BolshevismBourgeoisieSocialismSovietStrikeWorkers MovementWorking Class

The Revolutionary Age VOL I, No. 23 Price Cents Chronicle and Interpretation of International Events Saturday, March 22, 1919 The Press as an Agent Provocateur The masses INDING, apparently, that the campaign to dis In view of the fact that neither the plot nor the disputes is the attitude of the soldiers and on this subcredit Bolshevism, waged with such persistency, reign of terror proved to be anything but police ject the press has remained silent. In practically every particularly since the signing of the armistice, is stupidity in one case and an unemployed deleg recent strike the employers liave attempted to use the not producing the desired results, the bourgeois press ation visiting the Mayor of Buffalo in the other, it is returned soldier or sailor as a scab and in almost every is developing new methods of attack. The publicity, reasonable to suppose that some ulterior motive lies case they have been unsuccessful. In Seattle and Butte even though it has invariably been a lying and con behind this sudden change of front in the newspaper the soldiers and sailors were in active sympathy with deinnatory publicity, given to Bolshevism has proven attitude. From a perusal of the stories dealing with the strikers and took their places on the picket lines to be a double edged sword and while, no doubt, many these matters it is evident that in each case the events in uniform. In the street car strike in New Jersey the working people have been scared into antipathy, the soldiers and sailors paraded in sympathy with the carmajority of the workers, whose instinctive class con extent as to lead the reader to believe that the Bolmen, and in the Lawrence textile strike the number sciousness has revolted against the absurdities daily sheviki are a tremendous force, skilfully organized of soldiers and sailors in the ranks of the striker. displayed for their consumption, have become curious and only waiting the order to rise up over night and variously estimated at from five hundred to one if not actually sympathetic towards the subject. seize the government. The object seems to be to give and, over two hundred having formed themselves tite The rehash of the German atrocities with the subthe impression of great numbers behind these move a Strikers Guard to maintain order during strike.
stitution of Russian workers for Huns and Grand Dukes and gentle ladies for Belgians has not aroused All these movements are mass movements, the workthe indignation expected, perhaps because after a time people become indifferent even to the death of Grand Police Brutality in Lawrence ers themselves striking as a protest against intolerable conclitions. The war was used to keep the workers on Dukes. Consequently the press has had to search Serious rioting occured in Lawrence on Tuesday as the job, the plea of national necessity overshadowing around for new ways of combatting the menace. As a result of a police attack on the strikers returning the grievances of the workers, but now the war is over hefore it underestimated the strength of the Socialist from the picket lines. On Monday a body of forty and the people are looking for the fruits of deinocracy movement, now it runs to the other extreme and pre or fifty soldiers, the Strikers Guard, turned out the for which they fought and suffered, only to find that as alarmingly strong. Flaring headlines dispicket lines. Their appearance apparently angered the they are facing a period of unemployment, want and close the eleventh hour discoveries of gigantic plots police and the soldiers were dispersed, one of their poverty. They are beginning to realize that while the to seize the government of the United States by the number being specially picked out by the police and owners of the factories made enormous profits out of organizerl forces of Bolshevism. The obvious impli.
arrested.
the war, they are staring the grim spectre of unemcation of these stories being that were it not for these On the way to the police station, after the other ploynient, with all its attendant evils in the face.
fortunate discoveries this country would have already soldiers had gone, ten policemen set upon Ribaudo passed into the hands of the Bolsheviki at least half a Francesco, the soldier in question, who has only reAgainst these conditions and the potentiality of dozen distinct times.
cently returned from 18 months service in France with these con:litions the workers are protesting, striking, the 23rd Infantry. He was severely beaten about the asserting themselves.
All over the world Socialism is making rigantic The press has immediately strides, strides which even the ablest Socialist theorists labelled their protests Bolshevism and while the head and shoulders, his eyes being injured, his teeth loosened and his back and shoulders bruised and cut average worker may believe that the happenings in and propagandists are unable to measure with more from the blows of the clubs. After he was taken to Seattle or Butte, two or three thousand miles away, than approximate accuracy. The holocoust of war las the station, Francesco says, he was again beaten up by were the work of a menace to society Bolshevismaroused the class consciousness of the workers, and the police, this time, however, clubs were not used.
le know the real conditions of his own fight and when the examples set by Russia and Germany have done When brought into court he was fined 20.
he finds that it is also Bolshevism he immediately much to to bring the toiling masses to a realization of becomes very partial to the Bolsheviki.
their own potential power.
