Bolshevism

Bolshevism

By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner

Today Bolshevism is the greatest of all world problems. Ostensibly it is aimed at the correction of certain economic evils of class distinction, and the wrongs of government. It is not merely a national corrective aim; it has in it international aspirations, and it is making direct headway to the overthrow of the social and political order of the world today. The word Bolshevism means majority rule. The Bolshevik were in years gone by a socialistic organization that split in its aims and program, and the majority have since been known by the Russian name of Bolsheviki. The minority is Mensheviki. The French use two Latin derivatives to signify the same thing, maximalists and minimalists. Since the break down of the Russian government and the ascendency of Lenine and Trotsky, Russia has become a scene of a social and economic propaganda for the proletariat, the working men of a lower order of society as known in that country. The surprise of this peculiar propaganda is to be found chiefly in its lasting qualities. Few observers of national events imagined that such an extreme doctrine could survive for any length of time. It was believed that it must fall under the weight of its own extravagances, and its own excesses. Indeed, even now, looking back upon the past two years of this movement of Bolshevism, one wonders that cruelty, murder, rapine and all that is most vicious in human life could last so long. Its chief ingredient is hatred, and hatred is a passion that when left to itself usually subsides within itself in a short period of time. It is truly remarkable that this passion should have such vital staying qualities within it, the like of which the world has never known before. We are today deporting a few "reds," or Bolsheviki, from the United States to Russia. Their doctrines and their disseminations throughout the United States have been decided dangerous to the stability of our country, and the riddance of such a class has been undertaken as a necessity to the peace, stability and continuance of our political and social institutions. However, the real danger of the "Reds," Syndicalists, Communists, or whatever else we wish to call them, is not found so much within our own borders as abroad. Its real importance

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is not so much a domestic question as it is a foreign problem, and the comparatively few Bolsheviki within the United States are not so threatening, even to our future welfare, as this obnoxious class is in Russia today. Russia has practically fallen under the government of Bolshevists. The three great forces opposing them have succumed. The movement against Bolshevism in Russia was led by Kolchak, Yudenitch and Denikine. The opposition of those three leaders has broken down, and Russia is now practically under the government and control of Bolshevism. That means that one hundred twenty-five million people are today Bolshevists, and in open revolt against the established political and industrial institutions of the world, and their program

© Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. "REDS" ON THEIR WAY TO RUSSIA Some of the "Reds" boarding a barge to go to Ellis Island, at Jersey City. At the right the U. S. army transport "Buford" which sailed from Ellis Island early December 21, with 249 "Reds" on board who are being deported to Russia. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were among them. The "Buford" carried troops during the Spanish-American war as well as in the World war.

is an ambitious as well as a dangerous one. Our Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, has submitted to Senator Lodge, Chairman on foreign relations in the Senate, a memorandum of certain aspects of Bolshevism. This memorandum was taken from the program of the party as published by Bukharin, the author, say- revoluing, "Our party is solving its program of international tion. It is also solving its tasks in bloody treachery and heroic In view of this program we might well wonder to what fight." order extent the believers in Bolshevism are willing to fight in carry throughout the civilized world. to make their doctrine In view of their profession we need not ask whether America is

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too enlightened to yield to such doctrines, but we may ask to what extent this hundred and twenty-five million, and perhaps two hundred million people, in time may be willing to fight in order to impose their system upon the world, and make it international.

Every domestic barrier to Bolshevism has broken down in Russia and the single bulwark against this propaganda is found today in Poland, and in some of the smaller nationalities on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. Roumania, Bulgaria and Hungary are in fact courting Bolshevism. Whether they will embrace this institution remains to be seen. Germany may well increase her army and armaments as a protection against this class of hateful Russians on the East. New complications are now likely to arise that will upset the Versailles Treaty of Peace. Once Bolshevism makes its triumphant march into middle and western Europe the world will again be in the flames of war; a war that will be civil rather than foreign; that will be revolutionary rather than national. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the peace of Europe, and even of the United States, is more menaced today than it was at this time in Nineteen Hundred Fourteen. There are new problems arising in this Bolsheviki movement that the world in all its past history has never been called upon to face. The chief sources of war in the past have been personal ambition, territorial aggrandizement; commercial rivalries and race jealousies. These wars have been more or less ferocious according to the intensity of hatred which these different causes have created. The world today, however, is facing a new danger, a new hatred, that is more international than has ever been the case before. Bolshevism is such that it can adjust iteelf to the conditions of various nations of the world, semi-civilized as well as civilized. It consists for the most part of class hatred and bids fair to repeat some of the excesses that belong to the French Revolution of more than a century ago. If a new war develops it will not be fought on the basis of the world-war, which we have just witnessed. There will not be a territorial separation. It will not be a trench warfare, and there will be an absence of "No Man's Land." It promises to be a war in which neighbors shall raise their hands one against another. Bolshevism, we are coming more and more to believe, is a contagious condition in which there are different stages of the disease. It may be of a mild order today, and of a most vicious character tomorrow. Europe and the United States are in a condition of apathy towards this new danger, against which the writer sees no pres-