It is to be hoped, too, that the leaders of the Illinois Labor Party who secured the adoption in their platform of a pro-Soviet plank in the spring of 1919 will take a few hours off and learn something about the Russian system before trying to "work it off" on our country.
There has been a great deal of "pussy-footing" talk in the American press about Bolshevism and Socialism, implying that there is no connection between the two. Yet Bolshevism is nothing but a form of Socialism. It is Socialism applied, though not yet as completely applied as the teachings of Karl Marx require. If an incomplete application of the principles of Socialism reduces a country to such an awful condition as Russia reveals, what may be expected from the full dose of Socialism?
At the last moment, with this book in type, a cry from the Bolshevik dictatorship comes out of Russia through interviews given by Lenine and Trotzky to the "New York World's" European correspondent, Lincoln Eyre. "I had an hour's talk with Lenine in the Kremlin at Moscow," Eyre writes in a dispatch headed, "Riga (by courier to Berlin), Feb. 20, 1920," and printed in the "World" of February 21, 1920. Lenine turned the interview into an argument for the lifting of the Allied blockade of Russia, and gave more than a hint that Russia's economic condition is desperate. According to Mr. Eyre's cable to the "New York World" of February 21, 1920, Lenine said, speaking in English:
"Russia's present economic distress is simply a part of the world's economic distress. Until the economic problem is faced from a world standpoint and not merely from the standpoint of certain nations or groups of nations, a solution is impossible.... Not only Russia but all Europe is going to pieces, and the [Allied] Supreme Council still indulges in tergiversation. Russia can be saved from utter ruin and Europe, too, but it must be done soon and quickly."
By insinuating that "all Europe is going to pieces" with Russia, and faces the same "utter ruin," Lenine covers his plea for Russia under an appeal to the self-interest of other nations. Yet his confession that Russia is "going to pieces" and trembles on the brink of "utter ruin" is plain enough, making his whole argument a cry to the "capitalistic" nations to help Socialistic Russia. Indeed, in other parts of the same interview, as reported by Mr. Eyre in the "World" of February 21, 1920, Lenine appeals to "foreign capital" and the "capitalistic countries" in the baldest terms, as follows:
"We have reiterated and reiterated our desire for peace, our need for peace and our readiness to give foreign capital the most generous concessions and guarantees.... I know of no reason why a Socialistic commonwealth like ours cannot do business indefinitely with capitalistic countries. We don't mind taking their capitalistic locomotives and farming machinery, so why should they mind taking our Socialistic wheat, flax and platinum?"
Having waded through blood and violence to exterminate "capitalism" and cancel all "concessions" and "guarantees" in Russia, has "the dictatorship of the proletariat" emerged out of its nightmare of destruction simply to coax "foreign capital" back into Socialistic Russia by bribing offers of "the most generous concessions and guarantees?" After two years of a reign of terror to make an earthly paradise by destroying "capitalism" and the whole machinery of "capitalistic countries," this hungry reaching out by Lenine after "capital" and "capitalistic" things is almost too ludicrous for belief!
Eyre's interview with Trotzky, sent from "Riga (by courier to Berlin, Feb. 23)" and printed in the "New York World" of February 25, 1920, simply reenforces Lenine's appeal to "foreign capital" and the wicked "capitalistic countries." According to Eyre in the "World" of February 25, Trotzky spoke of "Russia, bankrupt, bleeding and starved," and said in part:
"Our military successes have not blinded us to our need of peace. We require peace for the re-establishment of economic stabilization.... We have had to sacrifice the welfare of our people and the health of future generations to the desperate needs of the hour."
And for what? Apparently only to substitute the autocracy of a new proletarian aristocracy for the autocracy of the old regime, and the czardom of Lenine and Trotzky for that of the Romanoffs. And the new tyranny not only re-establishes the old partnership between "capital" and labor, but puts the burden of militarism on labor more exclusively than before. This seems to be the program of Trotzky, "the People's Commissary for Military Affairs," according to Eyre's report of Trotzky's words in the "New York World" of February 25, 1920. His words are as follows: