drown him, Mr. Hemenway experienced an agonized paralysis of fear as he looked up from his paper, and saw the little white figure rolling down the slope, and into the pool with a splash. Before Mr. Hemenway reached him, the youngster found his feet in the water, and stood up, rubbing his eyes with his fists, screwing up his face, and spewing water out of his mouth and nose, at the same time, inelegantly.

" Are you hurt?" gasped Mr. Hemenway, after he had lifted Tumbletop out.

" No, I aren't hurt, but "-with much sputtering,-" I fink I sollowed a fiss. I fink I hurted a fiss!" This struck Tumbletop as very funny, and he laughed.

" I don't see how I could have let it happen," said Mr. Hemenway to his wife as he handed Old Tumbletop over to be dried. " I had been looking at him almost every minute. I had controlled myself a dozen times so as not to keep saying ' be careful ';-you know, yesterday you warned me I'd be making a coward of him,-and I decided to glance at the paper; I thought I was keeping an eye on him,-and then, all of a sudden he was in. I was jolly well frightened !" " I wasn't fightened," interpolated Tumbletop, and there was a sort of braggart scorn in his voice. Both parents noticed the scorn, and exchanged surprised glances. " But I sollowed a fiss. I sollowed a hundred fisses!"

" He's all right!-or will be when I get him peeled. Here, don't wriggle so. Mother can't get these wet things off! There, tell your paternal parent that if he doesn't cure you of exaggerating, he'll have to restock the pool; and that the end of the world hasn't come; and that if he wants to catch the eight-twenty-three, he'd better hurry!"

The message was beyond Tumbletop's powers, but his father did not wait. He looked at his watch,-whistled,

kissed his wife, and hurried off. He did not realize until he was sitting in the train that Tumbletop had dripped all over him, and that he was very damp in spots.

His spirits, however, were damper than his clothes. He felt dejected and depressed. He could not understand why. As his wife had said, the end of the world hadn't come; the pool was absurdly shallow. (" All the same, I'll put some shrubbery around it. He might have hit his head on the bottom, or something.") Mary had thought the incident funny, and so it was. And yet he felt quite " out of sorts." It was very strange.

He tried to read his paper, but could not focus his attention on it. He found himself staring at a cartoon entitled " Hero or Coward." It was one of many war cartoons which tried to shame men into enlisting. Usually they angered him and put him on the defensive. He didn't want to fight. He could not imagine himself enduring the hardships of battle. The thought of shooting as well as the thought of being shot sickened him. He did not try to tell himself that he had a good excuse for not enlisting, a wife and two children, and a business which might be considered a war industry. He was too honest for that. He knew that he was afraid of war. He knew that his affairs were in good shape, and that his wife had a modest but comfortable income, so that she and the children would not suffer privation if he were killed. This was early in the war, when to many Englishmen it seemed a remote thing. Charles Hemenway, how-ever, had a forward looking eye, and he believed that the war would last longer than the people of England were estimating. He realized that once it seemed a real thing many of his friends would enlist, and that although they would look upon his family responsibilities as an excuse, none-theless many of them would recall w'hat a coward he had been as a schoolboy. As he thought of these things now, in the train, his eye still on the cartoon, the memory of his timidity as a schoolboy and of all the scorn he had suffered on account of it, bit into his consciousness. All of a sudden he realized why he was so depressed. It was the scorn in little Old Tumbletop's voice when he said he wasn't " fightened."

When he reached his office he gave orders that he must not be disturbed. He had to think things out. He looked over his mail perfunctorily, pushed it out of his way, and with his elbows on his desk, and his chin in his hands, he thought. First he thought of the previous day, when after he had called out to Tumbletop several times to be careful his wife had said, " It really doesn't matter if he knocks himself up a bit. If you warn him against things too much you'll make a coward of him." To which he had responded with some bitterness, " Like his father," whereupon he was imme-

June, 1919   23

diately ashamed of himself, for Mary rumpled his hair, and told him not to be a goose. He marvelled at Mary. Old Tumbletop had doubtless inherited his fearless spirit from her. She had amazing courage. There was the time of the mad dog-no, he wouldn't let himself think of that. But for all her courage she had never shown the least scorn for him, and he was sure that she felt none. Otherwise she could not have married him. They had known each other since childhood, and she had often witnessed his humiliations at times when his physical courage was lacking. Mary was Wonderful, he exclaimed to himself for the hundredth time. She had a spirit like flame, but it never scorched. He had told her once laughing, " You're a comfortable girl to be married to." There was so much more than comfort in their love, that it was rather absurd to mention that; it was like saying of a picture that an artist had used a good quality of paint. None the less it was true. She was " comfortable."

But now he must not let himself think of Mary. He must think of himself, and of what to do. With his elbows on the table he looked ahead five or six years. His younger brother would certainly enlist. At the end of the war Old Tumbletop would hilarously clamber over " Uncle Jim," and demand stories of the war. Later on, the other youngsters at school would boast of how their fathers had fought in the war; would probably boast of lost legs and other hideous deformities. Poor Tumbletop would find his father wanting. There would be, possibly, in school a boy who was a physical coward, just as he had been, and Tumbletop would despise him. Then his father would have to suffer all over again the mortifications and miseries of his unhappy child-hood, which somehow never seemed far away from him. In time the boy would become scornful of his father,-as, thought Mr. Hemenway, everyone else would be, and with good reason. He was a coward. It was a truth he could not get away from.

Heretofore it had been only physical things he had feared. Fear, and the fact that he'had never tried to pretend that he was not afraid had earned him scorn from his school-fellows in childhood, and from others, less frequently, to be sure, as he grew up. But now a more terrible fear, that of the scorn of his own son,-drove him to his decision. It was horrible. He was sure he should die of fright at the first cannon blast, but it had to be done.

He left his office, and went tc the nearest recruiting station, and was accepted. Then he returned, called in his general manager, and stated blankly that he had enlisted. He spent several hours turning things over to the manager, who, having seen Mr. Hemenway go white once when a man had " merely smashed his little finger," was so dumbfounded that he found it difficult to be as attentive as the quick careful mind of his employer demanded.

Mr. Hemenway found it hard to believe that there were so few things in his business that depended on him. The ease with which things could be " turned over " depressed him. He had always taken his holidays grudgingly, believ-

ing that he was needed " at the office." His tremendous decision made him appear to himself as a vain and silly man, ever to have taken his work so seriously. After all, even if the works went to smash, the family would not starve. Moreover Smith, the manager, had always carried much of the responsibility. He wondered what Mary would say. Had she realized all along that he really was not of great importance to the works, and merely been kind enough not to let him guess it? Strange, that aside from his fear of war his decision made him uncomfortable, and demeaned him in his own eyes. He did not discover why until months afterward.

He arrived home that evening in uniform, taking a late train, so as to avoid as many of the persons he was accustomed to seeing as possible. It would seem, somehow, disloyal to Mary to let anyone else know before he had told her. He spread his newspaper and believed he was fairly inconspicuous behind it. Yet he was recognized. An acquaintance, Arthur Sales, whose fag he had been at school, did not attempt to conceal his surprise, but came upon him with, " Bless my soul, Charlie, you've got ahead of me! Who'd ever have thought it!"

