152 THE CLASS STRUGGLE TRUTH ABOUT INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA 153 tary agents in Russia and the Czecho Slovak National Council. This Council had taken under its control the Czecho Slovak prisoners and deserters from the Austrian army and had formed them into a separate legion to fight against Austria. This had already been done under Czarism, and after Brest Litovsk the question was raised of sending them to the French front. To this the Soviet Government agreed. But it appears that the British and French governments had other work for the Czecho Slovak soldiers to perform and were by no means anxious that they should go to France. For between March and May, 1918, the French Consul in Moscow paid to two persons on the Czecho Slovak National Council the sum of nine million roubles and the British Consul in Moscow paid eighty five thousand pounds to the same people. Directly after these payments the Czecho Slovak forces, which were scattered all along the Siberian and Eastern railways, rose in rebellion, occupied most of the important strategic posts in East Russia, thus cutting off Central and Northern Russia from the corn producing districts, and condemning the workers and peasants of Muscovy to famine and the industries to destruction. The legend circulated in Western Europe that the Soviet Government was preparing to hand the Czecho Slovaks to the Austrian government is false, for the former had only too readily accepted the proposal the Czecho Slovaks had themselves made, before the interference by the Allied Governments, that they should be sent to France.
But even after the seizure of the Siberian railway and the opening of the road to Vladivostok, the commanders of the Czecho Slovaks not only made no attempt to move their troops out of Russia but began to advance west towards Moscow, clearly showing they were carrying out the prearranged plan, for which they had received these payments.
At every town where they arrived they united with counter revolutionary forces, organized by the local landlords and bosses, and began to break up the Soviets, shoot the leading revolutionary leaders and reestablish a military dictatorship of the propertied classes. Up to this time every counter revolutionary rebellion which had been raised against the Soviet Government had been suppressed by the Red army, thus showing that the Soviet government had sufficient authority and support among the masses to put it down. It was only when hired bands of foreign imperialists raised rebellion and supported the local counter revolutionary forces, which had been defeated in a square fight, that the position of the Soviet Government began to be in danger.
Thus the Allied Governments in East Russia, like the German government in the Ukraine, endeavored by financing counter revolution and anarchy to make the work of social reconstruction and the feeding of the starving people impossible for the Soviet Government.
The governments of England and France, in order to recoup themselves for the losses of the London and Paris bankers, incurred by the Russian Revolution, are now trying to overthrow the Soviet government and reestablish a government with the aid of armed hirelings, which will impose again the milliard tribute of the loans of Czarism upon the backs of the Russian workers and peasants. They are also trying to force the Russian people to fight in the war against Germany, against their will, to use them as cannon fodder, although one of the main motives of the workers and peasants revolution was to free themselves from the war, which was ruining them and condemning them to starvation. To impose fresh tribute upon the Russian people, to force them to fight against their will, to still further increase their misery, indescribable as it is at present, that is the task, which the British government asks the British soldier to perform, when he fights on the Murman; that is the object for which the British munition worker is toiling, when he makes shells, which are to be fired upon his Russian comrades.
As one who has lived for four years in Russia, who has seen the sufferings of her people and their heroic efforts to free themselves, categorically assert that the anarchy and famine now raging in Russia is the deliberate work of the imperialist governments of Europe, and in this respect the governments of the Allies and of Germany behave like vultures of the same brood. For what Germany has done in the Ukraine, the Allied governments have done in Siberia and the territories east of the Volga.
And yet the British workingman is told that in Russia there is chaos and anarchy and that the British government, out of sympathy for the Russian people, is sending expeditions to help them, and to bring a rule of law and order.
Where is the law which finances rebellion against a government of the workers and poorest peasantry, in order to force it to pay an intolerable tribute and reduce it to industrial slavery? Where is the order which brings war to a land that is already exhausted by the three years slaughter of the