Shortly after the Lenine-Trotzky government came into power in Russia, in the latter part of the year 1917, Bolshevism became very popular in America among the radicals, especially the Socialists. Among those who helped most to bring it into such high esteem was Albert Rhys Williams, who had spent but one year of his life in Russia, hardly spoke the Russian language, and while staying in that country was in the pay of the Bolsheviki, as he testified before the Senate Committee.

The Bolsheviki came into power by violence and have sustained themselves in power by violence and terrorism. Their main support, the so-called Red Army, in which the Chinese and Letts have played a prominent part, is an army of mercenaries who are well paid and well fed, while thousands of civilians are dying from starvation in the cities and towns of Russia.

The first success of the Bolsheviki was the dissolution by bayonets of the Constituent Assembly, which for forty years had been the goal of all Russians--even of the Bolsheviki up to the time when they found it overwhelmingly against them. Then they invented a new double name for their anti-democratic government: Soviets, or dictatorship of the proletariat. Next they dissolved all the democratic Municipal Councils and Zemstvos and proceeded to take away the various liberties won in the revolution against the regime of the Czar.

The dictatorship of the proletariat led rapidly to an almost complete stoppage of industry. Governmental expenditures increased by leaps and bounds with the growing pauperization of the people; for the growing staffs of Bolshevist officials were utterly incompetent, a large army of mercenaries was required in order to keep down the ever-increasing number of insurrections and the ceaseless attacks from many foreign foes, enormous subsidies had to be paid to Bolshevist workingmen, regardless of the fact that the factories were producing sometimes little and sometimes nothing, and, finally, the Lenine government spent great sums in revolutionary propaganda in the different countries of the world. Political and economic slavery, moral corruption and the starvation of millions of people, are a few of the "blessings" bestowed upon Russia by Bolshevism.

Catherine Breshkovsky, the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," herself a Socialist, speaking of the Bolsheviki, said:

"In addition to the crimes in their foreign policy, which culminated in the treacherous Brest-Litovsk 'peace' with German militarists, the Bolsheviki have committed innumerable crimes in their internal policy. They have destroyed all civil liberties in Russia: freedom of speech, of the press, of assemblage and of organization; they have filled prisons through the country with their political adversaries, proclaiming 'enemies of the people' not only the Liberals, the Constitutional-Democratic Party, but also the party of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Social-Democrats Mensheviki, that is, the parties of the Russian peasantry and proletariat. They have instituted a system of terror unequaled in cruelty, and while hundreds of innocent hostages would pay with their lives for the assassination or for the attempt to assassinate a Bolshevist commissaire, they did not punish the Red Guards who assassinated the two Ministers of the Provisional Government, Kokoshkin and Shingariev, while the latter were under Bolshevist arrest, lying sick in a hospital."

The January, 1919, issue of "The Eye Opener," the official organ of the National Office, Socialist Party, publishes the full text of the Russian Bolshevist Constitution under the caption, "Here's Constitution of World's First Socialist Republic." Some quotations from the document will no doubt prove interesting as well as instructive:

"For the purpose of realizing the socialization of land, all private property in land is abolished, and the entire land is declared to be national property and is to be apportioned among husbandmen without any compensation to the former owners, in the measure of each one's ability to till it.

"All forests, treasures of the earth, and waters of general public utility, all implements whether animate or inanimate, model farms and agricultural enterprises are declared to be national property.

"As a first step toward complete transfer of ownership to the Soviet Republic of all factories, mills, mines, railways and other means of production or transportation, the Soviet law, for the control by workmen and the establishment of the Supreme Soviet of National Economy is hereby confirmed, so as to assure the power of the workers over their exploiters....

"Universal obligation to work is introduced for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the economic life of the country.

"For the purpose of securing the working class in the possession of the complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all toilers be armed, and that a Socialist Red Army be organized and the propertied class be disarmed....

"The Russian Republic is a free Socialist society of all the working people of Russia. The entire power, within the boundaries of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, belongs to all the working people of Russia, united in urban and rural Soviets....

"The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic considers work the duty of every citizen of the Republic, and proclaims as its motto: 'He shall not eat who does not work.'

"The following persons enjoy neither the right to vote nor the right to be voted for, even though they belong to one of the categories enumerated above, namely:

"Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase in profits.

"Persons who have an income without doing any work, such as interest from capital, receipts from property, etc.

"Private merchants, trade and commercial brokers.

"Monks and clergy of all denominations."