" Hello, yes, I thought I'd better go," replied Charlie. Inwardly he was sick with shame at the memory of the many times he had quailed before this very person, and had begged, " Please don't hit me, Art!" while the other boys stood around scoffing. Doubtless Sales was thinking the same thoughts.

" When do you go over?" asked Sales, politely. " Soon."

" Well, it's a queer world. Maybe I'll meet you there. Going as soon as I get my affairs straightened out, and win my wife around to the idea," said Sales.

Mary, being a calm person, was not worried when he did not arrive at the usual time, but when, after the next train she saw a man in uniform at the foot of the garden, where she expected Charles, she was alarmed. She came out of the house toward him, and then recognized him just as he reached the little pool, which was the innocent cause of his decision.

" But dearest," after a smothering embrace, ` I didn't know that you were even thinking of it!" The look in her face almost frightened him. There was hurt and desolation and amazement ; there was something else, too, some-thing he couldn't quite get.

" I wasn't. It just came over me suddenly in the train that I had to do it. I was thinking of the kids, and,---well, I had to. Old Tumbletop, you know, and The Pink-and-White Thing."

She tried to make a joke,-said she was glad to know their names, and hoped someday to be introduced,-and then suddenly she was weeping. He could say nothing but, " Don't, dear, don't. I had to, you see "; and finally " You wouldn't have it otherwise, dear, would you?" To which she said, " I think you are the bravest-"

" Husband you have ever had," he finished unsteadily, into her hair. He resisted an impulse to release her, and look

24   THE LIBERATOR

into her eyes; he knew she was thinking of his cowardice. He resisted the impulse to explain at length. At last, he looked at her again. That strange new look was still in her eyes,-a bit disconcerting, but he liked it. He wondered what it was. He thought he knew every mood in her, but this was something new. A sort of exultation,-no,-yes,-he had it. It was admiration. He had never seen it before, and had never missed it in their rich love. But it was good. It thrilled and warmed him. For the moment, indeed for the evening, he thought it worth the horrors of battle into which he would have to go.

They talked of many things that evening. He told her of the arrangements he had made at the office, and it was sweet to hear her say, " But that can't go on, now that you will be away?" He told her that he had said that no mat-ter how much the war would increase the earnings of the business, their private income would not be raised. The men's wages were to go up proportionately, " and all that." He had promised that she would see to giving away the surplus, . "t o women and kids, you know. Infant welfare stations, and so on." She was proud of his generosity, but he knew that that look of admiration was brought into her eyes not by that but by the fact of his going forth to war.

That night they both, wide awake, pretended sleep. She was struggling with anguish at the loss of him, with the fear that he would be killed, and with pride in him for conquering what she knew must be a terrible fear. He struggled against an unreasonable feeling of meanness, which got the upper hand and never left him. He tried to understand it, and gave it up. At last be fell into an uneasy sleep, and dreamed that he was to be shot at sunrise as a deserter.

A few months later, on the way over, he reminded him-self that people usually got hardened even to terrible things. Most of the young men in his company seemed quite with-out anxiety. He resolved that at whatever cost he would conceal his fear. If Tumbletop should ever hear of it. . . . Heretofore he had cherished a self-made ideal of sportsman-ship, applicable to his own particular case,-namely that it was cowardly to conceal his fears.. Now, however, things were different.

Battle and life in the trenches were a million times worse than his most terrible anticipations. The fearful boredom of inactivity, except for trench digging, the ghastliness of a bombardment, stretched the month he had been here by the calendar into a nightmare aeon. Several times the men next to him had been wounded. And he had seen strong men die frightful and disgusting deaths. He never got used to these sights, which sickened and maddened him. The world stank. His letters to Mary were mere statements that he was still alive. He didn't trust himself to keep his horror out of his Ietters, and she would guess at the slightest hint. It was safest to keep silent. Once he tried to write a funny letter to Old Tumbletop, but it turned out not funny at all. There

was one sentence, " Truth is the only safe thing, nothing has a value without it." He gazed at the letter in amazement. " I must be going mad. What on earth did I write that for! Must have heard it in a sermon, or at chapel, at school, or somewhere." He put it in his pocket and gave up the thought of writing.

One night he tried to think of his home and Mary and the children. To his horror he could not remember how they looked. He tried desperately to recall them, but in vain. There was only one image that was clear to him. He re-membered the goldfish pool in the garden, and the crocuses and jonquils which grew up in the grass, crushed where Old Tumbletop had rolled down into the water. He remembered that some one had once said that Mary's combination of red hair and dark eyes and lashes was rare, but that didn't help him to visualize her. He could not even recall the feel of her in his arms. He was sure he must be insane.

Then he resolved to die. What was he here for, anyhow? There was an idea,-once there had been an idea which had made him come. It was gone, he could not recall it. One thing only was certain: no one must ever learn that he was afraid. But he went hot and cold with fear a hundred times a day,-every time a bullet whistled, at every startling noise.

A resolution took shape in his mind. He would volunteer for the most dangerous tasks; that way he could die, and end fear and conceal it at the same time.

The next day he volunteered to get a wounded man from a barbed wire entanglement. He followed the order to creep along the ground. He had to stand, however, within easy reach of the enemy guns to do his sickening work. The man had died before he reached him. He was aimed at, and a dozen bullets cut by him at once. One went into the eye of the corpse he was disentangling, but by a miracle he escaped. He wept that night because he was still alive. Death was no thing to fear, after war. But war was a thing horrible, obscene, in every way wicked. Some of his companions would talk now and then of ideals, democracy, noble causes to be won by the war, but Charles sat silent through all those talks. Good, they believed, could come out of a thing so fiendish. At any rate that was beside the point,-his point. He could not bear it. It must be stopped,-for him.

He volunteered recklessly, but it seemed that some malignant fate pursued him, cheating him of the death he so eagerly craved. The men used to say he lived a charmed life. One of them started the nickname, " Charmed Charlie," but he had made no friends among them, and none of them used it to his face.

One moonlight night he went out into no-man's-land to pick up a man, and ignored orders to creep along the ground. He walked upright. He heard some one whisper, " That man wouldn't blanch at the devil himself," and another an-. swer, " More fool he! with a wife and kids! Batty, I call it!"

He found himself mouthing a stale meaningless prayer. Then he lurched and fell.

S

Rsps   IS^.r

1l99111r1Y,,117rTT •.'~1R~„r-.,'.   "-...

r

June, 1915

In the hospital, all through his fever and delirium, he clung to his idea. It was the only thing, he thought, in his moments of consciousness, which anchored him to the stormy crashing pain which was now his life. He must see Mary. Somehow she must be sent for. The pain was terrible; no part. of his body was free from it. He wished to die, but only after he had seen Mary. There was some-thing she must be told,-a message for Old Tumbletop, and the Pink-and-White-Thing. Most of the time he couldn't think what the message was, and that was misery even worse than the pain.

