We have read so much in the last day or two about Bolshevism being established in Europe, that it is worth while inquiring how it really works. The accounts of it that have as yet appeared, speak only of the murders and robberies. I wish in this article to ignore their bloodshed and simply to state what the Bolsheviks’ ideals are, and what is the result when these ideals are put into practice.

Bolshevism is a term which may be translated as “Maximalism.” The Bolsheviks demand the maximum of Socialism, are the Socialists “whole hoggers.” They start from the theory that the middle classes are incapable of rule, and that only two classes can govern the country—the capitalists or the workmen. Since it has to be one of the two, they are determined it shall be the workmen. Their watchword is not freedom for all, but the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the tyranny of one class of society above all the others.

Their organ of government is the Soviet. Lenin boasts that the day of Parliaments has passed, and that he has discovered something better, which will take their place all over the world. A Soviet is simply a Council. Its constituencies are the various Trades Unions, who elect members in proportion to their numbers. The Soviet in turn appoints Commissars who correspond to our Ministers of State. Exactly how the Commissars are all made to go in the same direction I do not know. Lenin spent a good deal of time last year in writing articles to prove that a President was as useless as a King, and that no formal head of a Government is necessary. From what I have heard, the absence of a formal head only leads to a series of intrigues between conflicting parties, which very much hamper government while they continue, and generally result in some dominant personality attaining the leadership and filling up the chief posts with creatures of his own.

The franchise, which is supposed to include all those who work for their living, is a shamelessly artificial one. To take but one instance. In Irkutsk the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority in the Soviet. They thereupon declared that the franchise must be changed, it was too bourgeois. They succeeded in carrying through a new principle—that the franchise should belong to “physical labour” only. All such occupations as demanded education were ruled out. Some of the more enlightened Bolsheviks tried to obtain the vote for elementary school-teachers, but they were shouted down. Similar gerrymandering has taken place in every part of Russia. There is another peculiarity about the Soviets. They are elected by physical labour; but who controls them? In no case members of the working-classes. Lenin’s principle is that the working-man is too stupid to know what is good for him, and he must be told what to do. Soviet rule is a system by which a handful of political adventurers first impose themselves on a party and then impose this party on the State.

Bolshevism is a tyranny, and like all other tyrannies has great need of secrecy. Do not let any English readers run away with the idea that because Lenin published the secret agreements of Kerenski, he is therefore an enemy of secret diplomacy himself. He concluded the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, and the Russian people to this day do not know all that it pledged them to. At Irkutsk reporters had no right to be present at the debates of the Soviet, and such reports as did appear were officially prepared and often issued a month late. At that time Irkutsk was on the verge of starvation, and it was necessary to put heart in the people with a promise of plenty. So from time to time the Soviet officially stated that they had reached an agreement with China by which the frontier was to be opened. These statements were deliberate untruths. In a Parliament it would have been possible to force a debate on this point and make the Government explain why the frontier was still closed and declare its policy. In view of the fact that the Union of Democratic Control, the Manchester Guardian, Lee Smith, and others of that kidney have been such staunch supporters of the Bolsheviks, it is extremely important to realize that under Soviet rule there is no democratic control at all, and worse secrecy than there ever was under the Czar.

To turn to commerce and finance. The Bolsheviks call themselves Communists, and aim at the abolition of private property. Land may neither be bought nor sold. When you die all your property goes to the State, and while you are alive the State may take from you what it pleases. Nothing is yours; all is the State’s. The effete Parliaments of the West generally estimate their expenditure for the coming year, and plan their taxation accordingly. Not so the Soviet. They do indeed levy taxes, but they are always in want of money. Their plan is simple; they go to the nearest rich man, and “touch” him for the amount. From one man alone at Irkutsk they had obtained £15,000 in three months. In many towns they had bled the rich white, and were beginning on the middle classes. Whatever they wanted, they took—houses, furniture, cattle, horses, motor-cars—without any compensation. If you were ruined, you were brutally told to go and work with your hands. In one town, where they took a house with all that was in it, the lady had just got in a stock of underclothing for the summer. Not conceiving what use these things could be to the Soviet, she petitioned that they might be handed over to her. She was told that it was impossible, as the articles in question had already been “nationalized.”

