A Voice Out of Russia 
 
 THE treatment accorded Russia by her sister 
 nations in the months to come will be the 
 acid test of their good will, of their com- 
 prehension of her needs as distinguished from their 
 own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish 
 sympathy." 
 
 "There is, morever, a voice calling for these defini- 
 tions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems 
 to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any 
 of the many moving voices with which the troubled 
 air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the 
 Russian people. They are prostrate and all but 
 helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of 
 Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting 
 and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. 
 And yet their soul is not subservient. They will 
 not yield either in principle or in action. Their 
 conception of what is right, of what it is humane 
 and honorable for them to accept, has been stated 
 with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of 
 spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must 
 challenge the admiration of every friend of man- 
 kind; and they have refused to compound their 
 ideals or desert others that they themselves may be 
 safe." — President Wilson in an address deliv- 
 ered at a joint session of the two houses of 
 Congress, January 8, 1918. 
 
 1. WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA! 
 
 2. SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 
 By Lincoln Colcord 
 
 3. A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 By George V. LomonossofF 
 
 4. DECREE ON LAND 
 
 5. DECREE ON WORKERS' CONTROL 
 
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 also issue by issue, the blunt truth about 
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 events which help interpret the funda- 
 mental struggle w^hich the war has laid 
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 Withdraw from Russia ! 
 
 On March 15, 1917, the news of the abdication 
 of the Czar was flashed around the world. Demo- 
 cratic nations rejoiced; and America, itself founded 
 on a revolution, sent its sympathy and greeting to 
 the people of Russia who had burst through the 
 chains of centuries of black oppression. Less than 
 a month later we ourselves entered the war against 
 Germany. We had suffered very little either in 
 property loss or in human life ; indeed our neutrality 
 had brought us prosperity. Russia, on the contrary, 
 had suffered all things: betrayal at the front, unpre- 
 cedented slaughter of her soldiers, disorganization, 
 unemployment, famine, disease. Her army was go- 
 ing to pieces. It was not the time for the Allied 
 nations to urge her to continue the war against 
 Germany — a war which, Bolsheviki or no Bolshe- 
 viki. Constituent Assembly or no Constituent As- 
 sembly, counter-revolution or no counter-revolution, 
 it was physically impossible for her to undertake. 
 Yet the Allied nations did urge her, and as a result 
 of their urging the disastrous advance into Galicia 
 was begun. It ended in perhaps the greatest retreat 
 in history. And new, strange voices began to be 
 heard in Russia, voices which asked President Wil- 
 son precisely what he meant by his phrase a world 
 "safe for democracy," voices which challenged the 
 aims of the Allies. Russia, these voices said, wanted 
 a peace with ''no annexations, no indemnities, and 
 the right of all peoples to determine their own 
 destiny." It was a magic phrase. The Allied na- 
 tions could ignore it no longer. 
 
 We cannot give in detail the tragic history of the 
 summer and autumn of 1917. But the main out- 
 lines of that history, as far as Russia is concerned, 
 are clear. Not once, but again and again, did the 
 Kerensky Government appeal to the Allied nations 
 for a revision of war aims. Not once, but again 
 
4 * - " -. WITHDRAW *FROM RUSSIA 
 
 and again, were the Russian people promised that 
 revision. Yet the revision was never made. The 
 secret treaties (known about all over Russia) were 
 never repudiated. And inevitably the Bolsheviki 
 came into power, as much from the blundering of 
 the Allied nations and from their unwillingness to 
 subscribe to the tenets of real democratic peace as 
 from any other reason. What the previous govern- 
 ments had promised to the Russian people and never 
 had secured the Bolsheviki did secure. The previous 
 governments had promised publication of the secret 
 treaties, division of the land — and peace. They 
 fulfilled none of their promises. But almost the first 
 act of the new Bolshevik Government was the pub- 
 lication of the secret treaties. The decree on land, 
 — dividing the estates according to promise — 
 [which we reprint on another page of this pamph- 
 let], was the first official act of the new govern- 
 ment, and together with the decree on peace 
 made great political capital for the Bolshevik Party. 
 Although Lenin apologized at the time for the 
 haste with which the decree on land was brought 
 out, its main provisions were later adopted by the 
 All Russian Congress of the Soviets. Peace with 
 Germany was also procured, first by an armistice 
 and finally by the ratification of the treaty of Brest- 
 Litovsk on March 16, 1918 — ironically enough 
 within one day of one year after the beginning of the 
 Revolution itself. 
 
 Following the Bolshevik success, what the whole 
 course of events and policy has shown is that for the 
 first time in the history of the modern world we are 
 confronted with an economic revolution instead of 
 a merely political revolution. The Soviet Govern- 
 ment might have been captured by any one of the 
 many political parties of Russia, the Mensheviki, 
 the Right Social Revolutionary Party, even the Left 
 Communist Party (which accuse both Lenin and 
 Trotzky of being "reactionaries"!), and so on. It 
 
WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA D 
 
 was as a matter of fact carried by the Bolshevik 
 Party, which, in spite of reports to the contrary, 
 gained in strength as time went on and today, after 
 over a year of its rule, has behind it the majority 
 support of the Russian people and can actually hope 
 in the coming spring to have a Red Army of per- 
 haps three million soldiers ready to lay down their 
 lives in its defense. Why? What is the vital 
 principle of the Bolsheviki that keeps them so long 
 in power? From what background do they spring? 
 What do they want? 
 
 Although these questions deserve detailed answers, 
 we wish to state, for the sake of clearness, our 
 belief concerning the chief points. Russians regard 
 us, as well as many others in Western nations, as 
 political infants. They are not content with what 
 we glibly call democracy. Their hopes and aspira- 
 tions are centered on a greater experiment than 
 merely representative government. They are intense- 
 ly communistic, more so than the people of any other 
 country. They want actually to abolish the whole 
 institution of private property. They want to create 
 a government which is entirely a people's govern- 
 ment, a government of the workers and the poor 
 peasants. They will, if they can, abolish the capital- 
 ist class. Contrary to repo/t, they bear no ill will 
 against the intellectuals as a class, although they 
 recognize the basic truth of the psychology of the 
 intellectual class; that is, they regard the intellec- 
 tuals as parasites on the so-called capitalist 
 class. Yet they hold the professions and the 
 arts in high honor. Their program for universal 
 education is extensive, and is not confined to merely 
 vocational training. The Soviet Government has 
 encouraged individual artists, subsidized theaters 
 and the ballet and the opera. It has reprinted the 
 great classics of literature in inexpensive form for 
 everybody. It recognizes the need for technical 
 experts and for discipline of all kinds. Funda- 
 
WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA 
 
 mentally, however, it is interested in maintaining a 
 workers' government, supported, as Lenin so elo- 
 quently phrased it in a speech before the Moscow 
 Soviet, by ''the regular march of the iron battalions 
 of the proletariat." 
 
 One point more, perhaps, needs emphasis. The 
 universality of the stories in the daily press about 
 the "Red Terror" and the mass murder of the bour- 
 geois class demands corrective. In the first place, 
 there was no "Red Terror" before the invasion of 
 Russia by Allied troops. In the second place, the 
 executions are not irresponsible murders, but de- 
 liberate measures of self-defense, such as any govern- 
 ment in similar circumstances, threatened both by 
 internal and external enemies, invariably adopts. 
 In the third place, the number of them has been 
 grossly exaggerated. In the fourth place, they do 
 not begin to equal the indiscriminate slaughter of 
 Soviet officials practiced by the invading troops 
 (principally the Czecho-Slovaks) whenever they are 
 successful in overthrowing a local Soviet. In the 
 fifth place, plots against the Central Soviet Govern- 
 ment have been persistent and unscrupulous, both 
 on the part of the disgruntled Russians who have 
 been expropriated or who have a political axe to 
 grind and on the part of* foreign governments, de- 
 sirous of the overthrow of the present regime. In 
 a word, the Soviet Government has adopted the con- 
 ventionally harsh method of suppressing the at- 
 tempts to instigate civil war in Russia. Had the 
 Allied Governments recognized the Soviet Govern- 
 ment instead of attacking it, and had they given it 
 the cooperation and assistance which it asked, it is 
 safe to assume that fully nine-tenths of the present 
 "Red Terror" would not have occurred. Recently, 
 moreover, thanks to Allied intervention, the Bolshe- 
 viki have become so strong in their internal grip on 
 the situation that they are now in a sufficiently 
 secure position not to need to employ the harsher 
 
WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA / 
 
 measures of the '*Red Terror." The brain worker 
 and the petit bourgeois are no longer to be op- 
 pressed, but propitiated. The further the armies of 
 the Allied Governments march into Russia the 
 stronger becomes the movement towards reconcilia- 
 tion within the country. It is an ancient phe- 
 nomenon. Before the foreign enemy domestic dif- 
 ferences vanish — all become Russians. Well could 
 Trotzky state that he could have afforded to pay 
 one hundred thousand roubles for every Japanese sol- 
 dier landed on Russian soil. The blundering policy 
 of the Allied Governments has not only evoked the 
 Bolsheviki — if continued, it will make all Russia 
 support them. 
 
