Why were the Russian revolutionaries attacked so bitterly and so malignantly?
We haven't far to look for a reason. In fact, it wasn't a question of one reason, but of three. The Bolsheviks took three important steps by which they incurred the undying hate of three powerful classes of people.
The Three Sins of the Bolsheviks.
1st—THEY PUBLISHED THE SECRET TREATIES.
This enraged all the Allied Governments and all the Allied diplomats. It showed them up in the eyes of their own peoples. It exposed in all their indecency the Imperialistic plans of conquest they had drawn up without the knowledge or consent of Parliament or of Senate. It discovered the fact that whilst on the public platform Allied statesmen were making broad their phylacteries and proclaiming to the world the high moral character of their intentions, all the time in secret and in darkness they were consenting to annexationist designs which had never been sanctioned by the people who were making the sacrifices. It made bare the whole black business of Secret Diplomacy.
The Diplomats and the Foreign Offices and the Cabinet Ministers (with all their toadies and flatterers and hangers-on) will never forgive the Russian Government for this,
2nd—THEY NATIONALISED THE LAND, THE MINES, THE FORESTS, THE BANKS, AND THE INDUSTRIES OF RUSSIA.
This enraged all the Capitalists and Mineowners and Concessionaires, who naturally desired to exploit to their own advantage the inexhaustible riches of Russia. In the "Times" of November 20, 1917, we read the sad and terrible news that the Russian Government had decreed the final solution of the land question. "This decree," says the "Times" Petrograd correspondent, "which threatens to inaugurate civil war in the rural districts, declares all private ownership of land to be annulled, without compensation to the owners. The land is to be nationalised, and handed over to the cultivators. … All mines—coal, petrol, salt, etc.—forests and waterways possessing national importance are to pass into the possession of the State."
How abominable! The land to go to the cultivators! The people who cultivated the land actually to possess it! Sacrilege! Infamy! A long wail went up from the Dukes. And, perhaps, an awful thought possessed some members of the Coalition, "It's that Lloyd George who started this in 1909," we can hear them whispering. "He's all right now, it's true, but he sowed the seed. …"
Then, all the MINES were to belong to the State! There was consternation in the City. "If the mines pass into possession of the State, where will the company promoters be?" "And what about the gigantic profits we expect to make out of the fabulous wealth of Russia?" "The Bolsheviks must be madmen. Let's stamp them out."
Moreover, "factory control by the workers" had been established, so it is not surprising to read in the "Times" twelve months ago that "many old-established British industrial enterprises here have been liquidated or sold, as it is quite impossible to put up with the ignorant control and exorbitant demands of the Russian workmen."
The Capitalists and the Concessionaires and the Mineowners and the Exploiters will never forgive the Russian Government for these measures of practical Socialism.
(6)