Everything was nationalized. It began with the banks. You could get money to pay your workmen with, but if you wanted it for anything else you needed the licence of the Soviet. You became the slave of the Soviet, and could spend nothing except as they directed you. This power was mercilessly used to crush opponents. All mines and factories were nationalized and passed completely into the control of the working-man. They lived on the capital of the firm, gave themselves high wages, and did no work. Most of the undertakings had to be closed, and I did not hear that the working-men made a success of it in a single case. And they were far greedier than the capitalist. One Petrograd factory was making overshoes at a price to themselves of four roubles a pair. They put them on the market at forty-five roubles a pair. At the Cheremhovo coal-mines the miners voted themselves fifty roubles a day—whether they worked or not. As a result, all those public services which depended on Cheremhovo coal either showed a great deficit or had to put their prices up, while private enterprises dependent on Cheremhovo coal could not continue. Munition factories, after peace was signed, simply refused to be shut down. They insisted on orders being given them to keep them at work. Where will you find things as bad as this in the worst days of Capitalism?

To come to the Land Question. The Bolshevik formula is, “No one is to receive less than is sufficient to support a man and his family or more than a man and his family can cultivate.” It puts a damper on all enterprise, sets the man of ambition and ability on the same level with the lazy and the stupid, and makes of the farmer a mere grubber of the soil. The Bolsheviks boast of having collected and distributed a large amount of agricultural machinery. But they have “collected” it from the rich farmers, who knew how to use it, and distributed it among the ignorant peasants who understand nothing about it at all. They have driven away the intelligent and educated men who were the backbone of Russian agriculture and in their place have put men who will not be able to get out of the land a quarter of what their predecessors did. The peasants are not grateful, but hate them intensely. The peasant wants to own his bit of land, he wants to be free to develop it, and he dearly loves the joy of battling with a dealer for a good price for his crops. None of these things are possible under the Socialists.

We come to Education. Here they have persecuted the teachers who would not acknowledge their power, and put them on the street to starve. In some Siberian towns they have declared that education makes people bourgeois, and that, therefore, all schooling must cease at the age of sixteen. At Vladivostok they are openly inciting their supporters to murder all students and professors. Everybody knows that if they were returned to power in Vladivostok not a single member of the Oriental Institute would be left alive. At the same time they are trying to make the stage and the cinematograph organs of Bolshevism. No play and no film is to be allowed that is not Bolshevistic in tendency. It is true that at Irkutsk they used to give “evenings” at cheap prices with the idea of providing the people with good intellectual fare. Mozart, MoliÈre, and the classic Russians used to figure on the programme. But all they have done has been too one-sided and special. Education demands freedom, and that is the one thing they will not give.

One of the strangest Bolshevik novelties was their reform of judicial procedure. Laws, lawyers, and judges were abolished at one blow. You might be prosecuted for treason. Your judges would be chosen from the people to officiate for this occasion only, perhaps even they would not be able to read or write. The prosecuting counsel would be a man of the same type. You instructed whoever you liked to appear for you. The court had to make law and find on the fact at the same time. Having established what you had done, they would proceed to deliberate as to whether it came within their idea of a crime. The public were invited to help them, and any one who chose might speak as long as he liked. Even schoolboys joined in. The proceedings were not so terrible for the defendant as might appear. He usually got a real lawyer to defend him, who could put his case skilfully. The representative of the Soviet was no match for him as a rule. Judges were lenient except to other Socialists and the Press. You were not always certain of being tried. The Bolsheviks would arrest a group of people on a charge of conspiracy and shoot them the same day. The absence of laws hit the Press very hard. All the organs obnoxious to the Bolsheviks were suppressed one by one. It was only too easy to convict a newspaper of sedition, if you made up the law on the subject afresh for each case.

These are just a few aspects of Bolshevik rule. In conclusion, I should like to give a concrete instance of how extreme Socialism works. A professional man at Irkutsk had by his talents and industry attained a distinguished position. Come the Bolsheviks, commandeer nearly all his rooms, and threaten to turn him out on the street and supplant him by one of their own men. When he protests, they jeer and tell him he will still be able to work with his hands. That was not the worst. He had a wife and family, for whom he had saved some money. If he died, the Bolsheviks would immediately step in and take all he possessed, including even the insurance. His wife might get some sort of a pension; his daughters would have to stop going to school and become servants or waitresses; his son, perhaps, would also have to give up his education and might manage to get a job as a cab-driver. The Socialist says how splendid! The children of rich and poor on an equality at last! Yes, the lazy and extravagant placed on exactly the same level as the industrious and the thrifty. Whether you spend what you earn, or whether you save it, it is all the same for those who come after you. On this rock the artificial restrictions of Bolshevism are sure to split. You will never persuade a man that the State will look after those dear to him as well as he himself can. You cannot take from him the right of providing with the fruits of his labour for wife and child. He will resent, with the deepest and bitterest anger of which he is capable, any endeavour to rob him of these privileges, and to make the State sole arbiter of the destiny of his children.