This Bolshevist Constitution shows that the Lenine government has decreed the socialization of all the land, factories, mills, mines and other means of production, as well as the railways and the various means of transportation. This program has been carried out, though as yet probably not completely. Conditions in Russia were deplorable under the regime of the Czar, but the Socialist government has made them a thousand times worse. Industry has been reduced to an almost negligible minimum, property has been destroyed on every side and possession made a crime. The country has been reduced to chaos, for no one cares to sow where others will reap; and unemployment is widespread, for employers are outlawed, and the government has not enough satisfactory positions to offer. The right to hold property is one of the binding forces that holds civilization together and supplies incentive to labor. Some of the evil effects of the confiscation and socialization of property in Russia are shown from the following articles, published by the Socialists-Revolutionists, a faction of the Marxians opposed to the Bolsheviki. Their paper, "Vlast Naroda," declares:

"The village has taken away the land from the landlords, farmers, wealthy peasants and monasteries. It cannot, however, divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.

"The more land there is, the greater the appetite for it; hence more quarrels, misunderstandings and fights.

"In Oboyansk County, many villages refused to supply soldiers when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their refusal they stated 'in the spring soldiers will be needed at home in the villages,' not to cultivate the land, but to protect it with arms against neighboring peasants.

"In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk and Voronezh peasant meetings adopted the following resolution:

"'All grown members of the peasant community have to be home in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the community.

"'These provisions are made for the purpose of having as great a force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing the land.' ...

"Some villages in the Nieshnov district, in the Province of Mohilev, have supplied themselves with machine guns. The village of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order fifteen machine guns and has organized a Red Army in order to be able better to defend a piece of land taken away from the landlord and, as they say, that 'the neighboring peasants should not come to cut our hay right in front of our windows, like last year.' When the neighboring peasants heard of the decision they also procured machine guns. They have formed an army and intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay on the meadows 'under the windows' of the disputed owners....

"Stubborn fights for meadows and forests are always going on. They often result in skirmishes and murder. There are similar happenings in other counties of the Province, for instance, in Petrov, Balashov and Arkhar.

"In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the community peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided to do away with 'Stolypin heirs,' as they call the shopkeepers. The latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn resistance. Combats have already taken place. The peasants demolish farms, and farmers set fire to towns, villages, thrashing floors, etc."

Indeed, the results of confiscation and socialization were so bad from the very beginning that no less a personage than Lenine himself, in "A Letter to American Workingmen," published by the Socialist Publication Society of Brooklyn, New York, on pages 12 and 13, says:

"Mistakes are being made by our peasants who, at one stroke, in the night from October 25 to October 26 (Russian Calendar), 1917, did away with all private ownership of land, and are now struggling, from month to month, under the greatest difficulties, to correct their own mistakes, trying to solve in practice the most difficult problems of organizing a new social state, fighting, against profiteers to secure the possession of the land, for the workers instead of for the speculator, to carry on agricultural production under a system of communist farming on a large scale.

"Mistakes are being made by our workmen in their revolutionary activity, who, in a few short months, have placed practically all the large factories and workers under state ownership, and are now learning, from day to day, under the greatest difficulties, to conduct the management of entire industries, to reorganize industries already organized, to overcome the deadly resistance of laziness and middle-class reaction and egotism."

The Socialists of the United States and other radical elements in our country, after the World War, began to laud to the skies the Russian Soviets as the most perfect form of government that the world had ever seen. They were held to far surpass parliaments, congress and other legislative bodies and to be the supreme accomplishments of a democratic form of government. The deputies of the soviets, according to the Bolshevist Constitution, were to be elected by the secret, direct and equal vote of all the working masses. Theoretically the soviets were very attractive, but in reality fall far short of the ideal. "Struggling Russia," a well-known weekly magazine published in New York City by one of the groups of Russian Socialists, has this to say about the Soviets in its issue of April 5, 1919:

"In fact, there never was either a secret election in Soviet Russia, or one based on equal suffrage. Elections are usually conducted at a given factory or foundry at open meetings, by the raising of hands and always under the knowing eye of the chairman. The majority of the workers very frequently do not take part in these elections at all. The rights of a minority are never recognized, as proportional representation has been rejected.