The other men in the ward used to laugh at him, because when his wounds were dressed he would cry like a child. When he was conscious he would piteously beg the nurse and doctor not to touch him. One day when a convalescent man in the next bed scoffed, "Bah! Our baby's crying again," the kind, cool nurse reproved him and said cryptically, " We shall see what we shall see." That afternoon the ward learned that Hemenway was to receive the Cross of War. They learned of his daring in the trenches, and were silent. Charles was delirious at the time, and did not know of his honor for several days. 'When his tortured mind grasped the fact, he screamed and moaned. His temperature went up, and for a solid hour, he cried, " No, no, no, no, no!" They thought he was mad.. . .

Delirium and pain, and then calmer intervals, and then that agony of self-contempt, and self-hatred, and then delirium again, an endless treadmill. . . .

Then one day a miracle happened. There was a sense of something comfortable, and then a warm familiar smell, then red hair and arms about him: Mary had come! So this was what she looked like! How could he ever have forgotten ! He closed his eyes, it was such an agony of effort to keep them open.

After a while she said what has been said to millions of patients, that he must keep very quiet, and not try to talk; she would not go away. But he struggled to remember the message he must give her before he died. He opened his eyes. Her face had that same look of eager admiration, in spite of its distress at his pain.

Then, one night, he awoke, with his memory clear. Mary was helping the nurse with a patient at the other end of the ward. Too weak to call, he waited, holding with all his will power to his consciousness. When she was at his side he said, " I remember everything now."

" Dearest, I'm so proud of you! The Cross of War!" was her reply. She believed it would be a happy thought for him to dwell on. "Old Tumbletop will be so proud when he gets old enough!"

" Will you understand if I tell you to throw it into the sea?" he asked. " No," he continued as he saw her face change, " I'm not out of my head now, and I will talk. I may never remember the message again."

Her answer, " I love you dearest," did not seem at all irrelevant to him.

" Don't look at me with admiration. It is the hardest

25

thing to bear. The whole thing was cowardice, and a lie, a disgusting pack of lies!" He closed his eyes, and was still for some minutes, hoarding his little strength. Then he went on,

" The worst lie, the worst cowardice of all, was enlisting. Fear of what people would think drove me to it, but mostly fear of Old Tumbletop's judgment, and scorn, when he would grow up. I thought perhaps I could leave him a proud memory. And when I saw that warm new look in your eyes,-the first admiration I had ever had from anyone,-no, don't interrupt; you loved me, of course, but that was the first time anyone admired. . . . I was so vain of it that I didn't tell you; besides I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted you to have the pleasure of admiring. You will understand now, although it hurts you, and because we love each other so well, you will not despise.

" Then the time I got wounded. Cowardice of the lowest sort. I could not stand the agony of living any more. It was the easiest way of . . . well it amounted to deserting. And I'm sick with shame to have been honored for it. You see, everything has always been so out and out between us from the very beginning, even when we were children, that I couldn't bear to die without telling you. The truth . . . very important . . . the children must know it."

His voice trailed off. His eyes had been closed almost all the while he had been speaking. Mary waited silent for a while, not knowing whether he was still conscious.

He was not unconscious. He was considering the labor of opening his eyes. He must see her face, now that he was done with lies. What would he see there, he wondered, now that the pride had all gone out of it? Would it be pity, or just plain distress? Finally he looked at her.

Incredible! She was aglow with pride.

"You understood?" he faltered.

" Oh, better than you, a million times!" She buried her head in his pillow, and her arms were around him, and she was laughing and crying. At last she found a word or two: " I think you are-the most wonderful-"

" Husband you have ever had?" he finished weakly. 'There was a faint smile on his face.

CASTLEBAR

W HEN I went down to Castlebar

I measured with my eye The silver shilling of the moon,

And wondered what 'twould buy.

I'll take the early road, says I,

For sure, there's bound to be A chimney smoking in the town,

And women making tea.

When I went down to Castlebar

The dew was on the earth-

And me a-wondering how the moon

Could get a shilling's-worth!

Leslie Nelson Jennings.

26   THE LIBERATOR

Home

HE came, her hero crowned; She, lily-neat and trim, Put slim, brave arms around The hell of him.

The horror without name

He looked on night and day, Though it met her like a flame, Her love would slay.

Her soft hands, they should cling, Her kisses, they should wean Him from the strange, dark Thing That he had seen.

But when, as Christ, grown mild, He said, " You let me go . . . And I forgive you,. child.

You did not know "-

She yet knew not her loss. His soul its shore would keep, And in no world would cross To hers asleep.

Olive Tilford Dargan.

Sonnet

I CAN but give thee unsubstantial things

Wrapt as in rose-leaves between thought and thought, No gems or garments marvellously wrought On ivory spools with rare embroiderings. Nor for thy fingers precious, fabled rings That cardinals have worn, and queens have bought With blood and beauty. I have only sought A song that hovers on illusive wings.

Accept from me a dream that hath no art, I give my empty hands for thee to hold, Take thou the gift of silence for my part, With all the deeper things I lave not told. Yet if thou canst, decipher in my heart Its passions writ in hieroglyphs of gold.

. Iris Tree.

Comparison

`r HE air is light with a twinkling, nimble tune Chasing these breezes up and down the hills:

A tune that night threw behind

To be whipped into tinkling, by morning. The sleepy sensuousness of hill-side flowers Floats up, to fill the pauses in the song, And stroke the tired breezes. . .

This is the tangled fairy-tale of our love. Maxwell Bodenheim.

1„   And weak and white and small

Night on the Convoy

Alexandria-Marseilles

OUT in the blustering darkness, on the deck A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, The lean Destroyers, level with our track, PIunging and stealing, watch the perilous way,

Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray.

One sentry by the davits, in the gloom

Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through the night. Shrouded is every chink of cabined light:

And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom,

And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders . . . doom.

Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh; And slowly growing used to groping dark,

I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length,

Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength,-Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark

Danger of life at war, they lie so still,

All prostrate and defenceless, head by head And I remember Arras, and that hill

Where dumb with pain I stumble among the dead.

*:   *   *   *

We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls.

We are going home . . victims . . three thousand souls.

May, 1918.   Siegfried Saseoon.

Intimacy

I WAS not sure your heart had turned away Until one morning, waking from my sleep, Watching the sunlight on the ceiling creep,

Suddenly life was different that day.

Like a scared animal quite still I lay

Denying thought, determined not to weep-

Where was it gone, this thing we sought to keep? Where was the laughter that had filled our play?

You wakened and your eyes were cold and gray,

Nor lighted seeing me, nor turned to blue,

Nor leaped back from the distance where you slept, But in that pale dream-distance tried to stay. Without a word, our intimacy knew

How great the distance. And at last I wept.

Lydia Gibson.

Margot

M Y little love is tender,

Her shining head against my heart
Leaves me no strength at all.

F. Normile.

27

The Tide Flows East

B YRON R. NEWTON, Collector of the Port of New York, announces that the rush of aliens leaving the United States for Europe has reached an average of t,ooo per day. And the capitalist press is manifesting uneasiness. The following from an editorial in the New York Evening Sun (italics ours) is only one of the many now being published all over the United States:

" The throngs of aliens bound from this port back to their home countries have for some months surpassed any rate of outward movement of population that the recent records can show. This departure causes concern, partly because of the loss of workers it occasions us and partly because of the misgivings we conceive from such an expression of unwillingness on these people's part to stay here."