of the people News of the treatment received by Francesco so are seething with unrest. strikes are Aaring up all over roused the strikers that they turned out in large num The Seldiers and sailors, returning from the sacrifthe world, strikes that are real movements of the bers on the picket lines the following morning. On ices made in the war, are finding that they are no their return from picket duty the strikers were met by Ives and are often clirected against the longer heroes in the eyes of the employers unless they the police who, after the marshall had read the riot old time leaders as inuch as against the act, capitalist class are prepared to become scabs on their own class. They charged the workers. fight ensued, over twenty perThe cominon people are awakening and asserting their are learning from the newspapers that instead of being sons Teing hurt and as rights to the fruits of their labors. America is not heroes they are becoming a menace to society once escaping this general unrest anvmore than the counIn spite of this police intimidation the workers are they dare tie up with their fellow workers in a labor deterniined to continue the strike until their demands tries of Europe, though as yet the labor disturbances dispute; they are also learning through other channels are granted. Money is urgently needed, the strike of in this country are more sporadic. less conscious and.
the man club and the police court sentences, which inin the main, confined to smaller issues than the Eurohaving now entered its seventh week.
Send contributions to Silin, 885 Washington St. pran upheavals.
variably follow their appearance on the picket line.
Boston, Mass.
being called Bolsheviki The brutality and ruthlessness of the master class and w. s, and these terms are losing their erstare, however, forcing the issue. The assumption of while terror. Conditions are forcing the soldiers power, the menly revealed (letermination to force and sailors to recognize that there is a class struggle clown wages and the shameless attempts to utilize the returned soldier as a club for this purpose, the utter ments and the inference is that the whole matter is a going on in society and that they are part and parcel of the working class.
iisrecard of the war time promises and lischarge plan to lead some hot headed irresponsibles into act of thousands of workers are producing a reaction ions that will enable the forces of reaction to crusli The press has lowledvolf so often that its shriek which is projecting the class struggle in Boll relief. insurgent labor in blood.
is losing its terror, and as a result the press is now The ignorance of the bourgeois press regarding the The plot for Soviet control of the United States attempting to incite the workers into premature action Socialist and Labor movements of the world in general proved to be nothing more than a sensational account by representing their every move as a revolution. Findand of this country in particular has often been the of a raid on the headquarters of a Russian workers ing that slandering Holshevism while at the same time it is forced to slander every protest nrade by the theme of Socialist writers, but it is idle to pretenul taat hiding was arrested and dragged to police headquare ers has only had the effect of connecting Bolshevisin strength of the class conscious labor movement of this ters for examination. Out of one hundred and sixty.
four persons thus country. This ignorance is confined, for the most part, arrested all but four were released on struggle, the press is determined to apparently to Socialist theory. On actual conditions the capitalist in a few hours, there being absolutely no evidence play on the emotion of the uninformed to the end press is well informed. Hitherto the newspapers have against them. What purports to be the constitution that they may be betrayed into actions which will and program of engaged in a conspiracy of silence where lahor troubles of recoil on the heads of the masses of the people.
course.
were concerned: even within the past few weeks such contains a clause relative to the nationalization of women which is invariably dragged into all Labor struggle for its place in the sun must come from the workers themselves, its actions inust rise eral strikes received scant atiention until they were rews stories dealing with Socialist activity since it was over. Both these strikes were pregnant with tremenintroduced as evidence before the recent Overman out of the needs of the people masses, and its strength dous possibilities, both partook of the aspect of the Committee. Although the raid was conducted by the will lie in its ability to choose its own time to enforce its demands. The inasses must develop a clear underrecent Irish and English strikes. bomb squad the story fails to say how many bombs standing of their position in in addition to must be the arbitsociety, were discovered or what preparations had been made being of gigantic proportions were semi political in the ers of their own destiny character.
for the seizure of the In spite of the importance of these two state. In the Buffalo incident it to judge the importance press kept comparatively silent, but within the past the account was interspersed with frequent referstrikes, involving tens of thousands of workers, the finally cleveloped that the whole affair consisted in a strength. They must learn Judges of their own a few hundred unemployed to the city hall.
of the press reports of the activities of their class as week labor troubles have sprang into great prominences 10 the arrival of troops in Buffalo, though it the movement that has broken down theel simport of the Russian workers and is even now struggling to Aaring headlines. Plot dared For Soviet Control of canitted to mention whether the troops were to shoot the burst the chains that the bourgeoisie, led by majority the New York Tribune shrieks of Reds people for being out of work or whether they were Socialism, would bind tighter round the workers of planning a reign of terror and all over the country to proceed against the employers that discharged the Germany. Action is coming in our own country: that the newspapers carry stories of a coming Red coup men and women in question.
mass action which cannot be provoked, but which is Hietat.
One of the principle features of all the recent labor determined. implacable. irresistible.
many arrested to worknarade of