Bolshevism
a political and economic theory that has received practical application in Russia and to a limited extent in other countries. The word itself is Russian and as applied to a party means "Those who want more or most," i. e., the Extremists or Maximalists, who demand at once a complete overthrow of existing forms and the substitution of a new social order, as contrasted with the Minimalists, who, while demanding extensive reforms, are content to have these come gradually and as an evolution from present conditions. Russia offered the field, and the downfall of the Czar furnished the occasion, for putting the theory in practice. The collapse of the Czaristic régime threw the whole vast empire into a welter of confusion.
A contest ensued at once for the possession of power. The conservative element sought to establish a republican form of government, and as a concession to the agrarian element, offered to divide among the peasants the former estates of the Czar and the Church. The more moderate Socialists would have gone further in the matter of distribution, but thought the matter should be left with the Constituent Assembly. The Bolshevist element led by LENINE and TROTZKY (q. v.) declared for the taking of all the land BOLSHEVISM from their owners by the peasants at once, and urged a similar confiscation by the workmen of the factories in which they were employed. The latter program had at least the merit of courage and sincerity. There was no mincing of terms, no veiling of the issues. Confiscation pure and simple was demanded. And since only the comparatively few were propertied and the millions had nothing, the program of Lenine had a powerful appeal.
The struggle for power by the various groups continued for months. The country was still in the war and that thought was still uppermost in the popular mind.
The Provisional Government sought to continue loyal to the Allies, and later, when Kerensky assumed the reins of power, he endeavored to keep up the flagging energies of the people. But all this time an unwearied propaganda was being maintained by the Bolshevist leaders that undermined the morale of the troops at the front and the people in the rear.
The one idea of the Bolshevists was to secure the withdrawal of Russia from the war, in order that they might be able to put their social theories into practice.
The steps by which they finally succeeded in doing this are told in detail elsewhere in this work. See RUSSIA and BREST-LITOVSK.
Having dissolved the Constituent Assembly and killed or otherwise silenced their opponents, the development of the Bolshevist program proceeded. A proclamation was issued Nov. 26, proclaiming the abolition of class titles, distinctions, and privileges. The corporate property of nobles, merchants, and citizens must be put in possession of the state. All persons henceforth, no matter what had been their previous station, were to be known as citizens of the "Russian Republic." All church property, lands, money, gold, silver, and precious stones were confiscated. It was forbidden to give religious instruction in the schools. All mines, forests, waters, and landed estates, with their live stock, buildings, and machinery were declared the common property of the people.
That changes so drastic could be carried out without stout resistance on the part of those whose interests were menaced was impossible. There were individual and sectional revolts all over the former empire. But the Bolshevists, although a minority of the people, knew exactly what they wanted and were prepared to go to any lengths to achieve it. A reign of terror was promptly inaugurated, and excesses were perpetrated before which those of the French Revolution pale into insignificance. Men and BOLSHEVISM women inimical to the ruling power were executed with barely the pretense of a trial. Women and children were held as hostages for the fidelity of men of their family who were at the time out of the government's reach, and vengeance was visited upon them unsparingly on occasion. Spies were everywhere, and no man dared to speak to his neighbor for fear of being denounced. In many cases, fiendish torture and mutilation were an accompaniment of the killings. The evidence on this point is appalling and irrefutable. Nor is the fact of terrorism denied by Lenine and his associates. It is defended by them as being a necessary incident of all revolutions, while the most revolting phases are either palliated or denied. Peters, himself, the former head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, has admitted that in the one year from November, 1918, to November, 1919, 4,444 executions took place through his order. Lenine, in several of his decrees, admits and justifies the existence of terrorism, which, however, he adds, came to an end on Jan. 22, 1920, the date set by the Soviet Government for the abolition of the death penalty. Any intervention by Allied Governments, he declares, would lead to a return of the policy of blood. Other admissions by official Bolshevist organs and pronouncements by leaders indicate how wide was the sweep of the Red Terror.
The claim of Bolshevism that it is a step forward toward democracy has not been justified by the facts. The essence of democracy is the equality of all men before the law and the right of all to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Bolshevism in practice has been the exact antithesis of this idea. It has disfranchised and oppressed a large part of the Russian people, and that the most intelligent and progressive part. It has put a premium on ignorance and a penalty on brains. Professional men and business men have been enslaved. The Czar has indeed been dethroned, but a many-headed tyrant, the proletariat, has been enthroned in his place. And even this is only a fictitious rule, for the proletariat itself is mercilessly tyrannized over by Lenine and Trotzky and their associates. No man's house is his castle.
There is no_such thing as the liberty of the press. Life itself is only held on the tenure of servile, instant, unquestioning obedience to the despots who have replaced the Romanoffs. Cunning casuistry is used to explain and justify these departures from genuine democratic principles. Thus N. Bukharin, a Bolshevist leader, in a pamphlet on "The Program of the Bolshe- BOLSHEVISM vist Party" elaborates its principles.
Since it is the aim of the workmen and peasants to wipe out the bourgeoisie, he states, this class must be denied all great liberties, including the right of suffrage.