In spite of the attempts of the Government agencies to soothe American pride concerning the reasons for the exodus, it is more than a coincidence that this is taking place just when the Government is pressing its campaign to deport all foreign-born workers who dare to be active in labor organizations. This exhibition of Prussian lawlessness on the part of the authorities is the crowning act of the long and bloody history of capitalist exploitation of foreigners here.

One of the principles expressed in the foundation of the American republic was that of " providing an asylum for the oppressed of the earth." Like every other idealistic phrase, this was used by Capitalism to cover a shameless policy of debauching'Labor. Under its grandiloquent wording, the poverty-stricken hordes of Europe were induced to come to America, and take the places of Anglo-Saxon workers in industry, for wages upon which no man could live decently. In Europe there was a surplus population, and no work. In America there was work for all-brutal, de-grading work, at pitiful wages-but still work. And by living like an animal,-by scabbing, submitting to nameless brutalities, the foreign-born could hope to scrape together enough, not to live in the United States, but to return to his home and live there. The fact that he returned broken in spirit and health did not matter.

This then was the spirit in which America welcomed " the oppressed of the earth." Lured not only by gold, but by the talk of freedom, the absence of compulsory military service, and the picture of the Statue of Liberty on the steamship companies' advertising matter, the aliens poured into our ports at the rate of hundreds of thousands a year. They were bullied and cheated at the port of entry, hurled into fetid slums, drawn into the lowest strata of the cruel machinery of industry, sweated, clubbed by the police, shot in strikes, and at the end, worn-out before their time, their lungs rotted with tuberculosis, were spewed out into the jails, or back across the sea. It is a significant commentary on American civilization that of the most intelligent foreigners who came here political Socialists, a' large part re-

turned to their own countries anarcho-syndicalists, advocates of sabotage and direct action.

The War revealed the American industrial system in all its brutality. Foreigners in large numbers who had taken out their first papers were drafted, and many who had never taken out any papers at all were forced into the Army, and if they refused to fight, were thrown into guard-houses and military prisons, and tortured. Those working in industry were subjected to the strictest espionage, and thrown into prison for advocating Iabor organization, or participating in strikes. A system of terrorism was employed to force them to buy Liberty Bonds and War Saving Stamps, and to contribute to the Red Cross ; if they refused, they lost their jobs. Their churches were invaded by mobs who compelled the clergymen to preach patriotism in English. Their papers printed in their own language were censored by bureaucrats, and often stopped for reprinting dispatches, articles and editorials from the English press. One foreign newspaper was stopped by the United States Post Office for reprinting my name, for example. Meetings of foreigners were invaded by the police and private " patriots " who arbitrarily created laws concerning what should or should not be said, and beat up and arrested speakers who refused to conform. And the lives of foreign workers were tyrannized over by private organizations such as " Minutemen " and " American Protective Leagues," composed of bankers, employers and the most reactionary hirelings of the industrial autocrats.

The barbarous Espionage Act, in its revolting character as a weapon of capitalist class domination, was especially invoked against foreigners active in working-class organizations. In Bayonne, N. J., two young Russians, Frederick Feodotov and Anton Taichin, were arrested at a meeting called to organize a school for Russians. Under the New Jersey Sedition Act they were sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary. Mollie Steimer, seventeen years old, Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lippmann, Hyman Lachowsky and Jacob Schwartz, Russians, were arrested for distributing circulars protesting against American intervention in Russia, and horribly beaten by the police of New York. Schwartz died from his injuries; Mollie Steimer was given fifteen years in jail and $500 fine-and the three boys twenty years and $i,ooo fine. Ricardo Magon and Librado Rivera, Mexican revolutionists, were given twenty and fifteen years respectively for articles in the Mexican paper " Regeneracion," opposing the war. And of the hundreds of I.W.W. members tried and given long sentences at Chicago, Sacramento and Wichita, fully half are foreigners.

The agitation against foreign mass-meetings, foreign languages, and the foreign press, assumed considerable pro-portions. The end of the war brought no relief; for in the East, proletarian Russia was rising, gigantic and luminous,

/

inspiring the workers of the world; and in Central Europe the Spartacides and the Communists were swinging into action. Instead of slackening with the signing of the Armistice, the campaign against the foreign workers grew more intense.

The end of the war left American industry still mobilized, as the plutocrats were too busy scrambling for huge profits to plan for a conversion of industry to a peace basis. Sooner than take time to plan demobilization, they preferred to close down war activities the moment war ended, and throw thousands upon thousands of workers into the bread-lines, where their numbers increase, week by week, as I *rite. All attempts of these unemployed workers to. pro-test or to meet and consider their position are mercilessly checked with the threat of machine-guns.

This action was accompanied by almost universal reduction in wages throughout the textile industry, which, as I write, threatens to extend to the steel and other basic industries. At the same time awards made to the workers during the war by the War Labor Board were either disregarded or immediately revoked.

On top of this add the rapid demobilization of the Army, hundreds of thousands of men thrown penniless on the

already-overcharged labor market, no jobs available-or jobs at wages less than before the war, or as strike-breakers. In the great cities of the country these aimless, workless soldier-hordes are being organized into mobs to attack Socialist and Labor meetings, wreck radical headquarters, assault individuals.   . .   .

This is the situation faced by the foreign-born workers, most of whom are not protected even by the inefficient labor organizations affiliated in the A. F. of L.-or are members of the I.W.W., which has been practically outlawed, (although the Government pretends it is not), and whose members are hounded from city to city, arrested and beaten, and even lynched.

The final attack by the industrial autocrats on the foreign-born workers came just when the powerful general strikes in Seattle and Butte had indicated that the working-class of America was at last developing a weapon capable of combatting capitalist tyranny. Since December, 1917, foreigners active in the Labor Movement had been quietly arrested in the West, and after cursory hearings, alone, (no lawyers permitted), threatened with physical force while being questioned, scores have been held for deportation under the Immigration laws.

The center of the movement was in the great Northwest, where the I. W. W. had been organizing the timber-workers and lumbermen. This was the scene of the Everett Massacre, where

7 s , deputy sheriffs and private detectives

fired upon a -steamboat full of Iabor organizers from Seattle, and killed six.

The same business men and manufacturers who inspired the Everett Massacre were behind the deportation scheme. The famous "American Committee" of Seattle, consisting of the Reverend M. A. Mathews, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church; Judge Thomas Burke, attorney; J. D. Lowman, Vice-President of the Union National Bank; O. D. Colvin, General Manager of the Pacific Car Foundry; J. W. Spangler, Vice-President of the Seattle National Bank; A. E. Haines, General Manager of the

Pacific Steamship Co.; W. C. Dawson, General Manager W. C. Dawson Co.; and William Calvert, Jr., President of the San Juan Fishing and Packing Co.

issued a secret invitation to the lumber

companies to give "moral and financial support" to a network of detectives to be placed in the camps and mills, with the purpose .of securing evidence which would lead to the "immediate expulsion of all alien agitators and publishers" from the country. A further printed

Maurice Becker

May Day in the Home of the Free

28   THE LIBERATOR

29

tion-chiefly because they are Russian workers, and as such, possible Bolsheviki.