 And yet this mad policy has been followed in 
 spite of the many attempts that the Soviet Govern- 
 ment has made to cooperate with the Allied Govern- 
 ments. There was always what one might call an 
 undercurrent of flirtation with the Allied Govern- 
 ments. For us there was open friendship: even the 
 more fanatical recognized the difference between a 
 medieval autocracy like Germany and a liberal 
 republic like ourselves. Before the Brest-Litovsk 
 treaty Trotzky requested the American Army to 
 send him officers to instruct the Red Army and to 
 put it in a position to fight Germany again. He 
 requested the English to send him English naval offi- 
 cers to take charge of the Black Sea Fleet in order 
 that it might not fall into the hands of the Germans. 
 He even accepted the proffered help of a few French 
 officers then in Russia, who, according to reliable 
 witnesses, not only did not train the Red Army, but 
 abused the confidence given them to get information 
 which was later put at the disposal of the Czecho- 
 slovak troops. After the treaty of Brest-Litovsk 
 was signed it was imperative, of course, that appear- 
 ances should be kept up with Germany. Yet the 
 Soviet Government's appeal to the Allies for co- 
 operation was constant. During February they re- 
 
 \ 
 
8 WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA ' 
 
 quested an American railway expert to take charge 
 of the technical details of the Russian railroads, and 
 a little later they informally proposed to give us the 
 right to purchase ore and other raw materials (to 
 purchase it exclusively, in spite of the fact that these 
 were just the things needed then by Germany) in 
 exchange for shipments of American goods to Rus- 
 sia. Liberal exchanges of Russian raw materials for 
 food were guaranteed. Time after time the Soviet 
 Government made direct and indirect offers of com- 
 mercial cooperation. And usually they signified 
 their complete willingness to renew the war against 
 Germany (for they never hesitated to describe the 
 treaty of Brest-Litovsk as no other than a robber's 
 peace) as soon as the army could be reorganized 
 and supplied with necessary munitions and equip- 
 ment. Not one of these many offers was acknowl- 
 edged, much less accepted. There seemed to be a 
 preconcerted plan not to recognize the Soviet Gov- 
 ernment under any circumstances and no matter 
 what they offered. Since the armistice with Ger- 
 many they have themselves offered an armistice to the 
 Allied nations. More : according to the Daily News 
 of London, Litvinoff, the representative until re- 
 cently of the Soviet Government in England, has 
 formally offered any concessions ,to the Allied na- 
 tions — including payment on the national debt by 
 what gold is in Russia and by liberal concessions — in 
 return for recognition of the Soviet Government by 
 the Allied nations — and peace. But so far the con- 
 sistently and sincerely friendly advances of the Soviet 
 Government have been ignored. 
 
 Possibly one reason for this has been the star 
 chamber method of conducting our diplomatic rela- 
 tions with the Soviet Government. If public 
 opinion in the various Allied countries — ourselves 
 included — had ever had any opportunity whatever 
 to discuss any of these offers, the situation today 
 might be different. But the news from Russia, par- 
 
WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA 9 
 
 ticularly since the Bolsheviki have had control, has 
 been notoriously false. The stories of massacre and 
 anarchy are, of course, largely for effect, and are 
 not to be taken seriously. It is also well known that 
 various governmental censorships, principally the 
 British, have suppressed actual news messages 
 sent by accredited correspondents of accredited 
 news associations from Moscow and Petrograd 
 — messages sent by men who w^ere not them- 
 selves Bolsheviki at all, but simply honest journal- 
 ists. And many are the stories of events by "eye- 
 witnesses" who saw no more than the inside of a 
 hotel in Stockholm.^ Not a word of the constructive 
 work being done by the Soviet Government has 
 been given out by the press. Such simple docu- 
 ments as we publish on another page, for example, 
 are practically unknown. All that we are allowed 
 are silly stories about new decrees on marriage and 
 free love, issued (where rarely authentic) by irre- 
 sponsible groups striving to put the Soviet Govern- 
 ment in a false light. When a really first-rate 
 analysis of what the Soviet Government is doing 
 is published — like The Soviets at Work by Lenin — 
 we are informed by Postmaster General Burleson 
 that it is unmailable. But the worst of all is the 
 fashion in which the news about Allied intervention 
 is distorted. We are led to believe that Allied troops 
 landed in Vladivostok to restore "law and order," 
 to put down the rule of an anarchical minority and 
 to substitute a democratic government. It is false. 
 There was quiet and the best of law and order at 
 Vladivostok when Allied troops landed. The Soviet 
 had the support and affection of the people. The 
 Allied troops did not set up a democratic govern- 
 ment: they set up a reactionary dictatorship. We 
 are prepared to prove that in every case where 
 Allied troops have invaded Russian soil they have 
 overthrown the popular government and set up a 
 temporary government resting for its support on 
 
10 WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA 
 
 foreign bayonets, a government reactionary and in 
 some cases even frankly monarchist. It is safe to 
 say that the average American citizen would be 
 thoroughly shocked at knowing the kind of imperial- 
 istic and anti-democratic game which is being played 
 by our own and our Allies' armies in Russia. These 
 are facts and we think it high time that they be told. 
 We do not believe that our own Government wants 
 the restoration of the monarchy in Russia or that it 
 would support a demonstrably unpopular govern- 
 ment forever. The American Government would 
 like to see in Russia a liberal and commercial re- 
 public like ourselves — a quiet, respectable govern- 
 ment with which we could do business. Undoubt- 
 edly. But what we should like and what we are as 
 a matter of cold fact getting are two widely different 
 things. It is no secret that powerful parties in Japan 
 are advocating the unostentatious annexation of large 
 sections of Siberia, and that they have no interest in 
 seeing any stable popular government arise east of 
 the Urals. It is no secret that England trembles for 
 Persia, Afghanistan, and India, and that the Tory 
 party would gladly crush the Russian Revolution if 
 it exhibited any tendency towards proselytism in for- 
 eign countries (as it has). It is no secret that a cer- 
 tain section of French governmental opinion cares 
 not a fig what sort of a reactionary government there 
 is in Russia, provided only it is a government that 
 will immediately repay the foreign loan. In a word, 
 our intervention in Russia may have been undertaken 
 with the best of intentions, but the practical situation 
 with which we are faced today is either to support 
 reaction and imperialis?n or — to withdraw our 
 troops, Russian intervention has become for Amer- 
 ica a tragic anachronism since the defeat of Ger- 
 many. We have neither a national nor an interna- 
 tional interest which today legitimately sanctions the 
 presence of our troops on Russian soil. It is false 
 to our traditions to be fighting a workingman's 
 
WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA 1 1 
 
 republic, even if we do not approve of its form or its 
 manners. It is not in accordance with any doctrine 
 of American national policy for us to be engaged 
 in crushing a revolution or in crucifying the hopes 
 and aspirations of a great and mighty people. It 
 is really difficult to believe that this is the same 
 country which in Washington's time almost had a 
 civil war because this government refused to inter- 
 vene in the French Revolution, on behalf of the 
 revolutionists. And not even the most severe critics 
 of the present leaders of the Soviet Government have 
 said one-tenth as bitter things as were said of 
 Robespierre and Marat in their day. No; to help 
 crush a revolution is not in accordance with the 
 real American tradition. 
 
 For that reason we demand of our Govern- 
 ment that our troops now in Russia be immedi- 
 ately withdrawn. We are asking no more than 
 British Labor and French Labor and Italian Labor 
 have already officially demanded of their govern- 
 ments. We are asking no more than President 
 Wilson has again and again promised to the Russian 
 people — "We are fighting," said the President in 
 his communication to the Provisional Government 
 of Russia on June 9, 1917, "for the liberty, the 
 self-government, and the undictated development of 
 all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that 
 concludes this war must be conceived and executed 
 for that purpose." We are asking no more than 
 would ask, if they knew the facts, and do ask, those 
 who are aware of them, the soldiers who entered this 
 war inspired by an honest ideal to defeat the menace 
 of German autocracy and to bring freedom to the 
 oppressed peoples of the world. Those who have 
 given their lives on the battlefields of France will 
 rise to reproach us if we are now false to our trust. 
 We have fought for freedom, and as the President 
 has said, the undictated development of all peoples. 
 We demand that Russia have her fair chance at that 
 
12 WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA 
 
 freedom and self-development, and that if we are in 
 no position to direct or guide the actions of other 
 nations with respect to her we at least shall leave her 
 free to work out her own destiny. Let a war which 
 has not been declared b}^ the nation we are fighting, 
 or by ourselves, cease. And let those representatives 
 of Russia who speak for the majority of the Rus- 
 sian people and not for interested cliques of in- 
 triguers have a voice and a hearing at the peace 
 conference. 
 
 We demand that freedom of communication with 
 Russia be at once restored, and that the whole truth 
 be permitted to appear without let or hindrance in 
 our periodicals; that the motives back of interven- 
 tion, be they either political or economic or what 
 not, be given to the American people in order that 
 they may have full knowledge and may of them- 
 selves determine whether or not they are willing to 
 back up the present intervention in Russia and what 
 is the logical further activity implied by that inter- 
 vention. We demand that the open diplomacy for 
 which the President has declared be practiced with 
 respect to Russia. We demand, in a single word, 
 the truth. We have lived for the last year in a 
 poisonous atmosphere of lies and slander and in- 
 trigue and double-dealing. As Americans, who 
 honestly believe that we speak for the sober second 
 thought of this country and for those who have no 
 organ of publicity or appeal, we demand that once 
 and for all the clean wind of the truth be allowed 
 to sweep away the false conceptions and interested 
 propaganda which have infected the country. We 
 demand of our Government a clear formulation and 
 simple, honest statement of its Russian policy. We 
 demand that that policy be based on the facts and 
 not on lies, that that policy be American and Ameri- 
 can alone. 
 
 The Editors. 
 
Soviet Russia and the American 
 Revolution 
 
 The drawing of historic analogies is a perilous 
 undertaking. On the score of specific incident and 
 detail it would be difficult to establish the case for a 
 comparison between the Russian and the American 
 Revolutions; the two manifestations apparently run 
 in quite independent channels; and it may seem 
 strange that anj^one should attempt to draw a paral- 
 lel between Russia and America in this regard 
 when the French Revolution superficially offers the 
 better analogy. But it is only superficially; after 
 all the specific objections have been freely admitted, 
 after all detailed criticism has been allowed to 
 triumph by default of the argument, there remains 
 a certain divine sense in which the Russian Revolu- 
 tion parallels the revolt of the thirteen American 
 Colonies more nearly than the other, and in which 
 the proletariat of Russia is striving to accomplish 
 for his w^orld much the same ideals which our fore- 
 fathers laid down for theirs. There was more of the 
 spirit of the people, more of faith and dependence in 
 the proletariat, in American Revolutionary doctrine 
 than we seem disposed to admit today; and by the 
 same token, it is because we have lost our sense of 
 fundamental democracy that we do not care to admit 
 it. But we should think too highly of the outright 
 American ideals to permit them without protest to 
 be swallowed whole by the pseudo-democratic claims 
 of a crass plutocracy. Totally different in form and 
 substance, in method and event, in time, place, cir- 
 cumstance, and era, these two revolutionary mani- 
 festations nevertheless have shown the same spirit 
 and have sprung from the same set of universal 
 human impulses. To their respective centuries they 
 have meant the same thing. 
 
