Certainly the Lenine Government is absolutely lax in matters appertaining to sex relations. It has fully legalized free love, as we learn from the No. 2 issue of the radical Los Angeles magazine, "More Truth About Russia." This magazine, of course, defends the Bolshevists, and on page 6 of the above-mentioned issue quotes several of the decrees of the Lenine Government on the matter of marriage and divorce. Among the decrees we read:
"Marriage is annulled by the petition of both parties or even one of them." All that is necessary to annul a marriage is the expressed desire of either party. The party is, of course, then free to marry again and remain married till another partner is desired. Hence free love is legalized. A government that legalizes free love may be expected to nationalize those women who do not wish to marry or who are unable to secure partners by the time they have reached a certain age.
"The Call," New York, April 2, 1919, on its editorial page reprinted an apology of the English publication, "New Europe," which in a previous issue had given as the authority for its charge of the nationalization of women in Russia an article in the Soviet paper "Izvestija:"
"I have made particular inquiries among friends recently arrived from Russia," says Dr. Harold Williams, "New Europe's" collaborator, "as to the alleged nationalization of women, and they have all assured me positively that they have never heard or read of such a decree."
Those "friends," whoever they were, were possibly Bolsheviki themselves, and are not said to have denied that the women were nationalized, but merely that they had never heard or read of the "decree." Lots of things are enforced by authorities without decrees. The Bolshevist authorities may have had no decrees for the murder of the many thousands of innocent citizens whom they tortured and put to death.
Dr. Harold Williams states, moreover, that it is certain that "the Central Bolshevist Government has issued no order of the kind" (i.e., of nationalization), but he does not deny that in different places the local Bolshevist authorities may have nationalized women.
Further on it is admitted that not the official national Soviet organ, but the local Vladimir Soviet organ, "Izvestija," was the Bolshevist paper which stated that the Bolshevists of Vladimir had nationalized women.
The article in "New Europe," republished in "The Call," concludes with these words:
"As this puts an entirely different complexion on the matter, and as the Central Moscow Government cannot be held responsible for the lucubrations of every local committee, we desire to withdraw unreservedly the imputation and to express our regret for the mistake."
This article in the March 13, 1919, issue of "New Europe," which thus apologizes for the "mistake" that it claims it made in a previous issue, has been quoted far and wide by American Socialists and other radicals of our country. Yet witnesses who were questioned at the Senatorial investigation at Washington, in February, 1919, attested to the nationalization by the Bolshevists.