Bolshevism The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy   By: John Spargo (1876-1966)

BOLSHEVISM

The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy

by

JOHN SPARGO

Author of "Social Democracy Explained" "Socialism, a Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles" "Applied Socialism" etc.

Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London

1919

BOOKS BY

JOHN SPARGO

BOLSHEVISM AMERICANISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY SOCIAL DEMOCRACY EXPLAINED

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

ESTABLISHED 1817

CONTENTS

PREFACE

I. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

II. FROM REVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION

III. THE WAR AND THE PEOPLE

IV. THE SECOND REVOLUTION

V. FROM BOURGEOISIE TO BOLSHEVIKI

VI. THE BOLSHEVIK WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY

VII. BOLSHEVIST THEORY AND PRACTICE

POSTSCRIPTUM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT

APPENDICES:

I. AN APPEAL TO THE PROLETARIAT BY THE PETROGRAD WORKMEN'S AND SOLDIERS' COUNCIL

II. HOW THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS FOUGHT FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

III. FORMER SOCIALIST PREMIER OF FINLAND ON BOLSHEVISM

PREFACE

In the following pages I have tried to make a plain and easily understandable outline of the origin, history, and meaning of Bolshevism. I have attempted to provide the average American reader with a fair and reliable statement of the philosophy, program, and policies of the Russian Bolsheviki. In order to avoid confusion, and to keep the matter as simple and clear as possible, I have not tried to deal with the numerous manifestations of Bolshevism in other lands, but have confined myself strictly to the Russian example. With some detail too much, some of my readers may think! I have sketched the historical background in order that the Bolsheviki may be seen in proper perspective and fairly judged in connection with the whole revolutionary movement in Russia.

Whoever turns to these pages in the expectation of finding a sensational "exposure" of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki will be disappointed. It has been my aim to make a deliberate and scientific study, not an ex parte indictment. A great many lurid and sensational stories about the Bolsheviki have been published, the net result of which is to make the leaders of this phase of the great universal war of the classes appear as brutal and depraved monsters of iniquity. There is not a crime known to mankind, apparently, of which they have not been loudly declared to be guilty. My long experience in the Socialist movement has furnished me with too much understanding of the manner and extent to which working class movements are abused and slandered to permit me to accept these stories as gospel truth. That experience has forced me to assume that most of the terrible stories told about the Bolsheviki are either untrue and without any foundation in fact or greatly exaggerated. The "rumor factories" in Geneva, Stockholm, Copenhagen, The Hague, and other European capitals, which were so busy during the war fabricating and exploiting for profit stories of massacres, victories, assassinations, revolutions, peace treaties, and other momentous events, which subsequent information proved never to have happened at all, seem now to have turned their attention to the Bolsheviki.