 In fact, has not the thought arrested liberals 
 everywhere that in the Soviet system we see a fore- 
 
14 SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 shadowing jof the next step forward in the machinery 
 of democratic government, bringing our present 
 machiner}^ a heritage from a past era, abreast of the 
 new industrialized world? The writers of the 
 American Constitution certainly strove to construct 
 an instrument by virtue of which the actual majority 
 of the electorate should control the government. 
 They certainly strove to render impossible the domi- 
 nation of a ruling class, to do away with the artificial 
 complexities of politics, and to bring every function 
 of government within the grasp and comprehension 
 of the whole electorate. Indeed, they went much 
 farther than this in theory, and by opening the high- 
 est office to the lowest citizen they faced and 
 acknowledged the truth that an experience in human 
 mutuality may be a better equipment for the art of 
 governing than education or a cosmopolitan training. 
 In a day of simple industrial, social, and commercial 
 elements, class lines and feelings as they now exist 
 were not included in the category. But these have 
 grown up rapidly under the impetus of industrial- 
 ism; and along with them have grown, in new 
 guise but in the same unmistakable form, many of 
 the very political and governmental evils which 
 the writers of the American Constitution strove so 
 hard to avoid. Governments have become complex 
 once more, legislatures have passed into the control 
 of lawyers, the body of the electorate does not see 
 and feels that it cannot grasp what is going on, and 
 a ruling class selected along financial attributes 
 definitely dominates the political machinery of West- 
 ern democracy. In a word, our system of repre- 
 sentative government has demonstrated, to the class, 
 at least, which feels the grievance, that under 
 changed economic conditions it does not fairly repre- 
 sent the popular will. Allowing for the great 
 natural difference between the two periods, it is not 
 stretching the point to say that the Soviet system in 
 Russia proposes to do for the new era something 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA 15 
 
 very similar in its political objectives to that which 
 the writers of the American Constitution proposed 
 to do for the old; and that the true purpose of 
 Soviet Russia, irrespective of its transitory class 
 dogma, is to simplify government again and to 
 bring it under the control of the" actual majority. 
 
 And the great danger which besets us is that, in 
 the confusion of issues and events, the true demo- 
 cratic fundamentals of Russia may not be recognized 
 in time by American and Allied statesmanship, and 
 that the natural development of the Russian de- 
 mocracy may be hopelessly compromised by inter- 
 ference from abroad. This, in turn, would quickly 
 undermine what democracy is left to us in the West, 
 and might too easily bring about the cataclysm. The 
 future of civilization seems to hang between tlie 
 devil of selfish privilege and the deep sea of an 
 inadequate statesmanship. From the beginning of 
 the Revolution Russia has relentlessly precipitated 
 for the democratic world the issue which could not 
 be put aside. 
 
 It is certain that Russia cannot continue per- 
 manently to be governed on a class basis. The logic 
 of life and history precludes such an outcome. All 
 the tendencies of human relationships stand un- 
 alterably opposed to it. The outright class program 
 of Soviet Russia, which already shows distinct signs 
 of becoming modified under the pressure of events 
 and responsibilities, is bound to be still farther modi- 
 fied, until it loses its strictly class character. The 
 existing bourgeoisie may easily be disposed of, but 
 there is no provision in the class program for the 
 new bourgeoisie which inevitably will be developed 
 out of the body of the proletariat. The various 
 political parties of Russia, at present representing 
 highly antagonistic class groups, must ultimately 
 come together in some workable form of constitu- 
 tional and parliamentary coalition. The furthering 
 
16 • SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 of this process should be the great task confronting 
 American and Allied statesmanship today. 
 
 Briefly, the political issue in Russia lies between 
 two systems of governmental authority based on 
 different principles of election and representation: 
 the Soviet system,' based on class units; and the 
 system of the Constituent Assembly, based on the 
 old geographical units. The Soviet system breaks up 
 the old geographical election district into class units, 
 each one of which elects its own delegate to the local 
 Soviet; and the local Soviet, in turn, elects its dele- 
 gates to the next higher body. This, roughly, is the 
 central principle of an extensive governmental sys- 
 tem the details of which do not properly come within 
 the range of the present article. The basis of the 
 Constituent Assembly, on the other hand, is the old 
 geographical election district established under the 
 Czar's regime at the time of the first Duma. This 
 also is the Zemstvo election district. 
 
 The Soviet system made its appearance in Russia 
 coincident with the first Revolution of the spring of 
 1917. It was the authority of the Soviet system, 
 through its first manifestation in the Council c: 
 Soldiers' and Workers' Delegates in Petrograd, 
 which brought about the downfall of the Pro- 
 visional Government a few weeks after the Revolu- 
 )tion. Throughout the summer of 1917, under the 
 Coalition Government and during-^ the Kerensky 
 regime, the Soviet system was the real power in 
 Russia. From the very beginning the forces repre- 
 senting the Constituent Assembly have not been able 
 to stand against the Soviet authority, although many 
 counter-revolutions in the name of the Constituent 
 Assembly have been supported from abroad. All the 
 events of the Revolution prove the case. The author- 
 ity of the Soviet system has maintained itself in the 
 face of the combined hostility of the world, and is 
 stronger today than it was six months ago. 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA 17 
 
 The fact is that the Soviet system is a new ma- 
 chinery of representative government, derived from 
 the principle of class representation, and in the case 
 of Russia taking its roots in the local machinery of 
 the ancient village Mir. It is a system simple and 
 direct enough to be understood by the peasants and 
 workingmen, and through it they are able without 
 handicap to exercise their traditional training in 
 local self-government and to apply it to the broader 
 field of national politics. There is nothing un- 
 democratic about the Soviet system; its ideal seems 
 to be to produce a government actually representa- 
 tive of the proportional groupings of modern society. 
 With the addition of the class feature, it is nothing 
 but an extension of our own town-meeting principle. 
 Let us have class caucuses in town-meeting, and we 
 have the local Soviet. At any rate, this system is a 
 natural product of social and political fundamentals 
 in Russia, and as such plainly is indispensable to the 
 development of the true Russian democracy. 
 
 So the real issue, throughout the Revolution, has 
 been between two antagonistic systems of representa- 
 tive government rather than between various politi- 
 cal parties. On the one hand were the Bolsheviki 
 and certain groups of the Mensheviki and Social 
 Revolutionaries, who steadfastly supported the So- 
 viet system. On the other hand were the Cadets 
 and the reactionary fringe of the center parties, who 
 supported the system of the Constituent Assembly. 
 These latter have refused to cooperate in the Soviet 
 system, and have insisted that democracy for 
 Russia lies only in a return to the authority of 
 the Constituent Assembly. It is not difficult to 
 see the reason for this: under the Soviet sys- 
 tem they would be an insignificant minority, 
 while under the system of the Constituent Assembly 
 they would stand a better chance of controlling the 
 political situation. They accuse the Soviet authority 
 of overthrowing the Constituent Assembly, which of 
 
18 SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 course was done ; but the Soviets could not have done 
 it and maintained the position without the backing 
 of a majority opinion. Two different principles of 
 government could not establish their separate ma- 
 chinery throughout the same area. In the clash of 
 Revolutionary forces the Soviet principle won the 
 day, and became established as the will of the Rus- 
 sian people. The statement that the peasants are 
 being held in political bondage by the Soviets does 
 not seem to be borne out by the facts of the case. 
 The Soviet system is founded on peasant funda- 
 mentals, and satisfies peasant training and psychol- 
 ogy. It cannot be overlooked that the peasants have 
 not yet attempted to overthrow the Soviet system, 
 but that on the contrary they have everywhere sup- 
 ported it; and that nowhere in Russia since the first 
 Revolution has there appeared a peasant movement 
 for the reestablishment of the Constituent Assembly. 
 The task for constructive statesmanship, therefore, 
 obviously is to effect a reconciliation of all the Revo- 
 lutionary parties of Russia based on the Soviet prin- 
 ciple. It is now fairly demonstrable that to attempt 
 a reconciliation based on the opposite principle is to 
 invite ultimate failure. It is to attempt to sustain 
 the small minority against the vast majority, to set 
 up in Russia a fictitious authority not supported by 
 the Russian people. This has been tried in lending 
 support to the various Counter-Revolutionary move- 
 ments, and now it is being tried directly by the force 
 of Allied and American arms. Such a fictitious 
 government would needs be supported continuously 
 by military power from abroad. Who will promise 
 that such a policy will not destroy the very authority 
 which institutes it, through the revolt of the pro- 
 letariat ever5rwhere ? Who will deny that such a 
 policy makes utter mockery of the principle of self- 
 determination, for which the democratic world os- 
 tensibly has been fighting? 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA 19 
 
 The second necessary office of American and 
 Allied statesmanship should be to assist in bringing 
 about cohesion within the Soviet system itself. This 
 system has sprung up like a mushroom growth 
 throughout the length and breadth of Russia. It is 
 natural and substantial on the legislative side, but it 
 unavoidably lacks administrative leadership and fed- 
 eral cohesion. The executive branch suffers from 
 sheer inadequacy of personnel: A legislative system 
 based on sound fundamentals creates itself auto- 
 matically out of the body and initiative of a self- 
 governing people ; but a corresponding executive sys- 
 tem, with its enormous problems of personnel and 
 authority, has to be built up more slowly out of 
 training, education, and experience. The very train- 
 ing in local self-government throughout Russia 
 which gives strength to the legislative function of 
 the Soviet system militates at the start against its 
 administrative cohesion; the provincial Soviets in 
 some cases refuse to abide by the decisions of the 
 All-Russian Congress, and in general the local So- 
 viets, born of independence and intoxicated by a year 
 of youthful authority, tend to go their own ways. 
 The vastness of the country, the educational back- 
 wardness of the people, the lack of transportation 
 and communication, and the inevitable provincialism 
 of the whole regime, all aggravate this failure in 
 administrative cohesion. In addition, a great deal 
 of the trained administrative talent of Russia, with 
 vision blurred by the injustices of the Revolutionary 
 manifestation, has chosen actively to conspire against 
 the success of the true democratic principle. As a 
 result of all this we see a movement in Russia which 
 superficially may look like a disagreement among 
 the Soviets and a gradual breaking up of the system 
 itself, but which in reality is only a natural stage in 
 the very unequal and desperately difficult develop- 
 ment of a Russian federation based on true demo- 
 cratic fundamentals. 
 
