A man interrupted, but she asked him so sweetly for a few moments more that he reseated himself.
“Comrades,” she said, “I know something about Bolshevism and revolution. I was a soldier of Russia. I carried a rifle and full pack. I was part of what is history. And I learned to be tolerant in the trenches; and I learned to love this unhappy human race of ours. And I learned what is Bolshevism.
“It is one of many protests against the exploitation of men by men. It is one of the many reactions against intolerable wrong. It is not a policy; it is an outburst against injustice; against the stupidity of present conditions, where the few monopolise the wealth created by the many; and the many remain poor.
“And Bolshevism is the remedy proposed––the violent 232 superimposition of a brand new autocracy upon the ruins of the old!
“It does not work. It never can work, because it imposes the will of one class upon all other classes. It excludes all parties excepting its own from government. It is, therefore, not democratic. It is a tyranny, imposing upon capital and labour alike its will.
“And I tell you that Labour has just won the greatest of all wars. Do you suppose Labour will endure the autocracy of the Bolsheviki? The time is here when a more decent division is going to be made between the employer and the labourer.
“I don’t care what sort of production it may be, the producer is going to receive a much larger share; the employer a much smaller. And the producer is going to enjoy a better standard of living, opportunities for leisure and self-cultivation; and the three spectres that haunt him from childhood to grave––lack of money to make a beginning; fear for a family left on its own resources by his death; terror of poverty in old age––shall vanish.
“Against these three evil ghosts that haunt his bedside when the long day is done, there are going to be guarantees. Because those who won for us this righteous war, whether abroad or at home, are going to have something to say about it.
“And it will be they, not the Bolsheviki––it will be labourer and employer, not incendiary and assassin, who shall determine what is to be the policy of this Republic toward those to whom it owes its salvation!”
A man stood up waving his arms: “All right! All right! The question is whether the sort of government we have is worth saving. You talk very flip about the Bolsheviki, but I’ll tell you they’ll run this 233 country yet, and every other too, and run ’em to suit themselves! It’s our turn; you’ve had your inning. Now, you’ll get a dose of what you hand to us if we have to ram it down with a gun barrel!”