that it had been "completely destroyed" by the Bolshevists. We may point out that this is merely a terrible boast, for it is well known that after slaughtering the "bourgeoisie" for a year or more Lenin publicly acknowledged that he not only needed the experts in this class but was ready to retain them at very high salaries. But in view of their previous treatment and the treatment of their relatives and friends we can be assured that these bourgeois, far from being good Bolshevists, maintain their former views and are waiting for a chance at revenge.
Trotzky has tried to justify mass terror (from signed article in Izvestia of January 10, 1919, under title "Military Specialists and the Red Army"):
By its terror against saboteurs the proletariat does not at all say: "I shall wipe out all of you and get along without specialists." Such a program would be a program of hopelessness and ruin. While dispersing, arresting and shooting saboteurs and conspirators, the proletariat says: "I shall break your will, because my will is stronger than yours, and I shall force you to serve me." … Terror as the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class, is historically justified, precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break the political will of the intelligentsia, pacify the professional men of various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to its own aims within the fields of their specialties.
The conspirators referred to in this paragraph are all those who stand for the right of the Russian people to elect their own representative government in the place of the tyranny that is now imposed upon them; the
