of the exploiters. There was no middle ground. One had to get upon one side or the other of the barricade. This supreme test showed the press in question, mostly pseudo-socialist, to be capitalistic at heart. Its general position was that the raw and undeveloped workers were incapable of operating the complex society alone, and that they should accept the leadership of the capitalist class for an indefinite period. Its practice was to flatly oppose the proletarian Government and to general!y play the game of counter-revolution. So it perished at the hands of the hostile workers. They were not deceived by its fair-sounding words; they properly understood that in the name of petty bourgeois ideals and conceptions it was knifing the working-class revolution.
Most of the non-proletarian papers collapsed in the early stages of the revolution, and have not been ressurected. At present no encouragement is given to such an oppositional press. When the revolution has passed the danger point and is safe, then the utmost freedom for the press will be established. But that time is not yet come; the Russian revolution is still fighting for its existence and it cannot afford to have an organized, poisonous opposition gnawing at its vitals.
The Russian press of the present day is highly specialized. There are no general newspapers, according to our understanding of the term. Each publication represents some particular institution and deals chiefly with matters relating to it. Thus duplication of work is largely avoided. The leading national dailies are "Pravda" (Communist Party), "Isvestia" (All-Russian Soviets), "Labor" (All-Russian Trade Unions), "Economic Life" (Supreme Economic Council), and "Poverty" (a peasant paper). These journals are circulated all over Russia. Besides them there are dailies in many of the larger towns and cities. Usually these are published by the Communist Party, the local Soviets and the trade unions, either separately or in combination with each other.
The National Union of Transport Workers, the largest labor union in Russia, issues a daily for its membership. Occasionally large local labor unions, as for instance the Baku oil workers, also have dailies of their own. The other national labor unions get out either weekly or monthly publications. Likewise, the various
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