This is only a partial list of the hundreds of aliens held, whose number increases daily.

The really serious aspect of deportation lies in the fact that many of these aliens are political refugees from their own countries. The Italian Government, it is stated, is sending Italians deported from the United States direct to penal colonies in Africa. The British Government will of course execute any Hindu revolutionists expelled from this country. And the Russians, if deported to Archangel or Vladivostok, will be forced into counter-revolutionary armies to fight their own comrades, or be immediately executed.

American citizenship does not protect the foreign-born worker. Any judge can decide that he took out his citizenship papers under false pretenses (this has already been done in two cases), and he can be deported. Of course first papers do not count. But in order to take out first papers, the alien must renounce citizenship in the land of his birth. Revocation of citizenship or first papers therefore leaves the alien a man without a country, since he can be refused ad-mission to his own land on the ground that he is no longer a citizen.

But to liberty-loving and self-respecting foreigners even this is preferable to remaining any longer in America, the worst industrial autocracy on earth. All over the country Deportation Clubs are being formed, composed of those who want to return to Europe and are not permitted to leave the country. Hundreds of thousands of aliens, who have been here for years, for decades, who have, in the words of E. E. MacDonald, one of the deportees:

helped to fell the forests,

dug deep in the mines;

built the towering buildings, laid the railway lines,"

are now leaving the land of their adoption forever-poor as when they came, and poorer; for they have lost the best years of their life, their health, and their belief that the New World would give birth to the New Age.

Their hope is no more in America. Last of the autocratic nations, where the masses of men are still nothing more than machine-fodder, she lies on the dark side of the earth, whose horizon is tinged with the glow of the fiery rebirth of Europe in revolution. The torch of Freedom is gone out of her hand. . .

The tides of men set eastward at last, and the current is past stopping. Slowly the American labor market is drained of its submissive foreigners, from whose blood all the great American fortunes have been distilled.

Those who are not deported are leaving of their own free will, so let them deport and be damned.

JOHN REED.

F OURTEEN members of the I. W. W. in Fort Leaven-worth prison have been eligible for parole since January 31, and no action has been taken on their case.

June, 1919

statement by the same "Committee" showed that it was endorsed by thirteen lumber companies.

The credentials of one of the Department of Justice agents who arrested the aliens show that he was at the same time a member of the " Minutemen," a private secret service of employers authorized during the War by the Department of Justice, and of a private detective agency of Chicago, and also membership secretary of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and Commercial Club. Another such agent was on the payroll of the Government and a large lumber company at the same time.

What was going on in Seattle was repeated more or less in other parts of the country. Men were arrested on some charge of misdemeanor, or on no charge at all, held for investigation, and then ordered deported. The investigations

were a farce. Membership in the I.W.W. was ground for

ordering deportation. Some of the reports of Immigration

agents read like a Socialist cartoon of Capitalism. For

instance, this from an official in Kansas City:

" The alien has no money, and is liable to become one of the migratory herd. . .

In February, 1919, a train-load of these unfortunates was taken across the country, with the intention of quietly hustling them out of the United States. The Immigration officials interviewed reported that the men had received adequate hearings, and that " the Courts cooperated." As a matter of fact these aliens had been denied legal defense, had been denied habeas corpus ; thir chief crime was that they belonged to the I.W.W.

Owing to the intervention of Miss Caroline Lowe, and of Charles Recht, of the Bureau of Legal Advice, who were at first forbidden even to see the prisoners, the Department of Labor was finally forced to open its files, and as a result many of the deportees were discharged immediately, and others were released on bail, pending further hearings.

But before this could be done, several men were secretly deported, among them two Italians, Pietro Marruechowho was accused of having in his possession a copy of the paper Cronacca Sovversiva-and another, Angele Varrichio. Marrucho died-or was killed-on his way to Italy; Varrichio was rushed to Ellis Island, a letter he sent was held up, and his presence on the Island was denied by officials. Six Scandinavian I.W.W.'s arrested in the West, were rushed to New York, denied the right to see a lawyer en-gaged for them, and shipped to Sweden. An Irishman named John Meehan, arrested for being a member of the I.W.W., was held for nineteen months and then shipped to England, in the midst of winter, in rags and without a hat, his clothing having worn out in jail. He had been in America twenty-five years. Frank Lopez, a Spaniard, who had been in the country seventeen years, who was married and owned a home in Dedham, Mass., where he was a regular member of the A. F. of L., was ordered deported because he called himself a " philosophical anarchist." Edwin Flogaus, a Pole, who has been in America ever since he was two years old, thirty years ago, is held for deportation. Hundreds of Russians all over the country are being held for deporta-

NOT

32   THE LIBERATOR

resurrection In pri

To Karl Liebkneckt

PRIL again.

After a black and tortured year.

After the poison hurled

Into each crack and corner of the world,

After the ghosts of fear

Cease to jeer at the courage of men,

April again !

April with cries of a multitude waking

And the brilliant eyes of children shaking Their joys like banners whipping the skies. April, a tom-boy brightly skipping

With mutinous glee;

A child-hearted rebel, lightly slipping

The ties of proper sobriety-

A brazen, young heathen, lawless and free While mad tunes seethe in its pagan heart, And every inch and impulse is part

Of a frank and blossoming anarchy.

The world's in protest, rebellion grows

In the blood of a man and the veins of a rose; It quickens new jungles, tears off the crust Of a hardening earth,

Blows gusty mirth

Through hearts that rally, forgetting their scars, Till even the dust

In the nethermost fen

Has a lust of insurgence that threatens the stars. April again!

And you lie there,

So dull, so darkly still-While even grasses dare

To dance upon your hill.

How cold you lie . . .

That tense and wrinkling brow Is smoothed of pain, the eye

Has lost its challenge now.

What are you doing there? The battle rages still;

Hunger, disease, despair Run where they will.

The very thing you fought And tamed and kept afraid, Not only is uncaught,

It rules-and is obeyed.

Oh rouse yourself; arise!

The hate, the hideous wrong, Still triumph-and the cries

Of outraged men are long.

Rise from your slumber. Come!

You are our blood and breath . (He lies, unheeding, dumb-

Betrayed and done to death.)

And April ripples on.

Runs, with a heartless air,

Its white and lilac streamers everywhere; Sends timid birches leaping through the moss; Searches for laggards and late lie-abeds

Where a small stream lurches and jonquils cross Each other and toss their giddy heads;

Throws clouds of pink confusion on dark trees, And boys with marbles to their willing knees, Laughter beats, like a surging wave,

Calling and urging even the dead-

But there, at the head of your quiet grave, It shakes and recoils, breaks like a thread, A baffled echo, a scurril jest,

Hushed and disheartened by your brave And bullet-riddled breast;

Crushed on the stubborn silence of your rest.

Passive and unaware;

Lie easy there,

Quiet, enduring soul.

Your vision shattered, almost at the goal, Shall be made whole.

