character of a formidable civil war. Holland and Italy are to-day seriously threatened with uprisings inspired by the Bolsheviki, while in France the government has been compelled to expel the Bolshevist agents in large numbers. In the United States revolutionary agitation directly guided and fomented by agents of Lenin and Trotzky and subsidized with ample funds, recently reached such proportions that the Federal Government was forced to take strong measures, including hundreds of arrests and deportations. The enemy is in our midst. In this country, as elsewhere, alien agitators who are either Bolshevists themselves or emissaries of the Bolsheviki have wormed their way into some of the loyal labor organizations or put themselves at the head of the Socialist or other radical political parties artificially stimulating social unrest and seeking to turn industrial strikes into political upheavals, leading to revolution and anarchy.
Shall America be as slow to realize the real danger of international Bolshevism as she was to recognize the menace of German imperialism? Shall America again be unprepared?
We must be ready to meet the danger at our doors and, if necessary, to suppress it in our midst with physical force, just as was necessary in the struggle with Prussian militarism. It has been said, however, and perhaps truly, that Bolshevism cannot be met by force alone. Certainly to meet it effectively its nature must be understood. To this end it is necessary to analyze the movement carefully and to discover its underlying causes—if possible the predominating cause.
From the very beginning there was an element of mystery in the Bolshevist revolution in Russia. Was it, essentially, an attempt to put into effect the principles of international socialism as promulgated by Karl Marx? Was it a disguised form of proletarian imperialism? Did it aim at the complete destruction of Christian civilization? Or, finally, was it a long planned, gigantic revolt of the Jewish race against Christendom and its institutions?
From the very start there was a terrible method in the madness of Trotsky and those in league with him. Many of their moves which at the time seemed inexplicable afterwards appeared logical enough when their objects became apparent.
The world was puzzled by Trotsky’s famous remark at Brest-Litovsk, “No peace, no war”. Later, however, the real
