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have heard much about their suppression of bourgeois newspapers. The only ones suppressed, however, were those that were printing absolute and outrageous lies about the Bolsheviki. If a Russian newspaper said in glaring headlines that the Bolsheviki had massacred all the prisoners and cut them in small pieces, that paper would be closed down. But newspapers might print all the arguments against the Soviet system that they pleased. I saw a perfectly orderly and unmolested procession of priests, marching through the streets with banners of protest against the division of church and state.
"The Social Revolutionists had planned a great demonstration in protest against the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, to be held on January 5. The Soviets did all in their power to persuade the Bolsheviki to keep away from the streets where the procession was to pass, so as to avoid any chance of disturbances. There was danger of an uprising, so the Soviets arranged that all public buildings be well-guarded. The manner of this was to ask all the people in the building, including the janitor, to aid in defending it. Besides this, the Soviets had emergency armored cars with Red Guard groups, placed at strategic points about the city.
"Another evidence of this large tolerance is the fact that nothing was done about the dastardly attempt to assassinate Lenin, who was shot at by a member of the Social Revolutionist Party. At one time when the Social Revolutionists seemed bent on starting a reign of terror, the warning was sent out to them: 'For every Bolshevik leader killed, we shall kill one hundred of the Social Revolutionists. That was enough. There was no more trouble except one attempt by an Anarchist girl.
"Trouble between the Anarchists and Bolshevists never came to any more than battles in a few cities just at first. In the early days of Soviet rule, many Monarchists who wanted to oppose the new Government and also wanted to make a living without working, announced themselves as Anarchists and seized houses and goods. But of course the real Anarchists denounced them and now the majority of the Anarchists are supporting the Soviets.