Your patient hopes shall bear

The flaming fruits you planted in despair. Nourished upon your blood

The seed will struggle through the unheeding mud. From the still-bleeding soil

A rich and redder blossoming shall spring-The great, far-spreading flower of toil, Strengthened by war and sweat and suffering. Already life, new life is breaking through; Young blades and spears are showing plain. Rest easy, then.

April will come again,

Not as it came to you,

But with a rousing voice you never knew; A voice that calls-even upon the slain-And not in vain.

Louis Untermeyer.

The Left

A CONFERENCE of the Left Wing Locals' and Sections of the American Socialist Party has been called by Local Boston, Local Cleveland and the Left Wing Section of Local New York to meet on June 21st at some city to be designated hereafter. The call " is issued to locals of the Socialist Party, branches and Left Wing groups within the party. The test of admission, provisionally, will be acceptance of the Manifesto of the Left Wing of the Socialist Party of Greater New York.

"Left Wing locals are invited to send delegates officially. Where a local officially refuses to participate, branches or minority groups in the party accepting the principles of the Left Wing should send delegates.

"Representation-one delegate for every 500 members. No local or group should send more than three delegates."

Communications should be addressed to Louis C. Fraina, 885 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.

..   .   .   !, . ... r': rl

33

His Majesty's Government Writes History

T HE British " White Book," which purports to give an account of conditions in Soviet Russia, is an admirable picture of the Imperial British official mind. In that Apocalyptic year when the heavens roll up like a scroll and the moon turns to the color of blood and the Four Horsemen go ramping across the earth, some eminently respectable and very British consul, stationed at Port Said, will have the honor to report from day to day to His Majesty's Government that conditions are very bad; that the sanitation in these places is execrable, and that Lady X   , who recently arrived from Nineveh, had all her
jewelry taken away from her by the unscrupulous wretches there; that the circumstances of the brutal murder of the late Allied Emperor Nero were as follows (seven different and contradictory accounts) ; that all industries have closed down; that industrial production is only 6o per cent. of normal; that the body of the good Archbishop Caiaphas was found in a cellar, together with that of the late Governor Herod; that there is absolutely no respect for private property, and that the so-called authorities have no control over the populace, but let them do as they wish; that the populace is 90 per cent. against the so-called authorities, and may be expected to overthrow them any day; that the rule of the so-called authorities is getting stronger all the time, and that there is nothing to be gained by dealing with them; that 1VIr. F --, an eminently respectable person who has just escaped from Babylon, gives the following facts and figures: which are contradicted by those of the equally

respectable persons, Messrs. G   , H   and J -;
that the whole thing is horrible beyond description, and should be stopped at once; and finally that the Rev. Q tells him that the whole thing was got up by the Jews.

The present document, " Russia: No. i (1919) : A Collection of Reports on Bolshevism in Russia: Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty: April, 1919," is a collection of sixty-one reports and memorandums scrappily covering the period Aug. 19, 1918 to March 23, 1919. All are dated from non-Soviet points, and only the first few include reports from British officials on Soviet territory; subsequent to the discovery of a plot against the Soviet government, participated in by British diplomatic representatives, these gentlemen made a hasty exit, and henceforth their reports retail the reminiscences of emigres, their own wild guesses, and miscellaneous hearsay.

They deal in the main with three aspects of Soviet Russia: (1) the indignities to which British diplomatic representatives, and other respectable and well-to-do ladies and gentlemen, are subjected ; (2) economic conditions; and (3) " Bolshevik atrocities." We shall summarize the revelations presently, but first we wish to present a brief account of the reports and memorandums, seriatim, with some commentary.

No. 1. Sir M. Findlay, British Minister at Stockholm, transmits to Mr. Balfour a telegram of the gth August from Woodhouse and Cromie at Petrograd. " British subjects have been arrested during the past two days without any charge having been made against them, but only two have been detained so far." Also, "all British officials at Moscow were arrested, but the majority were subsequently released." The dispatch concludes: " That they [the Soviet officials] are in touch with Germans is quite evident. A yacht is ready at Peterhof to take Lenin away." (This last sentence throws a light on the reliability of these observers. Eight months have passed, and the yacht is still waiting at Peterhof.)

The Anglo-French' Criminal Conspiracy

The reason for the arrest of the British officials, however, deserves to be stated. The facts of the Anglo-French conspiracy against the Soviet government are published in full in the Izvestia of Moscow, Sept. 3. Acting under cover of diplomatic immunity, Mr. Lockhart, British High Commissioner, conspired with General Lavergne, head of the French Military Mission in Russia, to overthrow the Soviet Republic, assassinate Lenine and Trotzky, and set up a Military Dictatorship of Three, with the object of dragging the Russian people again into the war with Germany. To this end, says the Izvestia, " bribery, treason, hypocrisy, military conspiracy, attempts to disrupt the distribution of food, the destruction of bridges, setting fire to warehouses, -lies, cold cunning, incendiary violence-there is not a trick of dirty treachery and meanness which these cultured diplomats of `civilized' countries have hesitated to use against the government of the country which gave them shelter." The official statement of'the conspiracy discloses an organization " of a strictly conspiratorial sort," using forged documents and bribery.

Among other things were found directions for manufacturing and publishing, after the success of their coup, forged secret correspondence between the Russian and German governments, and forged treaties, as a means of creating a public sentiment in favor of renewing the war with Germany.

" The conspirators proceeded under cover of diplomatic immunity, and with credentials signed personally by the chief of the British Mission in Moscow, Mr. Lockhart. Several copies of these certificates are now in the hands of the special investigating commission.

" It has also been proved that 1,000,000 rubles, to be used in bribery, were dispensed by one of Lockhart's agents, a British lieutenant named Riley.

" At the secret headquarters of the conspirators an Englishman was arrested, who when brought before the special investigating commission said that he was the British diplo-

34   THE LIBERATOR

matic representative, Lockhart. His identity being established, he was immediately released."

Quite a different story, eh? Oh, the righteous horror of the British diplomats at the infringement of their sacred diplomatic immunity! Think of it! British representatives, British citizens, under arrest! We add a few more facts, from the Izvestia:

British PIot to Assassinate Lenine

On Aug. 14, a meeting took place between Lockhart and a commander of certain Soviet forces, in Lockhart's private apartment, at which they discussed a proposed rebellion in Moscow. The Soviet officer received 700,000 rubles from Lockhart, and reported the whole proceedings to the Soviet authorities.

"The coup was to take place in Moscow within two or three weeks, about Sept. so. The British were anxious that both Lenine and Trotzky were to be present at the plenary meeting of the Council of the People's Counmissars, which was to be arrested. It was planned simultaneously to occupy the State Bank, the Central Telegraph and Telephone Station." It was also planned " to prohibit under threat of death the holding of any meetings, until the arrival of the British military authorities." On Aug. 28, a second meeting took place, the officer received 300,000 rubles more, and agreed to go to Petrograd to act there in connection with the Petrograd British Directing Military Group and various Russian White Guards, in furtherance of these plans. A letter from the British Lieutenant, Riley, to a Soviet officer whom he attempted to bribe, advised against sending Lenine as a prisoner to Archangel; for, wrote Riley, " Lenine has a peculiar hold on the masses. It is certain that on the way to Archangel he would win the guards to him, and that they would liberate him. There-fore it would be safer if Lenine and Trotzky were shot immediately upon arrest."