"As regards direct elections, it is again a mere phrase. The Central Executive Committee, which is supposed to embody the supreme administrative organ of the country, was actually being elected through a four-grade system. Local Soviets send their representatives to the Provincial Congress, the Provincial Congress is represented by delegates at the All-Russian Congress, and only this last body elects the Central Executive Committee. Often the delegates are not elected by the regular meetings of the Soviets at all, but are sent by the Executive Committees, cleverly handpicked by the Bolsheviki after the system of proportional representation was rejected....

"The exclusion from the Soviets of all who think differently from the Bolsheviki developed gradually. They 'cleansed' the Soviets in Perm and Ekaterinburg, in January 1918; in Ufa, Saratov, Samara, Kazan and Yaroslavl in December, 1917; in Moscow and Petrograd in February, 1918. They were excluding all Socialists-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, to say nothing of the People's Socialists and members of the Labor Group. Often, when workers demanded new elections to the Soviet (as happened in Petrograd late in December of 1917, and early in January, 1918), and such elections did take place, the Bolsheviki would not permit the newly elected delegates to enter the building of the Soviet and frequently arrested them. Gradually only Bolsheviki and Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left remained in the Soviets. Soon, however, after the assassination in Moscow of Count Mirbach, the German Ambassador, and the attempt at rebellion in Moscow early in June, 1918, by the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left, the Bolsheviki began to fill up the prisons with the latter just as they did with the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right and the Menshiviki.

"So, practically, there remained only Bolsheviki in the Soviets. And as there was no difference of opinion among them, regular meetings were soon abandoned altogether and the ostensible 'rule of the working masses' thus definitely disappeared. A few persons, often appointed from above (the Bolsheviki often had recourse to bayonets to support the fiction of Soviet rule: in Tumen the Executive Committee of a non-existent Soviet was brought from Ekaterinburg under a convoy of 800 Red Guards), would rule and lord it over the people, tired and weary of the war and a sterile revolution.

"Occasional outbursts of popular wrath serve as indications of the depth of dissatisfaction which is engendered by the Soviets and their offshoots, the Military-Revolutionary Committee. Thus, in the Polevsky works, in Ekaterinburg County, a mob of peasants, armed with axes, scythes and sticks, fell upon the Soviets and beast-like tore into fragments fifty Bolsheviki. In the Neviansk works the insurrection of the workers against the Red Army lasted for three days, until reinforcements from Perm finally subdued this 'counter-revolutionary' revolt. In Okhansk County 2,000 peasants were shot down for demanding the abolition of the Soviets and the re-establishment of the rule of the people."

In the April 19, 1919, issue of "Struggling Russia" we are told that "Vlast Naroda," in May, 1918, thus described the uprisings against the Soviets:

"In Kleen, a crowd entered by force the building occupied by the Soviets with the intention of bringing the deputies before their own court of justice. The latter fled. The Financial Commisary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order to escape the infuriated crowd.

"In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo, the deputies work in their offices, guarded by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets they are accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.

"In Penza, an attempt has been made on the lives of the Soviet members. One of the presiding officers has been wounded. The Soviet building is now surrounded with cannons and machine-guns.

"In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a Bartholomew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals....

"In Bielo, all members of the Soviets have been murdered.

"In Soligalich, two of the most prominent members of the Soviets have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been beaten half-dead.

"In Atkarsk, several members of the Soviets have been killed."

"Struggling Russia," May 31, 1919, informs us that the Petrograd Committee of the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left, in the middle of March, 1919, issued the following proclamation condemning the Petrograd Soviet:

"Shame to the Bolshevist Violators, Liars and 'Agents Provocateurs!'

"The Petrograd Soviet does not express the will of the Workmen, Sailors and 'Reds.'

"The Soviet was not elected. The elections were either pretenses or held under threats of shooting or starvation. This terrorism completely suffocated freedom of speech, the press and meetings of the laboring classes.

"The Petrograd Soviet consists of self-appointed Bolsheviki. It is a blind tool in the hands of the 'agents-provacateurs,' hangmen and assassins of the Bolshevist regime....

"Where is the dictatorship of the proletariat and working peasantry? It has been supplanted by the dictatorship of the Central Committee of the Bolshevist Party, governing with the assistance of a swarm of extraordinary commissions and punitive detachments of imported soldiers."

Though the Russian Socialists overthrew the government of the Czar in the hope of securing liberty, liberty, under the Bolshevist regime, is farther off than it was before. The British High Commissioner, R. H. Bruce-Lockhart, in a telegram sent to the British Foreign Office, November 10, 1918, among other things said:

"The Bolsheviki have established a rule of force and oppression unequaled in the history of any autocracy.

