The Red Conspiracy

by Joseph J. Mereto

Evidence as to the criminal nature of Russian Bolshevism was supplied by the Rev. Dr. George S. Simons, who, in February, 1919, testified before the Senatorial Committee as to his personal knowledge of the matter:

"There is a large criminal element in the Bolshevist regime. The fact that the criminal has a big part in the movement is proven by the destruction in a public bonfire of court records, the destruction of prisons and the liberation of all criminals who are sympathetic with the cause. We know it to be a fact that some of the worst criminal characters in all Russia hold positions under the Bolshevist Government, while others are helping as agitators."

A press dispatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, states that it has been decided by the Bolsheviki regime that control of desire of impulse, even when self-imposed, is against the freedom of man, that as a consequence unbelievable orgies and indecencies take place, and that all restraint is at an end. The despatch states, futhermore^[11], that the aristocrats remaining in Russia have lost all will and energy. They accept degradation or death with complete fatalism and do not even try to save their wives and daughters.

The deplorable condition of that part of Russia under Bolshevist rule was described in the Declaration adopted by the Socialist groups in Omsk on February 23, 1919. The Declaration says in part:

"The main prop of an agricultural country such as Russia principally is, the peasant population, is pauperized, starving and is being driven under the banners of the Red Armies by lash and rifle. The numerically small class of intellectuals is being shot down and exterminated. The cities have been handed over to the pillage and rule of Red Army troops. The prisons are overcrowded. The enemies of the people have carried out their destructive program to the very end, and given the people, in place of bread, peace and freedom--a new inter-Russian war, the complete exhaustion of all the productive forces of the land, economic, industrial and railroad desolation, unemployment, a terrorizing reign of disorder and a lapse into barbarity."

The Council of the All-Siberian Co-operative Assemblies, in a Declaration brought to this country by C. A. Kovalsky, a prominent Russian writer and a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, says:

"The All-Siberian Co-operative Movement--as the expression of the unity of the creative democratic elements--strives for the rehabilitation of the destroyed statehood of Russia....

"The immediate aims of our political activities must be--the support of the existing Omsk Government, which has proclaimed itself a democratic rule; the steering of its political course into democratic channels; the struggle with anti-democratic influences from the Right as well as with the destructive forces from the left; the strengthening of the ties between the rear and the fighting front, and the support of the army as the cultural force which is reconquering the violated rights of the people to the formation of a democratic state."

The Russian Co-operative Unions, having a membership of over 20,000,000, and representing the strongest economic organization in Russia, reaching every little town and village, announced through its representatives in New York, on May 20, 1919, its opposition to the Lenine regime and its support of the Provisional Russian Government at Omsk, Siberia, headed by Admiral Kolchak:

"When Russia fell under the Bolshevist Soviet rule, the representatives of the Co-operative Organizations, at the All-Russian Co-operative Congress in Moscow, April 18 to 24, 1918, rejected the principles and the methods of the Bolsheviki and declared the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, concluded by the Soviet authorities with the Austro-German, dishonorable and ruinous for Russia. In these terrible and trying times of bloody rule that our suffering and worn-out country is passing through, the Co-operative Organizations of Siberia and North Russia serve as a unifying link for all the honest, healthy and State-preserving elements of the Russian democracy.

"The All-Siberian United Co-operatives are fully cognizant of the abnormal conditions in which the territories liberated from the Bolsheviki--the Ural, Siberia and the North Russian Provinces--find themselves, where in pain and anguish a new Russian Statehood is arising. Nevertheless, considering the unusual difficulties connected with the work of rebuilding and re-establishing legality and order in a land overburdened financially and economically, ravaged by civil war and hunger, and with a popular psychology corrupted by Bolshevism, the United Co-operatives recognize and support, until the formation of a new, ultimate government through the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Russian Government formed on Siberian territory and headed by Admiral Kolchak....

"We have, on our side, State wisdom, equity and justice. Our adversaries oppose us with terror, violence and complete social and economic ruin."

In the early part of the year 1919, the report reached America that the Bolshevist authorities were nationalizing women. The Socialists of our own country, who are far from being noted for their reliability and truthfulness, have, of course, denied the charge, in order that the Lenine regime, which they support and wish to see extended to our own land, might not have its already terribly sullied name dishonored still more. The Bolshevists are far from being saints, and a "few" of their "shortcomings" have been pointed out in this chapter.