To the Notice of the House Committees of the Poor:
On 20th July of the present year there was published obligatory regulation No. 27, to the following effect:
“Every house committee in the city of Petrograd and other towns included in the Union of Communes of the Northern Region is under obligation to subscribe to, paying for same, one copy of the newspaper, the Severnaya Communa, the official organ of the Soviets of the Northern Region.
“The newspaper should be given to every resident in the house on the first demand.
“Chairman of the Union of the Communes of the Northern region, Gr. Zinoviev.
“Commissary of printing, N. Kuzmin.”
However, until now the majority of houses inhabited mainly by the bourgeoisie do not fulfil the above-expressed obligatory regulation, and the working population of such houses is deprived of the possibility of receiving the Severnaya Communa in its house committees.
Therefore, the publishing office of the Severnaya Communa brings to the notice of all house committees that it has undertaken, through the medium of especial emissaries, the control of the fulfilment by house committees of the obligatory regulation No. 27, and all house committees which cannot show a receipt for a subscription to the newspaper, the Severnaya Communa, will be immediately called to the most severe account for the breaking of the obligatory regulation.
Subscriptions will be received in the main office and branches of the Severnaya Communa daily, except Sundays and holidays, from 10 to 4.
After this it is something of an anticlimax to even take note of the tremendous power wielded by the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press, Section of Political Crimes, which was created in March, 1918. The decree relating to this body and outlining its functions, dated December 18, 1917, read as follows:
The Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press
1. Under the Revolutionary Tribunal is created a Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press. This Tribunal will have jurisdiction of crimes and offenses against the people committed by means of the press.
2. Crimes and offenses by means of the press are the publication and circulation of any false or perverted reports and information about events of public life, in so far as they constitute an attempt upon the rights and interests of the revolutionary people.
3. The Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press consists of three members, elected for a period not longer than three months by the Soviet of Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies. These members are charged with the conduct of the preliminary investigation as well as the trial of the case.
4. The following serve as grounds for instituting proceedings: reports of legal or administrative institutions, public organizations, or private persons.
5. The prosecution and defense are conducted on the principles laid down in the instructions to the general Revolutionary Tribunal.
6. The sessions of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press are public.
7. The decisions of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press are final and are not subject to appeal.
8. The Revolutionary Tribunal imposes the following penalties: (1) fine; (2) expression of public censure, which the convicted organ of the Press brings to the general knowledge in a way indicated by the Tribunal; (3) the publication in a prominent place or in a special edition of a denial of the false report; (4) temporary or permanent suppression of the publication or its exclusion from circulation; (5) confiscation to national ownership of the printing-shop or property of the organ of the Press if it belongs to the convicted parties.
9. The trial of an organ of the Press by the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press does not absolve the guilty persons from general criminal responsibility.
Under the provisions of this body the newspapers which were appearing found themselves subject to a new terror. An offensive reference to Trotsky caused the Outre Rossii to be mulcted to the extent of 10,000 rubles. Even the redoubtable Martov was punished and the Vperiod, organ of the Social Democratic Party, suppressed. The Nache Slovo was fined 25,000 rubles and the Ranee Outre was mulcted in a like amount for printing a news article concerning some use of the Lettish sharp-shooters by the Bolsheviki, though there was no denial that the facts were as stated. It was a common practice to impose fines of anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 rubles upon papers which had indulged in criticism of the government or anything that could be construed as “an offense against the people” or “an attempt upon the rights and interests of the revolutionary people.”
Here, then, is a summary of the manner in which the Bolsheviki have suppressed the freedom of the press. It is a record which cannot be equaled, nor approached, in all the history of Russia during the reign of Nicholas Romanov II. Mr. Hard attempts to cover the issue with confusion by asking, “Is there any government in the world that permits pro-enemy papers to be printed within its territory during a civil war?” and he is applauded by the entire claque of so-called “Liberal” and “Radical” pro-Bolshevist journals. It was done in this country during the War of the Rebellion, Mr. Hard; it has been done in Ireland under “British tyranny.” The Bolshevist records show, first, that the suppression of non-Bolshevist journals was carried out upon a wholesale scale when there was no state of civil war, no armed resistance to the Bolsheviki; that it was, in fact, carried out upon a large scale during the period when preparations were being made for holding the Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviki themselves, in repeated official declarations, had sworn to uphold and defend. The records show, furthermore, that the Bolsheviki sought not merely to suppress those journals which were urging civil war, but that, as a matter of fact, they suppressed the papers which urged the contrary—that is, that the civil war be brought to an end. The Vsiegda Vperiod is a case in point. In February, 1919, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets announced that it had confirmed the decision to close this newspaper, “as its appeals for the cessation of civil war appear to be a betrayal of the working-class.”
No, Mr. Hard. No, Mr. Oswald Villard. No, Mr. Norman Thomas. No, gentlemen of the New Republic. No, gentlemen of The Nation. There can be no escape through the channels of such juggling with facts. When you defend the Bolshevist régime you defend a monstrous organized oppression, and you thereby disqualify yourselves to set up as champions and defenders of Freedom. When you protest against restrictions of popular liberties here the red ironic laughter of the tyrants you have defended drowns the sound of your voices. When you speak fair words for Freedom in America your fellow-men hear only the echoes of your louder words spoken for tyranny in Russia. You do not approach the bar with clean hands and clean consciences. You are forsworn. By what right shall you who have defended Bolshevism in Russia, with all its brutal tyranny, its loathsome corruption, its unrestrained reign of hatred, presume to protest when Liberty is assailed in America? Those among us who have protested against every invasion of popular liberties at home, and have at the same time been loyal to our comrades in Russia who have so bravely resisted tyranny, have the right to enter the lists in defense of Freedom in America, and to raise our voices when that Freedom is assailed. You have not that right, gentlemen; you cannot speak for Freedom, in America or anywhere else, without bringing shame upon her.