Admitting the charges of suppression of the press, of arbitrary arrests, of the denial of the right of free assemblage, of violation, assassination, and tyrannical methods, the author draws a distinction between the press of the bourgeoisie and that of the workingmen, between gatherings of friends of the Government and those opposed to it, between strikes of laborers against capitalists and strikes of bourgeois intellectuals against the proletariat. The only question is as to what class is using these weapons and against what class they are directed. The conclusion drawn is that liberty of person, speech, press, and assemblage is the right only of those who favor the existing order and should be denied to those who oppose it. To those who assert that that kind of "liberty" is not worth having, a bullet is the sufficient answer.
An invasion of personal liberty that tended more perhaps than any single previous measure to merge the individual in the mass was the mobilization of labor on military lines in the early part of 1920.
The laborer was not henceforth to own himself, to sell his services to whom he chose in the labor market or to choose his own place of residence. Trotzky was frankness itself in discussing the plan.
Under the proposed régime, he admitted mitted . ted , each workman was to be a soldier of labor who could not freely dispose of himself. If an order were given him to move to another position, he would have to obey it. If he disobeyed, he would be a deserter and be punished as such. The masses of workmen were to be moved about, ordered and sent from place to place like soldiers. Compulsion, he declared, had always existed in some form or other; under capitalistic forms of government, men had been driven by the blows of economic necessity and the urge of hunger; under the labor militarization plan, they would simply be sent from factory to factory, not by their own will and consent, but in obedience to a single economic plan.
To explain the matter further and emphasize the necessity of the new policy, Lenine amplified the subject in a letter that he addressed in March to all branches of the Communist party.
The social aspects of the theory have come in for severe criticism, especially the attitude taken by it toward the home.
It is alleged that the sacredness of that institution has been profaned, and that BOLSHEVISM a state of affairs prevails that is essentially the practice of the doctrine of free love. It is but fair to say that the so-called "nationalization of women," which was alleged against the system, has not been sustained by the facts.
There seems to be little doubt that in the early days of the Soviet Government, two or three local Soviets promulgated decrees in their districts establishing this revolting perversion, but the experiment was short-lived and has not received the sanction of the ruling authorities. As was pointed out, however, in the United States Senate report previously referred to, a condition exists as to marriage and divorce that destroys the sanctity of the marriage relation and can be made a vehicle of unbounded license. The marriage bond can be severed at the merest whim of either party to the contract and there is no limit to the successive unions that may be contracted. It practically establishes a state of free love.
Bolshevism is the avowed enemy of religion. Atheism is taught to the children. All church property has been confiscated, and the clergy and all others connected with religious institutions have been disfranchised and deprived of the right to occupy public positions. The Sunday school has been suppressed and all teaching of religious doctrines in public, either in schools or institutions of any kind, is expressly forbidden. The recognition of a Supreme Being in judicial oaths has been prohibited. Under the old régime, it was obligatory on every newspaper or periodical printed in Russia, on Easter Sunday, to carry as a headline, "Christ is Risen." On Easter Sunday, 1918, the Bolshevist papers substituted the headline "One Hundred Years Ago To-day, Karl Marx Was Born."
As regards secular education, the Bolshevists have made some progress in reducing the immense proportion of illiterates among the Russian people. Schools have been established in all parts of the former empire. A decree issued by the Government reads as follows: "The whole population of the Soviet Republic must be able to read and write.
All Russians between the ages of 8 and 50 who are illiterate are bound hereby to learn to read and write in the Russian language or in their original tongue as they please. All literate persons may be called upon to teach the illiterate. The period in which illiteracy is to be abolished shall be fixed by the municipal_or provincial Soviet in each district. For adult citizens undergoing instruction in reading and writing, the working day is abridged by two hours during the entire BOLTON educational period. duties specified by this decree or in any Citizens evading way interfering with its provisions are subject to trial by the revolutionary tribunal."
Large sums have been devoted by the Bolshevist Government to spreading and overthrowing other governments.
Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, Britain, and the United States, as well as in Brazil and Argentina Argentina in South America. In many of these countries the Bolshevist agents, when they could be detected, have been arrested and denear to success in Hungary, where for a near to success in Hungary, where for a time closely upon its Russian prototype, held a control of the Government; in Germany where the Spartacist outbreaks were to a lesser degree in other European countries. In the United States their activities were quelled, temporarily at least, by the rounding up and deportation of over two hundred of the most dangerous ous agitators. The story of their en- . The story of their endeavors will be narrated at greater length in the articles bearing on the various countries concerned. BOMB nate of the Rhine subsequently introcotton and its woolen manufactures. duced new branches of manufacture; and nate of the Rhine subsequently introincreased the trade of the town. It is the improvements in cotton spinning in increased the trade of the town. It is the birthplace of the daily evening press, "Bolton Evening News."
Bolt During the Civil War the Parliament garrisoned Earl of Derby. A canal was opened Bolton; in 1644 it was stormed by the from Manchester to Bolton in 1791. Pop. about 170,000. structure in Yorkshire; in a highly picturesque district on the river Wharfe,