The head of the All Russian Soviet of Trade Unions, Tomsky, thus pictures the position of the President of the American Federation of Labor:
Gompers, when he starts out for conferences, surrounds himself with five experienced boxers. (From Izvestia, October 19, 1920.)
The Soviet régime is keeping a number of Americans as hostages in the hope that it will be able to use them to compel recognition by the American Government—a method which undoubtedly had considerable effect in Great Britain. Among these hostages is the well-known Red Cross worker, Kilpatrick. When first captured by the famous Bolshevist cavalry General, Budenny, Kilpatrick reported that the chief intelligence officer insisted "that the American working classes were starving and the whole country on the verge of revolution." This was at the end of 1920! Yet, the Russian intelligence officer could have reached no other conclusion from the Bolshevist press.
If a government appeals to its own people largely on the basis of such falsehoods, we can imagine how much reliance is to be placed upon Soviet statements about their own performances especially issued for consumption abroad.
The character of the Soviet régime in Russia and of the Communist Internationale based upon it can be understood only if we grasp firmly and keep steadily in mind the utter and wholesale mendacity of the Bolshevist propaganda. Practically every statement that comes directly or indirectly from Bolshevist sources is vitiated, while statements emanating from the pro-