20 SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 Here again we discover that vague but neverthe- 
 less sound analogy between the Russian and the 
 American Revolutions. In both cases the general 
 problem is one of federation. Russia, like America, 
 has found her true legislative fundamentals but 
 lacks administrative cohesion. Russia, like America, 
 has her small body of Tories, whose property is be- 
 ing confiscated, whose political principles are being 
 outraged, and who are betraying her at every turn. 
 In so far as it is possible to compare two widely 
 separated social, political, and economic eras, the 
 analogy holds. In America however the sole aim 
 was political democracy ; for in that day the founda- 
 tions of democracy had not yet shifted from legis- 
 latures to banks and bourses, and there was no in- 
 dustrial autocracy to fight. Today in Russia, in a 
 world many generations removed from that of our 
 forefathers on the score of economic progress, the 
 aim is social and industrial democracy through po- 
 litical democracy. The legislative fundamentals 
 were of course more firmly established among the 
 Thirteen Colonies than they are in Soviet Russia; 
 the electorate may have been better trained in self- 
 government, and the necessary administrative ma- 
 chinery and personnel were unquestionably far more 
 extensive; but on the other hand, these very facts 
 entailed a set of firmly grounded local antagonisms 
 among the Colonies which is largely absent in the 
 case of Soviet Russia. What might be called the 
 potential cohesion of Soviet Russia is probably 
 sounder and more substantial than was that of the 
 Thirteen Colonies, or in other words the danger 
 of disruption is less. The potentialities in America 
 in 1788 were exceedingly treacherous; and Amer- 
 ica's federal cohesion was not finally established until 
 the close of the Civil War in 1865. And for a last 
 item of the analogy, the case of Russia, like that of 
 the Thirteen Colonies, demands the utmost wisdom 
 of reconciliation and vision of brave and constructive 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA - 2 1 
 
 leadership, and this not only in Russia, but quite as 
 much on the part of the world abroad. 
 
 When we turn from the political to the economic 
 phase of Soviet Russia, we see that they are the 
 obverse and reverse of the same shield. However 
 seriously Soviet Russia may have avowed the prin- 
 ciples of Marxian Socialism, it is evident that the 
 application of the program has not worked out along 
 dogmatic lines, and that the final result will be far 
 different from the original theory. As a matter of 
 fact there seems to be much misunderstanding re- 
 garding the Socialistic nature of the Bolshevik mani- 
 festation, and room for grave doubt of its orthodoxy ; 
 reports are infinitely confusing, and passion or 
 prejudice almost unavoidably colors the account. 
 The impression generally accepted through the West 
 is that the Soviets are instituting Marxian Socialism. 
 But it has not yet been explained why formal Social- 
 ists everjrwhere, in Russia as well as in the Allied 
 countries and America, are the bitterest enemies of 
 Bolshevism. It has not been explained precisely 
 what Bolshevism is. The fact seems to be that 
 Bolshevism is something entirely new, something 
 which partakes of the nature of both communism 
 and democracy, of both Socialism and capitalism — 
 something which has split Socialism everywhere and 
 caused the majority of Socialists to shift their 
 ground, leaving only the dogmatic minority within 
 the walls of the academic Marxian doctrine. The 
 Bolsheviki in control of Soviet Russia have awakened 
 the thought of the world. 
 
 All this is a healthy and hopeful sign. It means 
 that the social program of Soviet Russia is as new 
 and untried as its political machinery; that both are 
 in a process of rapid development, seeking im- 
 petuously to find their true bearings; and that both 
 inevitably are destined to grow out of themselves 
 into more stable and adaptable forms. The thing 
 which has appeared in Russia is a thing without 
 
22 SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 theory or precedent. In a strictly literal sense it is 
 a natural development. It is not to be estimated by 
 physical events, or even by the acts or announced 
 policies of the Soviet authority, but only by a free 
 analysis of the tendencies and potentialities made 
 manifest. What it is heading towards, what it must 
 become, is of far more importance than what it is 
 today. After a year of chaos, in which ideas of 
 Socialism, communism, and anarchy have run riot 
 along with sublime visions and great hopes in the 
 minds of a people untutored, elemental, natively 
 philosophic, and suffering from tragic wrongs — a 
 people nobly disposed at heart, and suddenly en- 
 dowed with the tremendous burden of its own (and 
 perhaps the world's) destiny — it is possible to dis- 
 cern the vague but nevertheless certain outlines of 
 a cosmic plan, standing solidly in the background of 
 the Revolutionary picture. 
 
 This plan is neither Socialistic nor communistic. 
 It is neither a bourgeois plan nor a proletarian plan. 
 It is the plan of a free and outright representative 
 democracy, of the rule of the actual majority, of 
 natural resources and all forms of national wealth 
 and productive power in the hands of the people, of 
 work for production rather than for profit, and of 
 government for service rather than for privilege. 
 This is the objective towards which Soviet Russia 
 is heading. These are the real tendencies and po- 
 tentialities of Bolshevism. 
 
 In a modern economic sense Russia is a clean 
 slate to write on. It is stated that less than three 
 per cent of her population is made up of industrial 
 workers. Russia is still almost wholly an agri- 
 cultural state. Her vast natural resources lie prac- 
 tically untouched ; the well of her stupendous 
 productive power remains unopened. Only an 
 insignificant proportion of her wealth is invested in 
 the mechanical industries. But it is inevitable that 
 in the course of the next fifty years Russia will be- 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA 23 
 
 come to a large degree industrialized. Millions and 
 tens of millions of agricultural workers will become 
 factory workers; enormous new wealth will be 
 created, and the most of it will be invested in the 
 mechanical industries; the color and texture of the 
 whole social fabric of Russia will change. The 
 prospect is overwhelming; nowhere in history has 
 such a field disclosed itself to an era so ready to 
 seize and act upon it. The sweep of possibilities in 
 Russia staggers the imagination. It stills the heart, 
 as well, to realize that we of the Western democra- 
 cies are permitted to assist at the birth of this new 
 giant, and that all that we do, either right or wrong, 
 for or against, shall surely afEect the history of a 
 great people, and shall as surely react upon the his- 
 tory of our children's children. 
 
 What shall be written on the clean economic 
 slate of Russia? What shall be the fortune of that 
 portentous economic history which is even now be- 
 ginning to unfold itself? Shall it be permitted to 
 develop naturally under the control of the Russian 
 people, along with the development of Russia's free 
 political institutions? Shall we in America and in 
 the Allied countries seek with all of our wisdom 
 and experience to assist Russia to avoid the errors 
 into which Western democracy has fallen in the 
 course of its industrial development? Shall we 
 rejoice in the opportunity to put into effect in Rus- 
 sia, as stones in the foundation, those reforms for 
 which Western democracy has had to pay such a 
 heavy price in the demolition of the structure ? Or 
 shall we, actuated only by selfish motives, inspired 
 only by greed and materialism, aware only of the 
 temporary profit and reckless of the eternal conse- 
 quence, break up the natural development of 
 Russia's economic and political destiny (the while 
 we hypocritically explain that we are doing it for 
 Russia's benefit) and insist on grafting all of our 
 own errors and vices on the free Russian stenl ? To 
 
24 SOVIET RUSSIA 
 
 be specific, shall Russia be left to develop her own 
 natural resources and productive power, under the 
 control of her own popular government, or shall she 
 be forced to undergo for a time the familiar proc- 
 ess of exploitation at the hands of foreign capital 
 backed by foreign arms? Shall her enormous po- 
 tential wealth accrue to. herself, to her people, to , 
 the benefit of Russia, or shall it accrue to banking 
 circles in foreign capitals and to the close corporation 
 of vested financial control? 
 
 The latter course would seem to be monstrous; 
 and yet it is the course which so far frankly has 
 been followed by Allied and American policy. It is' 
 the course which has prompted the bourgeoisie in 
 Russia to revolt frantically against the Soviets; it is 
 the course which has led the Allies (in unconscious 
 agreement with Imperial Germany) to support 
 counter-revolution after counter-revolution in 
 Russia; it is the course which has inspired a 
 propaganda from Russia utterly misrepresienting 
 events and issues; it is the course which has called 
 for military intervention, for recognition of a 
 Siberian Government, for any possible action cal- 
 culated to break down the authority of the Soviet 
 system. The motive in all these acts has been the 
 spirit of exploitation, which, when driven into the 
 corner, takes refuge in the claim that only through 
 the machinery of the old economic order can Russia 
 properly be saved. 
 
 The West perhaps may have' the power to break 
 the new Russian democracy, although the breaker 
 will be broken in the end. But the responsibility 
 goes farther than the immediate issue. To break 
 the new Russian democracy means, in no uncertain 
 language, to lose the fight for the new world. It 
 means that the great war which has just now ended 
 will have to be fought over again quite soon and very 
 terribly on a different field. For the fact cannot be 
 evaded that, stripped of misrepresentation and de- 
 
SOVIET RUSSIA 25 
 
 lusion, Soviet Russians objective is essentially the 
 same as the avowed objective of America and the 
 Allies; or that the tendencies and potentialities of 
 Bolshevism differ only in degree, but not in kind, 
 from those inherent in all Western democracy. 
 They represent the same broad fundamentals which 
 find expression in the war aims of President Wilson, 
 in the reconstruction program of the British Labor 
 Party, in the program of the new Independent 
 Labor Party in America, and in the language of 
 thoughtful men everywhere when they discuss the 
 growing inadequacies and palpable failures of our 
 present governmental machinery. When we visual- 
 ize industrial democracy for America, we visualize 
 a state not so far different from the state fore- 
 shadowed by the tendencies and potentialities of 
 Soviet Russia. Thus by the inexorable logic of 
 human progress the truth in Russia is bound up with 
 the truth throughout the West; and if the West 
 deny the truth in Russia, it will have denied the 
 truth at home. And truth denied will launch the 
 cataclysm. 
 