British "Diplomat" Caught with the Goods

It was at a meeting held to complete these plans that the whole gang were arrested, Lockhart among them. He re-fused to give his name at first, but when taken before the investigating commission revealed his identity. He was questioned by Peters, acting chairman of the commission, and at first denied having anything to do with the conspiracy; but when confronted with the evidence, he " showed great embarrassment " and refused to answer on the ground of his "diplomatic immunity." He was offered an opportunity to establish an alibi, but " had nothing to say," and being released left the commission, still " in great embarrassment."

Compare also the statement of Mr. Douglas Young, British counsul at Archangel for three years up to August, 1918, in a letter to the London Times:

"So far from the Soviet Government having violated the sanctity of the British Embassy at Petrograd, the Embassy no longer existed, as its personnel had ignominiously fled the country some months previously, and official representatives of the British' Admiralty and War Office were abusing diplo-

matic privilege-to which, in fact, they had no claim-to organise, in conjunction with Russian counter-revolutionaries, under cover of the Embassy building, a plot to overthrow the Soviet de facto authorities in Archangel and elsewhere."

The investigating commission followed the trail of the conspiracy to Petrograd, and broke in upon a meeting of the conspirators in the sacred precincts of the British Embassy. Resistance was offered, and three Red Guards were killed by Captain Cromie, a naval attache, who was then fired upon and killed. A search of the premises resulted in the discovery of further proofs of the participation of the British Embassy in the conspiracy. Captain Cromie, who had been killed in the fracas, was discovered to have had a part in the plot.

But, to return to the White Book:

No. 2. Sir E. Howard, British minister at Stockholm, transmits to Mr. Balfour the list of some important dispatches from Mr. Wordrop, of the British consulate at Moscow. These dispatches describe the arrest of " several British subjects," including part of the various consulate staffs, who were presently released. A characteristic anti-Semitic note appears in one dispatch, which explains the considerate treatment of the detained staffs by the prison guards by saying that the latter are " real Russians, unlike most of the leaders, who are either fanatics or Jewish ad-venturers Iike Trotzky and Radek." (Our italics, here and subsequently).

No. 3. Sir R. Paget, British minister at Copenhagen, transmits to Mr. Balfour a somewhat hysterical report from the Danish minister at Petrograd, describing the raid on the British Embassy, the true story of which has just been related above. Among the " atrocities " accompanying the raid, it is stated that the " Cross of St. George was taken from the body [of Captain Cromie], and subsequently worn by one of the murderers"!

No. 4. Sir R. Paget transmits to Mr. Balfour under date of Sept. 9, an anonymous " telegram from Petrograd," describing the events which followed the assassination of Uritzky and the attempt to kill Lenin. " Lockhart was arrested and condemned to death, but at the last moment we succeeded in saving him; 28 British, including British consul, and t i French have been arrested in Petrograd." (After the discovery of the British-French conspiracy, it was not unnaturally believed that Lockhart and the others might be implicated in this one. It is not true, however, that Lockhart was condemned to death; but subsequently he was threatened with prosecution for bigamy!-an interesting commentary on the alleged " free-love " decrees which crop up later in these reports.-The " Red Terror," which is reported in this dispatch as having begun, will be dealt with later in this account).

No. g. Mr. Lindley, charge d'affaires of the British Embassy at Archangel, telegraphs Mr. Balfour that he has just received news of the " murder of Captain Cromie by the Bolsheviks, and accusations of the latter against him. He defends the character of Captain Crom[e, but lets the cat out of the bag by admitting that " his plans may very

June, 1919   35

well have involved destruction of certain bridges, as Bolsheviks declare"! Nevertheless, " in Captain Cromie, His Majesty has lost a gallant, capable, and devoted servant." No doubt!

A "Beautiful Example"

No. 6. Sir M. Findlay, Christiania, transmits a report by the Netherlands Minister at Petrograd, dated Sept. 6. Another account of the death of Captain Cromie. His burial. Funeral address by Netherlands Minister, ending: " Let his splendid and beautiful example lead us and inspire us all until the end of our days. Amen." (What kind of example the deceased afforded has been made sufficiently clear above.) Report also describes interview with Tchicherin, Commissar of Foreign Affairs, in which Nether-lands Minister told him that " he must realize full well that the Bolshevik Government was not a match for England"; but " in spite of the persistence with which I drove these facts home, I could not obtain any definite promises. . . Bolsheviks have burnt their boats and are ready for any wickedness." (Things truly are in a sad state when you can't frighten people by waving the Union jack in their faces!)

His Majesty's Relatives

No. 7. Mr. Alston, Vladivostok, transmits report of Mr. Preston, His Majesty's consul at Ekaterinburg, on the circumstances of the death of His Majesty's cousin, the late Czar of All the Russias.

No. 8. Sir C. Eliot, Ekaterinburg, sends another and different story of the death of His Brittanic Majesty's esteemed relative. He also encloses a memorandum on the last days of the Royal Family, written by the British former tutor of the Czarevitch. " The Grand Duchesses were always happy and contented, and seemed satisfied with the simple life to which they were reduced, although they pined for more exercise in the open air, the yard being a poor substitute for the parks." Touching indeed! How it must fire the blood of the dwellers in the slums of Whitechapel, to read of this unseemly treatment of royalty.

No. 9. From Vladivostok, transmitting report of consul at Ekaterinburg, concerning the tragic discovery of the bodies of a Grand Duchess and three Royal Princes, also that of a Grand Duke and a lady-in-waiting, in a mine pit. (Compare statistics of deaths in mines, U. S. A., any year). " All were buried with ceremonial."

joy in the Union League Club

36

No. so. Mr. Lockhart on the Bolshevik government. " The Bolsheviks have established a rule of force and oppression unequalled in the history of any autocracy," with details. (This is the same Lockhart who conspired to over-throw the Soviet Government by bribery, murder and starvation, in order to set up a military dictatorship. The disinterestedness of his opinions may be surmised.)

Economic Conditions

No. I r. Reports on conditions in Russia: (I) by Mrs. L , formerly of Moscow, in regard to the peasants and the land, wages and food, and "repression of democracy"; (2) by Mr. H -, formerly of Vladimir, with an elaborate statement of trade conditions in Central Russia; (3) by

Mr. G , formerly of Petrograd; and (4) by Col. Kimens, acting British vice-consul at Petrograd. The most important of these revelations are those in (2), which show production in the linen industry as 50 per cent of normal; in the woollen trade 40 per cent; in the cotton trade 40 per cent, with 70 per cent of the mills running; the silk trade " practically dead"; paper production 6o per cent of normal ; coal 6o per cent ; the crops (1918) above the aver-age, the peasants " making much money " and bringing new land under cultivation, and " demanding and buying good agricultural implements."