"Themselves the fiercest upholders of the right of free speech, they have suppressed, since coming into power, every newspaper which does not approve their policy.

"The right of holding public meetings has been abolished. The vote has been taken away from everybody except the workmen in factories and the poorer servants, and even amongst the workmen those who dared to vote against the Bolsheviki are marked down by the Bolshevist police as counter-revolutionaries, and are fortunate if their worst fate is to be thrown into prison, of which in Russia today it may truly be said, 'many go in but few come out.'"

V. M. Zenzinov, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialists-Revolutionists, in an article published in "Struggling Russia," April 12, 1919, speaking of absence of liberty under Bolshevism, says:

"It was during my stay in Petrograd in April, 1918, that a conference of factory and industrial plant employees of Petrograd and vicinity was held, to which 100,000 Petrograd workingmen (out of a total of 132,000) sent delegates. The conference adopted a resolution sharply denouncing the Bolshevist regime. Following this conference an attempt was made, in May, to call together an All-Russian Congress of workmen's deputies in Moscow, but all the delegates were arrested by the Bolsheviki, and to this day I am ignorant of the fate that befell my comrades."

Justice, as well as liberty, is a dead letter in the land of Lenine, and conscription is rigidly enforced by the Russian Socialist Government. R. H. Bruce-Lockhart, to whom reference has been made, in his telegram to the British Foreign Office, November 10, 1918, stated:

"The Bolsheviki have abolished even the most primitive forms of justice. Thousands of men and women have been shot without even the mockery of a trial, and thousands more are left to rot in the prisons under conditions to find a parallel to which one must turn to the darkest annals of Indian or Chinese history....

"The Bolsheviki who destroyed the Russian army, and who have always been the avowed opponents of militarism, have forcibly mobilized officers who do not share their political views, but whose technical knowledge is indispensable, and by the threat of immediate execution have forced them to fight against their fellow-countrymen in a civil war of unparalleled horror."

Concerning religious conditions in Russia, the Rev. Dr. George S. Simons, shortly after his return from that country, testified before the Senatorial Committee, which, in February, 1919, was investigating the nature of Russian Bolshevism:

"The Bolshevik is not only an atheist, but he also seeks to make all religions impossible. They assert that all misery is due to the superstition that there is a God. One of their officials told me:

"'We now propose to enlighten our children, and with this purpose in view, we are issuing a catechism on atheism for use in all the schools.'

"The man who told me this was the Commissionaire of Enlightenment and Education."

On February 7, 1919, an appeal was sent to Pope Benedict XV, by the Orthodox Greek clergy of that part of Russia which had not fallen a prey to the Bolsheviki. It was signed by Sylvester, Archbishop of Omsk, President of the Supreme Administration of the Orthodox Church, and by other members of the same administration. This letter implored the Holy Father to deign to take into consideration the conditions existing in Russia. It exposed a list of crimes and outrages, cities sacked, churches profaned and pillaged, more than twenty bishops and more than one hundred priests assassinated, the victims being of every kind. Some of them before they were put to death had their arms and legs cut off, while others were buried alive. Nuns were violated; the socialization of women was proclaimed; rein was given to unbridled passions; everywhere there was nothing but famine, death and misery. The following message is also noteworthy:

"With deep grief, Venerable Father, we expose to you the unhappy conditions in which millions of Russians of true Russia are reduced. Relying on that unity which makes all mankind one, and on the strength of Christian fraternity, we hope, Venerable Father, that we may count on your compassion as representing the Christian Church, and trust that your flock will be informed of what is going on, and that in common with you they will offer fervent prayers to Him, in whose hands are both life and death, for those who in the northeast of Europe are being made, because of their love of Christ, Martyrs of the faith in the twentieth century."

"Dyelo Naroda," an organ of the Socialists-Revolutionists of Russia, in April, 1918, stated that the situation of the church and clergy was horrible. "Everything pertaining to them is being spit upon and profaned. People, with rifles on their shoulders and their hats on, often enter the church and right there question the clergymen and arrest priests, at the same time mocking the religious feelings of the praying crowd. Many churches have been closed as a result of the edict concerning the separation of Church and State."