 It rests with the statesmanship of America and 
 the Allies whether our ostensible objective shall be- 
 come our real objective, and shall be attained, or 
 whether the compromise must be carried forward to 
 disaster; whether Russia's contribution ta. democracy 
 shall be recognized and accepted, or whether it shall 
 be spurned and scattered, to appear anon behind the 
 lines of the entrenched and self-righteous authori- 
 ties; whether the West can learn its lesson in time, 
 or whether civilization must go down in ruins be- 
 fore the new world appears. 
 
 Lincoln Colcord. 
 
A Voice Out of Russia 
 
 Americans have always pictured Russia as some 
 fairyland such as India or Tibet. Formerly it was 
 the land of the Czars, the whip, and the Cossack, 
 and now it is the land of the still less comprehensible 
 Bolsheviki. Yet there is a great likeness in char- 
 acter between Americans and Russians :1or instance, 
 devotion to land, love of liberty, natural humor, 
 and a carefree attitude. But there is a great dif- 
 ference, owing to historic reasons, between the mode 
 of life of the United States and that of Russia. First 
 of all, the white pioneers went into the forests and 
 prairies of this country one by one or in small groups 
 and settled immediately as individual farmers. 
 The Russian people migrated a thousand years ago 
 from the Carpathians to the east en masse. They 
 occupied lands for "artels** (groups). During that 
 thousand years they grew accustomed to cultivating 
 the land by communistic methods. But the Ameri- 
 can farmer is first of all an owner, whereas the 
 Russian peasant is a communist — and here lies the 
 reason of the success of Socialistic teaching in Rus- 
 sia. Second, in America material and spiritual 
 advantages are distributed among the population 
 more evenly than in Russia. Until the very out- 
 break of the Revolution the law distinctly divided 
 the Russian "subjects" into two uneven parts: 3 per 
 cent of the population were the so-called "priv- 
 ileged" classes and 97 per cent the so-called "tax- 
 paying" people. All comforts and necessities of 
 life, including education, were the privilege of the 
 3 per cent ; admittance to high schools and universi- 
 ties, to state service and officers* rank was totally 
 closed to the 97 per cent. It should not be for- 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 27 
 
 gotten that 85 per cent of the population were freed 
 from the state of slavery only fifty-eight years ago, 
 and naturally they still bear much malice to their 
 former masters. But even among the 3 per cent 
 of the privileged there was not full content; the 
 capitalistic class and the Intelligentsia were de- 
 prived of political power, which was monopolized 
 by court adventurers. Discontent was universal. 
 It was already evident in 1905, but not being suffici- 
 ently organized, it was crushed. 
 
 The war precipitated the climax. It is well 
 known that the war found Russia inadequately 
 prepared. Nevertheless we performed the self- 
 imposed duties more than honestly; we performed 
 them with self-sacrifice. And this did not fail to 
 react; owing to the undeveloped state of our eco- 
 nomic life we were ruined by hunger and poverty 
 by the third year of the war. 
 
 This did not happen at once. We passed three 
 stages in falling down the slope. The first stage 
 passed with the cry: "The war will end soon!" 
 Owing to this belief the factories and shops con- 
 tinued to work according to the usual peace pro- 
 gram and met the demands of the consumers at the 
 expense of the army^s needs. Russia had everything 
 in abundance; moreover the cessation of exports 
 created a surplus of goods. The heart of the country 
 did not feel the hardships of the war. It is true that 
 12,000,000 youths and men were torn away from 
 their families, but the tears for them dissolved in 
 the ocean of apathy and plenty brought about by the 
 flow of money into the villages. The last is of such 
 great importance that we must go into details of it. 
 We know what enormous expenditures a modern 
 war requires. Russia did not have enough gold. 
 
28 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 and attempts to raise internal loans were unsuccess- 
 ful, owing to the ignorance of the masses. Therefore 
 only one way was open to us, to print paper money. 
 The sudden increase of its amount in circulation 
 did not fail to show results; the ruble began to fall 
 in value and prices of commodities began to increase 
 ^accordingly. Inasmuch as the peasant was getting 
 double prices, the peasant sold everything: grain, 
 cattle, linen, grandmother's dresses. "The village is 
 growing rich," shouted the newspapers. 
 
 But soon, very soon, the Russian peasant learned 
 a bitter lesson as to the value of money. As thunder 
 from a clear sky came the news of our retreat from 
 the Carpathians in the spring of 1915. It was 
 found that in order to proceed with the war we 
 lacked the most necessary commodities ; it was found 
 that our children and fathers were facing the most 
 cruel and powerful enemy totally unarmed. This 
 brought about a feverish mobilization of our in- 
 dustry. 
 
 The second stage ensued and ran under the motto : 
 "Everything for the war." We sacrificed our en- 
 tire industry to the prosecution of the war. We did 
 not merely cease to manufacture nails, candles, and 
 agricultural machinery, but we even gave up 75 per 
 cent of our textile industry for war needs. And 
 thus the so-called goods famine ensued. But the 
 country did not have articles of necessity, and al- 
 though goods were yet to be obtained in the cities 
 nothing reached the village. Having money on hand, 
 the peasant found that he could not purchase any- 
 thing with it. He could not understand it at first, 
 but when he realized it, he became very angry and 
 refused to sell grain for the army and cities. "I 
 don't want your money," he said to the agents of 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 29 
 
 the Government and to merchants who would come 
 for the grain. "Give me gingham, nails, scythes, 
 boots — and unless you give me these, you will not 
 get my grain." During the Czar's regime even 
 flogging was resorted to, but the peasant was quite 
 determined in his refusal to sell grain. 
 
 As a result of this the army and the cities re- 
 mained without bread, and the cattle were partly 
 consumed and partly starved by lack of hay. A 
 shortage of foodstuffs began, and in addition to this 
 many refugees from Poland and Lithuania fled in 
 the fall of 1915 to the interior cities. Nevertheless 
 we managed to push through the trying winter of 
 1915-16. And in the fall of 1916 the situation 
 became still worse. Due to additional recruiting of 
 soldiers a shortage of labor occurred. The culti- 
 vated area suffered a decrease of 30 per cent. And 
 then in November there was an acute shortage of 
 locomotives on the railroads. We never had had 
 many of them. And during the war, owing to the in- 
 tensive usage, they were worn out and there was no 
 means of repairing them. As a result of this, the 
 railroads were totally disorganized. On the Don 
 and in Siberia, for instance, grain and hay were 
 rotting at the stations, while on the Roumanian 
 front I personally witnessed how thousands of horses 
 were falling of exhaustion and hunger. And the 
 inhabitants had to sustain themselves upon the meat 
 of these fallen horses. Conditions in the cities were 
 not much better. Hunger and cold penetrated 
 everywhere. The most timid citizens began to 
 complain and protest. And what meanwhile was 
 going on within the Government ? Dissipation with 
 Rasputin and the placing of favorites in ministerial 
 posts. All slightly capable ministers, in spite of pub- 
 
30 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 lie opinion, were driven out and in their places were 
 put known thieves, cretins, and traitors. A sort of 
 madness, hopeless madness, enveloped Tsarskoye 
 Selo and in the name of the weak-willed, drunken 
 Nicholas the Russian people were governed by his 
 German wife and a clique of scoundrels. Loyal 
 hands, desiring to uphold the prestige of the throne, 
 assassinated Rasputin ; but in answer to this followed 
 orgies over his corpse, the '^provocation" of street 
 disturbances in Petrograd, and the dispersing of the 
 Duma. Then the moment came when all of us — 
 from Lenin to Purishkevitch (the leader of the 
 famous "Black Hundred") — understood that this 
 sort of thing could not continue any longer, that the 
 Czar's regime had outlived itself. And it fell — fell 
 painlessly and with ease, as a decayed apple falls 
 from a tree. 
 
 In place of Nicholas II came the Government of 
 Prince Lvoif, the Government of Cadets — a revolu- 
 tionary Government without revolutionists. I shall 
 never forget the comment about this Government by 
 a former minister of the Czar, Krivoshein. "This 
 Government," said Krivoshein after he was told of 
 its composition, "has one great fault; it is too mod- 
 erate. Two months ago it would have satisfied the 
 country ; now it is too late. It will not have power, 
 and thus. Sirs, you will sacrifice your own newborn 
 child — the Revolution — and also our all-beloved 
 Fatherland, Russia." These words proved to be 
 prophetic. The composition of the First Provisional 
 Government was not in accordance with the senti- 
 ment of the country. And as a result, side by side I 
 with this Government, sprang up the Soviets, backed ^ 
 by the confidence of the great masses of the people. 
 Among the ministers of the First Provisional Gov- 
 ernment there were to be found no men with tech- 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 31 
 
 nical experience of state administration. LvofE and 
 Miliukoif gave ministerial places to their party 
 friends. The Director of the Imperial Ballet was 
 given the portfolio of the Ministry of Finance; a 
 physician, the Ministry of Agriculture. 
 
 The organization of the Second Provisional Gov- 
 ernment, which included representatives of the radi- 
 cal bourgeoisie and Moderate Socialists, slightly 
 changed the picture. They could not very well 
 agree. Creative energy was expended in internal 
 strife. The compromised decisions were not clear. 
 The Second Provisional Government also lacked 
 state experience and will-power. Doubtless the 
 burden placed upon these governments by events 
 proved to be too heavy. The time demanded 
 giants, but instead found midgets. But what was 
 the problem of both Provisional Governments with 
 which they could not cope? The Provisional Gov- 
 ernments themselves were saying that their aim was 
 to call a Constituent Assembly. They did not 
 realize that the Constituent Assembly was not the 
 final end, hut only a means, a means of expressing 
 the will of the people and of solving problems placed 
 before them. The substantial mistake of both Pro- 
 visional Governments was that they mistook the 
 means for the end. 
 
