In Yekaterinburg our attempt to take part in the election campaign for the Soviet was punished by the arrest of the local Committee of our Party (comrades Kliatchko, Ossovsky and others), together with the member of the Central Committee, D. Dalin and 6 workers of the Verkhne-Issetski Factory. At the home of N. N. Sukhanov a domiciliary search was made. A month later the prisoners were freed by a direct order from Moscow, as the purpose of the arrests had been accomplished, the elections to the Soviet having been most "successful" for the Bolsheviki.
In Tula the outrageous behavior of the factory Commissary caused an outburst among the workmen of the Arms Factory, which spread to all other establishments in that city. The protest took at first the form of a strike, but following the arrest of strikers it assumed the form of so-called "self-imprisonment," i.e., the workmen and their wives compelled the Bolsheviki to arrest them, thus expressing their solidarity with the prisoners. In this way several thousand workers were arrested in those days. The reprisals were severe, wholesale deportations to the front were resorted to and, as a climax, 12 of the strikers were turned over to a field court martial and sentenced to hard labor for life. And in reply to the attempt made by the Social-Democratic group of the local Soviet to have the trouble settled peaceably, the group was arrested during its session.
The Social Democratic Party (Menshevists) have also brought before the labor world a full report of the persecution of the Russian printers and of other Soviet atrocities against labor.
This party finally made a strong appeal to British Labor—prompted by the fact that the British Labor delegation to Russia had issued a report that was in
