AN OPEN LETTER 443 442 THE CLASS STRUGGLE It is true, of course, that the action of the Allies in Russia, encouraging every faction which is against the Soviets, may in the long run produce a state of complete anarchy. Enemies of the Russian Soviet Government do not hesitate to employ the most desperate methods, thereby provoking desperate action on the other side. With what savage joy did not the newspapers receive the reports of the attempt to assassinate Lenine! The wildest anarchist newspapers have nothing on the New York Times, the Tribune, the World, the Globe, and the whole long line of papers, which, as by agreement, now speak of the Russian tyranny, tempered by assassination. If the capitalist press sees fit to day to degrade itself to the moral standard of thugs and bandits in their futile rage against the Russian Labor Republic, it is not for me to bewail it. But is there no one among you the intellectual leaders. sane enough to raise your voice against this mad orgy, which, as you well may understand, may in the end prove an unexpected boomerang? The policy of assassination in Russia is led by Boris Savinkov, the minister of war in the Kerensky Cabinet, one of the pets of the press. am not intimating that the Allied representatives in Russia are employing such horrible methods. But in view of the attitude of the Allied press you cannot prevent the Russian people from drawing conclusions of their own. We had recently the ultimatum of the British Government to the Soviets because of an alleged attack against the British representatives. The British Government threatens to hold the Soviet leaders personally responsible for any violence against Allied citizens in Russia. Is it not conceivable that the mind of the Russian masses, victimized by constant attacks upon their liberty, and upon their chosen leaders, may react in the same way?
the exasperating conditions under which the Russian government works?
Carlyle, recording the protests of the French nobility against the policies of the French revolutionaries, remarks that the Revolutionists showed more political tactfulness and constructive ability than the nobility itself ever was able to show. They asked the Sans culottes to practise the principle of noblesse oblige which the nobility itself never had practised towards anyone except those belonging to their own class. Do we not see something similar in the Russian situation to day? You in America, who in spite of your tremendous resources of order and stability, cannot prevent mobs in Illinois, in Oklahoma, in Minnesota and in the southern states from committing unspeakable outrages against innocent people, you demand from the Russian people, who have been kept for 300 years in a state of ignorance, who to day are living through the most stupendous revolution the world ever has witnessed, and who are attacked from every conceivable source, you ask them to show more coolness than you are capable of yourself!
The same may be said in regard to the attacks on the Russian people because of their alleged social disorder and anarchy. It took ten years for you in America to establish a stable government and orderly efficient rule, after you had signed the Declaration of Independence. At that your revolution was mainly a political one, involving the change from one Government to another, without any considerable changes in the social structure.
Your revolution occurred at a time when the social problems confronting you were a mere bagatelle compared with those that the Russian people are asked to solve. Your revolution took place among a homogeneous nation of three millions, who had behind them a century of self government and experience at individual as well as co operative action. You were allowed to settle your problems not only without any interference from the outside after you had accomplished your immediate aims, but you received real help and encouragement from other nations. Even then it took you ten years to bring about social order. And now you are angry and impatient at the Russian workers and peasants, because they do not defend violence on the part of the Russian Soviets.
But, pray, have you ever witnessed another instance of revolutionary history, where the revolutionary government was more deliberately provoked to commit violence? And have you ever witnessed another instance where the outside world published more lies and exaggerations about the acts of the revolutionary government not to speak of the complete unwillingness to understand