 When the March Revolution broke out three 
 colossal questions confronted the Russian people: 
 
 1. What is to be done about the war? 
 
 2. How is the Russian state to be organized? 
 
 3. How are famine and economic disintegration 
 to be stopped? 
 
 Now, the Constituent Assembly was to be con- 
 voked in ten months. Even in normal peaceful 
 times it is impossible to stop the curr-ent of life for 
 
32 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 ten months. And a revolution is a social condition 
 in which the pulsation of events is increased ten to 
 twentyfold. It ought to have been self-evident that 
 the wheel of national life could not be stopped for 
 ten months either by LvofE or Kerensky. No matter 
 how they urged the convocation of the Constituent 
 Assembly, they were themselves compelled by force 
 of events to solve, little by little, the very questions 
 which they desired to give over to the decision of the 
 Constituent Assembly. 
 
 Consider the problem of the war. Was it possible 
 to say to the Germans: "Wait, gentlemen. Do not 
 shoot until the Constituent Assembly meets. When 
 it meets, it will decide whether or not we shall go 
 on killing you"? Even the Allies would not agree 
 to such a decision. Yet in spite of the fact that we 
 had sacrificed for the Allies about seven millions of 
 our sons, they demanded that revolutionary Russia 
 should participate more actively in the war. 
 
 An answer to these demands should have been 
 given immediately. To postpone the answer until 
 the convocation of the Constituent Assembly was 
 impossible. The Provisional Government realized 
 perfectly well that a hungry, barefooted Russia, 
 with its disorganized railroads, could not possibly 
 wage war even as it had during the Czar's regime. 
 And the treaties signed by the Czar and the Allies 
 could have no moral significance for free Russia. 
 Therefore the circumstances and the dignity of Rus- 
 sia required that the Provisional Government give 
 to its Allies a friendly but firm repulse. It should 
 have demanded immediate aid and should even have 
 threatened separate peace. At that time we still had 
 an army, and the Germans would have paid us 
 highly for a separate peace. But our youthful min- 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 33 
 
 isters and ambassadors, instead of taking such a firm 
 course, bowed before the Allies, and gave all sorts 
 of assurances that Russia would never conclude a 
 separate peace. Why then should the Allies have 
 hastened with material aid to Russia? I do not 
 blame them for it. ''One's own interests are near- 
 est.*' And meanwhile the army was diminishing 
 and diminishing — hunger had driven the soldiers 
 from the trenches. 
 
 State administration presented a similar picture. 
 Its problems could not be postponed until the con- 
 vocation of the Constituent Assembly. By force of 
 events the Provisional Government was compelled 
 to tolerate the self-appointed unlawful Soviets; more 
 than that, they had to listen to their demands at- 
 tentively and as a result to proclaim Russia a Re- 
 public. This measure undoubtedly undermined the 
 prestige of the Constituent Assembly and the belief 
 in its indispensability. For this the Provisional Gov- 
 ernments could scarcely be blamed. Their fault 
 was that they had remained behind the current of 
 h'fe and the expectations of the people. And what 
 were these expectations? The capitalists and the 
 Intelligentsia, approximately lj4 per cent of the 
 population, were dreaming only of seizing political 
 power. The peasants — 75 per cent of the popula- 
 tion — were dreaming of the land. The soldiers — and 
 these numbered about 10 per cent of the popula- 
 tion — dreamed of peace and of returning to their 
 dear ones at home ; and finally, the workingmen, who 
 numbered also about 10 per cent, dreamed of seizing 
 control of industry. 
 
 The Provisional Governments promised every- 
 thing, but asked for delay until the convocation of 
 the Constituent Assembly. But the peasants and 
 workers preferred to realize their desire to get the 
 
34 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 land and the means of production immediately by 
 revolutionary means. *'This is safer. At present 
 the power is in our hands, and what will happen 
 tomorrow, we do not know." This was well under- 
 stood by the Bolsheviki and this is where the meaning 
 of their doctrine, "the deepening of the Revolution" 
 — that is, the immediate realization of the people's 
 desires through revolutionary means — lies. And 
 here lies the cause of their success. 
 
 Much is being said at present that such a solution 
 of social problems is not democratic, that violence 
 from the Left is just as hideous as violence from the 
 Right. In substance this is true, but the trouble is 
 that the Kingdom of God on eai^th has not come as 
 yet, and force can be crushed only by force. Every 
 revolution provokes violence; why, asked the Rus- 
 sians, is it justifiable to overthrow the Czar by force, 
 and not the bankers? 
 
 But I have anticipated. Before speaking of the 
 present, let us return to the Provisional Govern- 
 ments and* see how they solved the third funda- 
 mental problem; that is, the reorganization of the 
 economic life of the country. The question can be 
 answered in a few words: "They did not solve." 
 Lacking economic experience and not venturing, for 
 fear of the Allies, to decrease war production or the 
 number of soldiers at the front, the Provisional 
 Governments enacted nothing new. And conditions 
 were growing worse; occupied with the "deepening 
 of the Revolution," the workmen hardly worked. 
 The productivity of shops and factories decreased 
 manyfold. General economic disintegration con- 
 stantly increased. The villages had no goods, and 
 the cities and army had no bread. A real famine 
 ensued and this was followed as usual by robberies 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 35 
 
 and violence. They reached their height in August- 
 September of 1917 — about two months before 
 the Bolshevik Revolution took place. The Pro- 
 visional Government even at that time had no 
 authority or power. The prestige of any power is 
 always best measured by the forces that rally around 
 it for its defense. And the Provisional Government 
 for its defense could only rally Junkers, a few Cos- 
 sacks, and the Women's Battalion of Death. And 
 it can hardly be said that the Bolshevik ofiFensive 
 was an unexpected blow to the Provisional Govern- 
 ment. Just the reverse: the Bolsheviki widely ad- 
 vertised it two weeks in advance, so that the Provi- 
 sional Government had sufficient foreknowledge. It 
 is therefore evident that it was in possession of 
 defensive forces and that the popularity of the Pro- 
 visional Government w^as not greater than that of 
 the Czar's. 
 
 One way or another, fourteen months ago the 
 power was transferred definitely and finally to the 
 Soviets, with the Bolsheviki as the dominating po- 
 litical power. And thus came their turn to decide 
 the vital questions of war, state, and economic 
 organization. The question of the war they decided 
 to solve immediately. They disclosed the secret 
 treaties showing imperialistic war aims of the En- 
 tente, at the same time offering the Allies a general 
 democratic peace. The latter did not even answer ! 
 And this fact is of utmost importance, because it 
 arouses serious doubt as to who was betrayed by 
 whom — whether we have betrayed the Allies, or the 
 Allies have betrayed us. Not having received any 
 answer, the Soviet Government started pourparlers 
 for a separate peace. It could not possibly have 
 acted differently. It was impossible to wage war 
 
36 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 further: the army had run away, the railroads had 
 come to a standstill. Nevertheless, vrhen the preda- 
 tory tendencies of the Kaiser became evident, the 
 Soviet Government delayed the ratification of the 
 peace treaty and entered into negotiations with the 
 Allies, promising to reestablish the Russian front if 
 the Allies would come to their aid. The Allies did 
 not accept this proposal, the sincerity of which can 
 hardly be doubted. Lenin was obliged to present 
 the B rest-Li tovsk peace treaty for ratification to the 
 Congress of Soviets. At that moment, as far as I 
 am concerned, the question as to who betrayed 
 whom was finally understood and decided. Upon 
 presenting the peace treaty for ratification of the 
 Congress, Lenin did not deny it was humiliating. 
 But at the same time he insisted that this humilia- 
 tion was temporary, that the German revolution was 
 not far away. Many did not believe it at that time, 
 but now the German revolution is an accomplished 
 fact. 
 
 As far as state organization was concerned, the 
 Soviet Government decided that at that time the 
 question could be postponed. Russia was in the 
 throes of a social revolution and in the midst of a 
 struggle with internal and external enemies of the 
 new order. Russia is being built by the plain people, 
 by the peasants — slowly, firmly, and without any 
 definite plan. To foretell into what forms this re- 
 building will finally shape is utterly impossible. It 
 can, however, be definitely said that the present 
 rebuilding of Russia is not the last word of the Rus- 
 sian Revolution. The word "Soviet" will probably 
 remain with us forever. The Russian people grew 
 fond of it. It was also adopted in Germany, but 
 the meaning attached to this word will be perfected 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 37 
 
 in the future. However, it must be kept in mind 
 that the controversy which split Russian society into 
 two uncompromising camps does not pertain to its 
 meaning. This controversy does not formally touch 
 upon the ideology of the future, but solely concerns 
 the tactics of the present. The adherents of one 
 camp say that it is first necessary to shape Russia 
 into a definite political form, to establish a per- 
 manent government and to let it decide social prob- 
 lems slowly; that it is beyond the strength of the 
 Russian people to accomplish a social and political 
 revolution at the same time; that it is necessary to 
 be satisfied for the present with the political re^olu- 
 tion alone, and to bring about the social retorms 
 through evolution. More than that, representatives 
 of this camp insist that our people are young and 
 "dark" ; that the time has not arrived for them to 
 decide their own destiny; that the people do not 
 know what they need, but that they, the representa- 
 tives of the radicals and the Socialist Intelligentsia, 
 do know. Therefore they are the ones to govern 
 the "dark" people, to educate the people, to prepare 
 the people for self-government. 
 
 The representatives of the opposition camp, on the 
 other hand, insist that their experiences with the 
 first two Provisional Governments and especially 
 with the third — the Omsk Government, which is 
 now dormant in the pocket of Kolchak — is sufficient 
 warning not to repeat mistakes. Their deep con- 
 viction is that the Russian people are interested most 
 of all in social reforms and demand these reforms 
 immediately by revolutionary means. Yes, the Rus- 
 sian people are "dark" and uncultured, but they pos- 
 sess a natural common sense. They will acquire 
 their knowledge in the process of reconstruction. 
 
38 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 Without the Intelligentsia they cannot possibly 
 get along, but they want to select from the latter 
 those who are willing to serve them, and not those 
 who want to govern them against their will. The 
 "darkness" of the Russian masses naturally obstructs 
 the tempo of the Russian Revolution. I repeat, 
 Russia is being rebuilt by the peasants — slowly, 
 firmly, and without any definite plan. In this proc- 
 ess of rebuilding much has to be broken down. It 
 is also true that it is beyond the power of the Russian 
 people to accomplish both political and social recon- 
 struction. Now the Russian people are busy with 
 the construction of a new social order, and when 
 this shall have been crystallized into definite form, 
 they can begin the political construction of Russia. 
 