"The New York Times," April 11, 1919, published the following special cable despatch concerning the religious persecution:

"London, April 10.--The Chronicle publishes an article by R. Courtier Foster, a British Chaplain at Odessa and Russian ports of the Black Sea, describing the religious persecution practised by the Bolsheviki following upon their former capture of Odessa. He says:

"'Committees were held on board the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, among the dockers in the port, in the towns and villages on every hand, which passed resolutions reading:

"'"We abolish God." In Odessa Cathedral, when the Archbishop of Kherson was celebrating the Holy Mysteries, an uproar occurred with cries of "Down with the priests!" "Down with the Church!" At a fÊte in the town gardens one saw a soldier of the Red Army, amid the guffaws of his fellows, spit on the Russian holy picture of the face of Christ, then tear it into fragments and stamp it into the dust.

"'The Bolshevist conception of religious toleration is considerably more elastic and far-reaching than the ideas of any mediÆval inquisition. In this matter the Bolsheviki pride themselves on being far in advance of our effete western thought. They have murdered Vladimir, the Metropolitan of Kiev, twenty bishops, and many hundreds of priests. Before killing them they cut off the limbs of their victims, some of whom they buried alive in the Kremlin. The Cathedrals in Moscow and those in the towns of Yaroslav and Simferopol have been sacked. Many nuns were violated and churches defiled.

"'The ancient and historical sacristies and famous libraries of Moscow and Petrograd were pillaged and countless sanctuaries profaned. In Cronstadt Cathedral the great figure of the Crucified Christ was torn down and removed, and a monstrous and appalling pagan form placed in its stead, symbolizing "Freedom of Mind."

"'It is not against any one particular form of religion that the terrors of the new Freedom are hurled. Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Lutherans alike have been tortured, mutilated, and done to death under the aegis of the Holy Revolution which appeals to the proletariat of the whole world to join its forces.

"'The Revolutionary Government is subjecting the Christian religion to persecutions as great and brutal as anything the world saw during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Moral disintegration and ruin spread their tentacles on every side. Any restraint on sinful impulse or covetous desire is laughed to scorn. The Bolsheviki publicly encourage outrage and looting. The propaganda for freedom of mind is essentially nihilistic. It is based on negation and denial of the existence of God, denial of the authority of any moral law, denial of all rights of conscience, denial of all religious liberty, denial of all freedom of the press, denial of any liberty of speech.

"'One officer remarked despairingly to me: "In Russia now there is no God, no Czar, no law, no property, no money, no food--only freedom." And in that travesty of liberty, which the whole civilized world may well shudder at, all mercy, pity and toleration are alike scorned. And it is this new and wonderful equality of man which by means of torture, outrage and assassinations proclaims the "freedom of mind and body" to the devastated Russian nation.'"

In an Associated Press despatch, from London, that appeared in "The New York Times" on April 19, 1919, we are informed that of the 300 priests in the Perm diocese, 46 have been killed; moreover, that two monasteries were pillaged.

A very interesting and enlightening article on religion in Russia and the attitude of the Bolsheviki towards it appears in "The Proletarian," Detroit, April, 1919. The author is Ernest Greenburg and we shall quote the greater part of his article:

"The resolution adopted by the Socialist Party of Michigan at its recent State Convention that, 'It shall be the duty of all agitators and organizers upon all occasions to avail themselves of the opportunity of explaining religion,' caused a storm of indignation to arise among certain 'Socialists.' Clinging to the old fallacy that religion should be left alone, they point to the Russian Constitution and the works of the Bolshevik leaders who say 'Religion is a private matter.' But they fail to understand that the interpretation of the term 'Religion is a private matter,' has a different meaning here than it has in Russia.

"The slogan, 'Religion is a private matter,' is not of Russian origin. It has been and is one of the battle cries of the Revolutionary working class in all countries in which the Church and the State are combined. Different conditions account for different understandings of the terms 'Private Matter' here and in Russia.

"Probably in no other country have religion and the church played such an important role in the affairs of the state as in Russia up to the very present time. Truly, it was not so much the force of arms as that of ignorance which kept up the Czardom for hundreds of years. The Feudal aristocracy realized the advantages to be derived from keeping the minds of its slaves in darkness and superstition. One of the most powerful weapons in the hands of aristocracy was the Church, whose noble duty it was to sow and to propagate ignorance. The Church was officially a part of the state. People were forced to go to church; school children¹⁰ were taught the 'Holy Law of God,' attacks against the church were punished as attacks against the Czar.

"Religious ignorance of the masses was the greatest enemy of the Socialists in their propaganda work; at every step they had to meet and to combat the authority of God, in whose name the church servants consecrated the yoke of the Czar and the landlords. It was necessary to pull this poisonous tooth out of the jaws of the state. Hence came the demand: 'Religion is a private matter,'--private as opposed to state. It meant that the Church should be separated from the state and be deprived from its protection. It was a demand which, put to the Czarist government, if granted would only facilitate the struggle against this very religion.