"Surprising" Statistics

These figures are so surprising that the New Republic gags at them in two different issues. " We do not know what to make of such a report," says its issue of April 12. " If the figures are accurate, Russia is going through an industrial crisis no more severe than other countries have known in times of peace." It concludes that the economic facts given in the White Book are probably "too favorable to the Soviet regime." And on April 22 it gives the figures again (not quite correctly this time), and says:

" Have we any estimate of affairs in our own land that gives us the basis for comparison? Yes. The National Manufacturers' Association, comprising 4,400 industrial establishments classified in 22 groups, has just completed a survey of business conditions in this country. Of the 22 groups, sixteen report business as being from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of normal." The moral which it draws this time is that this " would simply seem to be an amusing illustration of the way in which figures can mean nothing."

The New Republic's conclusion is at least an amusing illustration of one way to deal with statistics: the British White Book must have exaggerated the prosperity of Russia under the Soviet Government-it can't be possible, and therefore it isn't happening!

There is available, however, for those who wish to inform themselves otherwise than by " guess "-work on this subject, the first annual report of the Soviet Government on the Productivity of Russian Labor. It is now being published in the New York Communist. " Ordinarily," says the re-port, " when it is attempted to prove a great decrease in

THE L1)3ERATOR

productivity of factories, it is done in an extremely simple manner: figures are taken for the first quarter of the last pre-revolutionary years, and are compared with the corresponding figures of the present year. . . The result is always the same; a colossal decrease of production is shown, and from that the inference is drawn of the immediately forthcoming catastrophe. Nonetheless, not a single sane per-son ever doubted that the greatest of economic changes must temporarily affect production. And therefore it is of little significance to us that after the proletarian revolution, which had taken place in a condition of utter economic exhaustion, there was to be noted a decrease in the productivity of Iabor. What is significant is how the curve-line ran after the change. It is necessary to compare the figures of the months following the change, one after another, in order to discover the basic tendency which will enable us to draw a conclusion as to whether we have to deal with a decrease in the productivity of labor as a permanent phenomenon under the present changed social structure of life-or whether it is merely a temporary condition."

Approaching the Peace-Time Norm

The figures so far published are from the metal industry-which has been particularly at the mercy of unfavorable conditions (the occupation of the Donetz Basin by German and Ukrainian troops). Nevertheless, " in the cast-steel industry the productivity in April, as compared with January, had gone up 17o%; in the cast-iron industry, 131%; in the hydraulic press industry 40%." In the smelting industry, April showed an increase of 33% over January. This is due to extraordinary efforts of the workers to overcome obstacles, efforts which are motivated by their desire to keep Soviet Russia alive. " In Makeefa, which was twice occupied by Cossacks and Ukrainians, the daily output of coal from the mines went up, from March to the middle of April alone, from 60,ooo poods to 92,000, or over 50%." Detailed statistics from the Zlatoustovsky district tell the same tale. Furthermore, the statistics of the first three and a half months of 1918, in a single factory, as compared with the output for the year 1916, showed a 4 per cent decrease in pig-iron output, and a 4 per cent increase in bars, founded pig-iron and the production of fire-stoves, while founded steel showed an increase of more than 400 per cent, or 50 per cent over the whole year of 1916. In various factories named the increase over a short period has ranged from 65 to 200 per cent, and " Several factories are either approaching or have already attained the peace-time norm."

Russian industry was going to pieces when the October Revolution occurred; under Kerensky it collapsed; the Soviet Government, in spite of everything that the capitalist governments of the world can do to starve it by war and blockade, has slowly at first and now more rapidly, re-established it upon a firm basis. That is the truth.

We proceed. In No. '12, Mr. Lindley uses up telegraph tolls to. venture to lay before Mr. Balfour the following considerations: that " there is nothing new in Bolshevik ideas of

June, 1919   37

society "; that " they were expressed in the sixties of the last century by a certain Bakunin, commonly considered an anarchist"; that " an exact description of them may be found on page 319 of volume II, 1905 edition, of Sir W. Wallace's work entitled ' Russia' "; and that " the book Lenin has written on the subject can add nothing to that description." He concludes this scholarly report by saying that " if it is inconvenient to punish their crimes and rid the world of them by force, the only alternative consistent with self-respect is to treat them like pariahs." (In a word, if we can't kill the bally wretches, let's at least " cut 'em dead." Our imperial lritish visiting list shall not contain their names! Our imperial British nose is elevated toward His Majesty's sky in high-class scorn of their low-class proceedings!)

No. 13, Sir C. Eliot to Mr. Balfour, is another account of the demise of the Royal Family.

The Food Question-Various Views

No. 14. Lord Kilmarnock has been talking to Mr. D , a manufacturer, recently of Petrograd, who says that conditions there are bad and getting worse; " deaths from starvation were still a common occurrence." (Nov. 27.)

No. 15 is a memorandum on conditions in Moscow, by a British subject who left there Dec. 1. " There is no actual food famine in Russia; on the contrary, there are enormous stocks of foodstuffs which could be spared for the rest of Europe. There is a famine, however, in articles of clothing and agricultural implements."

No. 16. Mr. Alston, in Vladivostok, telegraphs information, " which may be considered authentic," about conditions in Moscow. " Three-quarters of the people are slowly starving to death. With the exception of the Bolsheviks, the whole population is terrorized almost to a point of physical paralysis and imbecility." (A rather large exception; and it is an interesting suggestion, that about anti-Bolshevik imbecility!) He also generalizes on conditions in Petrograd (from VIadivostok, 6,500 miles away) : "It may be considered that the whole population in Petrograd is virtually insane, if not hunger-stricken." He concludes: " To release and provide food for themselves and their armies, Bolsheviks will be forced ultimately to kill off the greater portion of the population. In any of the big towns. as at Petrograd, Moscow, and Kursk, a horrible massacre is possible at any moment." It looks as if Mr. AIston were a little touched with that anti-Bolshevik imbecility himself.

No. 17. Mr. Alston calls Mr. Balfour's attention to the fact that " there will be a serious shortage of foodstuffs in Europe so long as the fields of Russia are unproductive, or their produce is unable to be exported, as Russia is the principal granary of Europe." He therefore recommends " intervention on a larger scale than hitherto attempted "! Perhaps Mr. Alston is not so crazy after all! " It is absurd," he adds, piously, " to pretend that effective military intervention would be an espousal of the cause of capitalism against labor, and an act of oppression."

Atrocities

No. i8, from Mr. Alston, is an account of the booty captured in Perm, the taking of which, he concludes, is of " great economic significance." Bolshevik atrocities alleged. Compare the Izvestia:

" On the battle-front near Perm, Soviet troops have occupied Nevian, and have there come upon atrocities of the most terrible kind committed by the White Guards-who, not having time to shoot their Soviet prisoners, threw bombs into the prison. The Soviet troops discovered their corpses under the ruins. The White Guards captured a Soviet scout, applied the third degree to him, and then cut out his tongue and stabbed him with bayonets."

No. 19 is from a British political agent on the north-western frontier. The Bolsheviks are reported to have killed certain British citizens.

No. 20. General Poole to the War Office. " The Bolsheviks are employing gangs of Chinese for the purpose of

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