 It can be foretold already that for the new social 
 conditions new political forms will be required. It 
 may also be predicted that neither the French nor 
 the American clothes will fit the free Russian peas- 
 ant; it will be necessary to sew special Russian 
 clothes of new cuts. And such work requires time 
 and care: "Measure the cloth seven times and cut it 
 once," says an old Russian proverb. And history 
 confirms it. Of all the constitutions that were ever 
 written on our planet, the most flexible one has 
 proved to be the Constitution of the United States. 
 Written in 1787, with seventeen amendments, it is 
 alive today. But it must not be forgotten that it 
 was written in 1787, eleven years after the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. Why then ask of Russia that 
 she write her political constitution in definite 
 form only one year after the Revolution, a revolution 
 deeper than that of 1776? It may be retorted that 
 social reforms require just as much care; that they 
 also cannot be decided in haste. I perfectly agree 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 39 
 
 With this, but I also understand that the Russian 
 people do not care to wait any longer and do not 
 trust the "masters/' No words are strong enough 
 to CQnvince me to the contrary. To back one's argu- 
 ments with Japanese bayonets and English machine 
 guns is just as criminal, in my opinion, as to 
 assassinate one's own mother. And all the outcries 
 of the interventionists — that this is a "democratic" 
 way of helping Russia — are mere hypocrisy. 
 
 When one and one-half years ago the monarchy 
 was overthrown in Russia, I, as well as many others, 
 believed that Russia could not cope with the political 
 revolution, war, and the social revolution at the 
 same time. It was true. We were thrown out of 
 the war, and for this we had to pay with the Brest- 
 Litovsk treaty. But we are confronted with an 
 accomplished fact and we are powerless to turn back 
 the wheel of events. We have lost the war, yet in 
 social progress we have taken tremendous steps 
 ahead. And now the question is — ^W^hat are we 
 to do ? Insist that the social revolution is untimely ? 
 Shall we, together with the reactionaries and Czar- 
 ists, liquidate all the gains of the Revolution and 
 assist the French and English in dividing Russia 
 among themselves ? Or shall we, with our opponents 
 from the Left, defend Russia and the Revolution 
 from her internal and foreign enemies? As far as I 
 am concerned, there can be no question, and that is 
 why, while remaining a Moderate Socialist, I sin- 
 cerely and conscientiously believe that I must serve 
 Russia under the Soviet banner. 
 
 There is still another point to be considered. We 
 may not fully agree with the Soviet Government; 
 we may doubt the possibility of realizing some of its 
 ideals, but we can hardly deny the fact that it is 
 consistent and clear in its demands. The opponents 
 
40 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 of the Soviet Government have no platform what- 
 soever and they cannot have any. They represent 
 the most picturesque conglomerate : side by side with 
 old Revolutionists we see former officials of the 
 Czar's police; side by side with noble dreamers we 
 see the faces of criminals; side by side with mon- 
 archists we see anarchists — all of them are united 
 in their mad desire to overthrow the Soviet Govern- 
 ment; and the old English diplomats, who are oper- 
 ating behind their backs, have finally realized that 
 such a union is not stable and that it must be re- 
 placed by a whip. 
 
 And so the Siberian khedive Kolchak has appeared 
 on the horizon. He began his political career with 
 the arrest of the members of the Constituent As- 
 sembly, with the reopening of the vodka factories, 
 and with the reintroduction of the Czar's rules 
 against Jews. So the question is as follows: Kol- 
 chak, or the Soviets ? — The dictatorship of the work- 
 ing people, or the dictatorship of an insignificant 
 group of adventurers, behind the backs of whom 
 there are foreigners ? The people, or generals ? The 
 decision is clear. 
 
 The Soviet Government has found it difficult to 
 bring the economic life of Russia back to normal. 
 The peasants have received the land, but remafn 
 without agricultural implements, nails, and textile 
 goods. The workmen have obtained control over 
 production, but remain without bread and without 
 coal. Production itself has slowed down. The most 
 important factor in this situation is the isolation of 
 Russia. She is practically excluded from the world 
 exchange. She is now like a besieged fortress, a 
 fortress which the enemy wants to take, if not by 
 force of arms then by hunger. By what right? For 
 
A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 41 
 
 what ? It is said that we have committed two sins : 
 first, we do not want to pay the debt to France. 
 Yes, in principle we do not consider ourselves re- 
 sponsible for the Czar's loans, because part of them 
 were expended for the oppression of the Russian 
 people. But practically we do not refuse to discuss 
 this matter — this is quite clear from the note of 
 Tchitcherin of October 26. Second, it is being said 
 that we have betrayed the Allies. In my opinion the 
 Allies have betrayed us and are now dividing among 
 themselves the booty which was promised to us. 
 But we do not protest against this. Proclaiming a 
 peace without annexations and contributions, Russia 
 has renounced her participation in the division of 
 any booty. But having sacrificed for the Allies 
 7,000,000 of her sons, she is justified in demanding 
 that she be left alone. But let us assume for a sec- 
 ond that we are guilty of breaking a treaty: then 
 what about Italy who broke the treaty with the 
 Central Powers ? She is being complimented on it ! 
 But we also have a third sin, of which people 
 do not speak aloud: we are weak, but our 
 land is rich — why not make use of it ? I understand 
 this perfectly well. Together with England we par- 
 titioned Persia and only a short while ago we 
 dreamed of the partition of Austria and Turkey. 
 And now we are being partitioned! I understand 
 it all. I understand the English and French very 
 well, but I cannot understand the Americans at all. 
 We owe you very little; we have no treaties with 
 you and never had any, and in the division of Rus- 
 sia you do not intend to participate. Why then do 
 you keep your soldiers in Russia? The interests of 
 the United States do not conflict with the interests 
 of Russia. More than that, no other country is 
 
42 A VOICE OUT OF RUSSIA 
 
 more interested in the realization of the ideals of 
 the freedom of the seas and the League of Nations, 
 which your President is faithfully upholding in 
 Europe, than Russia. All our seas are not free. Our 
 Government is most of all international. Moreover 
 the interests of exchange between Russia and America 
 at present should be mutual. During the war the 
 United States has tremendously developed her pro- 
 duction, and she needs foreign markets. Russia 
 could be one. She needs goods. She cannot of 
 herself increase production and stimulate industry. 
 Yet we have plenty to pay with: our natural re- 
 sources are enormous. The question of how to 
 utilize these resources in order to pay for your goods 
 may be decided upon by mutual understanding and 
 discussion either in Washington or in Moscow, but 
 surely this cannot be decided by mutual destruction 
 in the swamps of Archangel. The Soviet Govern- 
 ment has attempted rnany a time to begin such dis- 
 cussions. 
 
 This argument is usually disposed of by referring 
 to the Bolshevik danger. First of all, the responsi- 
 bility of power has compelled the Bolsheviki to be- 
 come more moderate. Second, the Soviets and the 
 Bolsheviki are not one and the same. The Bolshe- 
 viki at the present time dominate the Soviets — to a 
 great extent because of the policy of the Allies. Yet, 
 fearing Bolshevism, you are cultivating it. More 
 than that, by your actions you justify its ideology. 
 As far as the philosophic side of the question is con- 
 cerned, we differ from the Bolsheviki in the matter 
 of natural impulses. The Bolsheviki say that such 
 impulses are only class interests. We, realizing that 
 class interests are the most important interests of 
 mankind, nevertheless believe that mankind has 
 
ORIGINAL DECREES 43 
 
 Other interests; religious, moral, national, and 
 esthetic. At present this point of view is being 
 subjected to a difficult trial. There is some ground 
 for your accusation that the Bolsheviki are serving 
 the interests of one class only. But what about those 
 who attempt to tighten a steel lasso around the neck 
 of Russia, those who forget that she came to this 
 condition fighting with the Allies and for the Allies 
 — whom are those interventionists serving? The 
 class interests of the propertied class or the ideal of 
 justice? Is it really possible that these ideals are 
 
 ^ ^ * George V. Lomonossoff. 
 
 Original Decrees of the Soviet 
 Government 
 
 Decree on the Land 
 
 Of the Congress of Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' 
 Delegates (passed at the meeting of October 26, 2 a.m. 
 [Russian style]). 
 
 (1) All private ownership of land is abolished immedi- 
 ately without any indemnification. 
 
 (2) All landowners' estates, likewise all the lands of 
 the Crown, monasteries, Church lands, with all their 
 live stock and inventoried property, homestead con- 
 structions and all appurtenances, pass over into the 
 disposition of the Volost Land Committees and District 
 Soviets of Peasants' Delegates until the Constituent 
 Assembly meets. 
 
 (3) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated prop- 
 erty belonging from now on to the whole people is 
 regarded as a grievous crime, punishable by the Revo- 
 lutionary Court of Justice. The District Soviets of 
 Peasant Delegates shall take all necessary measures for 
 the observance of the strictest order during the con- 
 fiscation of the landowners' estates, for the determina- 
 tion of the dimensions of the plots of land and which 
 of them are subject to confiscation, for the drawing up 
 
44 ORIGINAL DECREES 
 
 of an inventory of the whole confiscated property, and 
 for the strictest Revolutionary Guard of all the farming 
 property on the land with all the constructions, imple- 
 n^ents, cattle, supplies of products, etc., passing over 
 to the people. 
 
 (4) For guidance during the realization of the great land 
 reforms until their final resolution by the Constituent 
 Assembly shall serve the following peasant Nakaz 
 (Instruction) drawn up on the basis of 242 local peas- 
 ant nakazes by the editor's office of the Izvestia of the 
 All-Russia Soviet of Peasant Delegates and published 
 in No. 88 of said Izvestia (Petrograd, No. 88, August 
 19, 1917 [Russian style]). 
 
 The question re the land may be decided only by the 
 
 general Constituent Assembly. 
 