"Similar demands have been put in the Socialist platforms of Germany, Austria, and other countries which were confronted with conditions like those in Russia. One of the immediate demands of the French revolutionists of the nineteenth century was of this nature.

"The November Revolution put the Russian workers in possession of the machinery of the church. As a weapon of ignorance, it could not be used against the exploiters; nor could it be destroyed by force. Then the Russian workers declared religion a private matter, thereby depriving it of State protection and forcing it under the blows of scientific criticism, which will rapidly do away with the reminders of the decrepit superstitions.

"In America religion always was 'a private matter.' It had never been officially related to the state, but just the same it is now being employed by the ruling class against the workers. If it is not yet as influential here as it was in Russia during the reign of the Czars--it is becoming so. Its destructive work cannot be neglected any longer. It must be fought....

"German Socialists understand that by destroying the holy alliance between the Church and the State their task would not be completed. After that 'We must wage unrelenting war against the Church,' says Bebel, 'because she foments civil war among the workers--because it is the only reactionary force which has any strength and which keeps us in voluntary slavery.'

"By separating the Church from the State and thereby enforcing their demand, 'Religion is a private matter,' the French Socialists were not yet satisfied. They went on fighting religion, and their Belgian comrades worked in accord with them. Says E. Vandervelde, 'We are bound to admit that both in philosophy and in politics there must be war between Socialism and the Church.'

"This attitude of the French and Belgian Socialists was approved by the international Congress at Amsterdam, 1904.

"The position of the Russian Socialists is very clear. They fully understand that 'Religion is a private matter' signifies only the first stage in the war against mental slavery. 'Religion is a private matter,' says N. Boucharin (The Church and the School), 'but it does not mean that we must not fight it by persuasion.' Further on he emphasizes that it is a 'private matter' only as much as forceful protection or forceful destruction is concerned. Beyond the gates of the State's protection, religion is not considered to be a private matter in Russia. It is fought there in schools and educational institutions by 'Propaganda, explanation and education.'

"In this question American Socialists must not be misled by the seeming contradiction in terms."

In the April 19, 1919, number of "Struggling Russia," Dioneo gives some interesting information relative to the destruction of education under the Bolshevist regime:

"The lower and secondary schools are ruined. The villages have their Soviets, their premises for meetings, but no lower schools. As regards secondary schools, the Bolshevist reformers are of the opinion that, in general, such institutions are not wanted and are just as unnecessary as the intermediate stage between nascent capitalism and the extreme form of communism.

"The Bolsheviki have only acknowledged the universities. At first, the reformers made such experiments on the latter as, for instance, the appointment of a porter to the post of inspector of the Technological institute, or of a cook as head-mistress of the Higher Courses for Girls. Then the Bolsheviki decided that no certificates were necessary for matriculation at the university. Any half-educated person might become a student of any faculty. The professors were at a loss to know how to lecture on higher mathematics to students ignorant of the multiplication table, or how to explain spectral analysis to persons hardly able to read. Then the Bolsheviki decided that there was no necessity for the professor to have a diploma either. It was only necessary that he should be a supporter of the Bolshevist platform. That is all! And celebrated Professors were obliged to leave the universities which they had made famous....

"National education--elementary, secondary, and higher--has been completely ruined by the Bolsheviki. Lately, they have apparently decided that Bolshevism ought to give the world a new type of university, quite different from that of the bourgeoisie. And with that in mind, the Municipal Council of Voronezh has thought of a 'Street University.' This is how the 'Izvestia' describes this curious institution of higher education: 'Each of the principal thoroughfares of Voronezh is now a faculty--of law, economics, history, literature, science, etc. The walls of the houses are placarded with posters, containing portraits and brief biographies of men distinguished in one or another branch of knowledge and brief items of information concerning the respective subject.' Thus comments the organ of the Bolshevist Government: 'Every citizen, instead of spending years at a university, can pick up a general knowledge of the principal educational subjects as he goes along.' ...

"Russia's school system is ruined. Education reforms exist only on paper. And at the same time the Bolsheviki, wishing to show that they value knowledge very highly, have announced that a geographical university such as the world has 'never yet seen' is going to be opened in Petrograd. It is interesting to know what professors will lecture in this new university, and who will form their audience?"