II.
THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT.
The present Russian Government is revolutionary in aim and effect. It proposes to, and actually is wiping out every semblance of capitalism and exploitation of the workers through the wages system. Its eventual purpose is to set up a purely Communist, or Socialist, commonwealth in which industrial justice shall reign. This is expressed in the following section of the national Constitution:
"The principal object of the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic consists of the establishment (by means of a strong Soviet Government) of the dictatorship of the urban and rural workers, combined with the poorer peasantry, to secure the complete destruction of capitalism, the ending of exploitation of man by man, and the bringing about of Socialism, under which class divisions, and the state coercion arising therefrom, will no longer exist."
Following out these principles, Russia is a real workers' republic. Work is the standard by which it establishes the status of all its people. The nation's official motto, also written into the Constitution, is, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." Only the workers—including the peasants and soldiers—who are over the age of eighteen have the right to vote or to hold office. No distinction is made because of sex. Capitalists and others who live by exploiting labor are disfranchised and denied all participation in the Government.
Some American labor leaders affect to be horrified by this latter arrangement. They demand "a square deal" and the right to vote for the capitalists and other social parasites. They conveniently forget that these same exploiters, fully conscious that they are engaged in a fight with the workers, seek everywhere to disfranchise them politically as much they can. And their efforts are thoroughly successful. In all the so-called democratic countries they have, through their control of the press and the schools, and by setting up all sorts of sex, residence, property and other voting qualifications, practically cancelled the working class politically and denied it any real say in its own government. Now
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