 The most equitable solution of the land question should 
 
 be as follows: 
 
 (1) The right of private ownership of the land is abol- 
 ished forever; the land cannot be sold, nor leased, nor 
 mortgaged, nor alienated in any other way. All the 
 lands of the State, the Crown, the Cabinet, the monas- 
 teries, Churches, possession lands, entailed estates, pri- 
 vate lands, public and peasant lands, etc., shall be 
 alienated without any indemnification; they become the 
 property of the people and the usufructory property of 
 all those who cultivate them (who work them). 
 
 For those .who will suffer from this revolution of 
 property the right is recognized only to receive public 
 assistance during the time necessary for them to adapt 
 themselves to the new conditions of existence. 
 
 (2) All the underground depths — the ore, naphtha, coal, 
 salt, etc. — and also the forests and waters, having a 
 general importance, shall pass over into the exclusive 
 use of the States. All the minor rivers, lakes, forests, 
 etc., shall be the usufruct of communities, provided they 
 be under the management of the local organizations of 
 self-government. 
 
 (3) The plots of land with highest culture — gardens, 
 plantations, nursery gardens, seed-plots, greenhouses, 
 etc. — shall not be divided, but they shall be transformed 
 into model farms and handed over as the exclusive 
 usufruct of the State or communities, in dependence on 
 their dimensions or importance. 
 
 Homestead lands, town and country lands with pri- 
 vate gardens and kitchen gardens, remain as usufruct 
 of their present owners. The dimensions of such lands 
 and the rate or taxes to be paid for their use shall be 
 established by the laws. 
 
ORIGINAL DECREES 45 
 
 (4) Studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and 
 bird-breeding enterprises, etc., become the property of 
 the people and pass over either for the exclusive use of 
 the State, or a community, depending on their dimen- 
 sions and their importance. 
 
 All questions of redeeming same shall be submitted 
 to the examination of the Constituent Assembly. 
 
 (5) All the agricultural inventoried property of the 
 confiscated lands, the live and dead stock, pass over 
 into the exclusive use of the State or a community, 
 depending on their dimensions and importance, without 
 any indemnification. 
 
 The confiscation of property shall not concern peas- 
 ants who have a small amount of land. 
 
 (6) The rights to use the land shall belong to all the 
 citizens (without distinction of sex) of the Russian 
 State, who wish to work the land themselves, with the 
 help of their families, or in partnerships, and only so 
 long as they are capable of working it themselves. No 
 hired labor is allowed. 
 
 In the event of a temporary incapacity of a member 
 of a village community during the course of two years, 
 the community shall be bound to render him assistance 
 during this period of time by cultivating his land. 
 
 Agriculturists who in consequence of old age or sick- 
 ness shall have lost the possibility of cultivating their 
 land shall lose the right to use it, and they shall receive 
 instead a pension from the State. 
 
 (7) The use of the land shall be distributive, i. e., the 
 land shall be distributed among the laborers, in de- 
 pendence on the local conditions — at the labor or con- 
 sumption rate. 
 
 The way in which the land is to be used may be 
 freely selected: as homestead, or farm, or by communi- 
 ties, or associations, as will be decided in the separate 
 villages and settlements. 
 
 (8) All the land, upon its alienation, is entered in* the 
 general popular land fund. The local and central self- 
 governing organizations, beginning from the demo- 
 cratically organized village and town communities and 
 ending with the Central Province institutions, shall see 
 to the distribution of the land among the persons de- 
 sirous of working it. 
 
 The land fund is subject to periodical redistributions, 
 depending on the increase of the population and the 
 development of the productivity and cultivation. 
 
 Through all changes of the limits of the allotments 
 the original kernel of the allotment must remain intact. 
 
46 ORIGINAL DECREES 
 
 The land of any members leaving the community 
 returns to the land fund, and the preferential right to 
 receive the allotments of retiring members belongs to 
 their nearest relations or the persons indicated by 
 them. 
 
 The value of the manuring and improvements in- 
 vested in the land, in so far as the same -will not have 
 been used up when the allotment will be returned to 
 the land fund, must be reimbursed. 
 
 If in some place the land fund will prove to be in- 
 sufficient for the satisfaction of the local population, 
 the surplus of the population must emigrate. 
 
 The organization of the emigration, also the costs 
 thereof and of providing the emigrants with the neces- 
 sary stock, shall be borne by the State. 
 
 The emigration is carried out in the following order: 
 first the peasants without land who express their wish 
 to emigrate ; then the depraved members of communi- 
 ties, deserters, etc. ; and lastly by drawing lots on 
 agreement. 
 
 All of what is contained in this Nakaz, being the 
 expression of the will of the greatest majority of con- 
 scious peasants of the whole of Russia, is pronounced 
 to be a temporary law, which till the Constituent 
 Assembly is to be put into execution as far as possible 
 immediately and in some parts of it gradually as will 
 be determined by the District Soviets of Peasant Dele- 
 gates. 
 
 The lands of peasants and Cossacks serving in the 
 ranks shall not be confiscated. 
 
 Chairman of the Council of 
 People's Commissaries. Vladi- 
 mir Oulianoff-Lenin. 
 October 26, 1917. [Russian style] 
 
 Decree on Workers' Control 
 
 Decree of the Council of People's Commissaires estab- 
 lishing organs for Workers' Control of Industries. 
 (1) In order to put the economic life of the country on 
 an orderly basis, control by the workers is instituted 
 over all industrial, commercial, and agricultural under- 
 takings and societies ; and those connected with bank- 
 ing and transport, as well as over productive cooper- 
 ative societies which employ labor or put out work to 
 be done at home or in connection with the production, 
 purchase and sale of commodities and of raw materials, 
 and with conservation of such commodities as well as 
 regards the financial aspect of such undertakings. 
 
ORIGINAL DECREES 47 
 
 (2) Control is exercised by all the workers of a given 
 enterprise through the medium of their elected organs, 
 such as factories and works committees, councils of 
 workmen's delegates, etc., such organs equally com- 
 prising representatives of the employees and of the 
 technical staff. 
 
 (3) In each important industrial town, province, or dis- 
 trict, is set up a local workmen's organ of control, 
 which being the organ of the soldiers', workmen's and 
 peasants* council, will comprise the representatives of 
 the labor unions, workmen's committees, and of any 
 other factories, as well as of workmen's cooperative 
 societies. 
 
 (4) Until such time as workmen's organs of control hold 
 a congress, the All-Russian Workmen's Council of Con- 
 trol is to be set up in Petrograd, on which will sit 
 representatives of the following organizations: five 
 delegates of the E. C. (executive committee) of the 
 Council (Soviet) of Workmen's and Soldiers' delegates 
 of Russia ; five delegates of the E. C. of the Peasants' 
 Council of Russia ; five delegates of the Labor Unions 
 of Russia; two delegates of the Central Committee of 
 the Workingmen's Cooperative Societies of Russia ; 
 five delegates of the Factory and Works Committee of 
 Russia ; five delegates of the Engineers' and Technical 
 Agents' Union of Russia ; two delegates of the Agrarian 
 Union of Russia ; one delegate from each Workmen's 
 Union in Russia having not less than 100,000 members, 
 two delegates from any union having a membership 
 of over 100,000; two delegates from the E. C. of the 
 Labor Unions. 
 
 (5) Side by side with the Workmen's Supreme Council 
 of the Labor Unions, committees of inspection compris- 
 ing technical specialists, accountants, etc. These com- 
 mittees, both on their own initiative or at the request 
 of local workmen's organs of control, proceed to a given 
 locality to study the financial and technical side of any 
 enterprise. 
 
 (6) The Workmen's Organs of Control have the right to 
 supervise production, to fix a minimum wage in any 
 undertaking, and to take steps to fix the prices at which 
 manufactured articles are to be sold. 
 
 (7) The Workmen's Organs of Control have the right 
 to control all correspondence passing in connection with 
 the business of an undertaking being held responsible 
 before a court of justice for diverting their correspond- 
 ence. Commercial secrets are abolished. The owners 
 
 I are called upon to produce to the Workmen's Organs 
 
48 
 
 ORIGINAL DECREES 
 
 of Control all books and moneys in hand, both relatij 
 
 to the current year and to any previous transactions. 
 
 (8) The decisions of the Workmen's Organs of Contj 
 
 are binding upon the owners of undertakings, and c^ 
 
 I ' ' *^"^ '"^^e hv the r'ecision of a Workmel 
 
 • *'Jc . J - ..'V p" ' : it t\° :'■. - ..rs, or ». "^ dn 
 vOri> -; ,. I .; .. c to ?. :>jai to a \ cne 
 
 Superior Court of Control agaiiibt ia^ decisions 
 by any of the lower organs of Workmen's Controlj 
 
 (10) In all undertakings, the owners and the represen 
 tives of workmen and of employees delegated to ex 
 cise control on behalf of the workmen, are respons^ 
 to the Government for the maintenance of strict 
 and discipline, and for the conservation of propj 
 (goods). Those guilty of misappropriating materl 
 and products, of not keeping books properly, and| 
 similar offenses, are liable to prosecution. 
 
 (11) Workmen's District Councils of Control settle I 
 disputes and conflicts between the lower Organs| 
 Control, as well as all complaints made by the owrl 
 of undertakings, taking into consideration any pecuj 
 conditions under which production is carried on, 
 local conditions. They will issue instructions wi| 
 the limits prescribed by the All-Russian Workn 
 Council of Control and supervise the activities of| 
 lower organs of control. 
 
 (12) The All-Russian Workmen's Council of Cor| 
 shall work out a general plan for control to be 
 eised by the workmen, and to issue instructions 
 regulations, and to systematize the reports of the 
 ous Workmen's Councils of Control; and constitute 
 supreme authority for. dealing with all matters 
 nected with the control exercised by workmen. 
 
 (13) The All-Russian Workmen's Council of CoJ 
 coordinates the activities of the Workmen's OrgaiT 
 Control and of those institutions which direct the| 
 ganization of the economic life of the country. 
 A regulation concerning the relations between the! 
 
 Russian Workmen's Council of Control and the 
 institutions which organize and put in order the ecod 
 life of the country will be issued later. 
 
 (14) All laws and circulars which impede the p| 
 working of the factory, works, and other comma 
 and that of workmen's and employees' councilsj 
 abrogated. 
 
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