ship, for its tendency to enslave and to suppress. The problem of crushing 
the right, blended itself with that of uprooting a civil system. The “Cheka” 
(Special commission for combatting counter-revolution, speculation and 
sabotage) prosecuted alike the former nobles and officials, traders and 
anarchists, robbers, contractors and “kulaks” (well-off peasants). The 
Communistic Party, as the Bolshevics called themselves in order to be 
distinctive from the Socialists, established its power in Russia by force of 
arms. Engaged in a deadly struggle with all the traditions, all the forces 
and treasures of the past, and in an inevitable fight with all the elementary 
developments of the present, it could protect itself by force only. 
Having obtained the power by means of their thorough organisation, 
the Communist Party — for the sake of self-preservation — had to 
remain the only organisation in the country. This is the leading principle 
of the Bolshevic regime. All parties but the Communists were annihilated, 
even those of the Socialists. The fact of having belonged to some party 
or other in the past, be it even a Socialist one, is considered a crime, 
and must be redressed. One only ruling organisation is admitted, viz., the 
Communist Party; all the remaining subjugated population receives from 
this very fact the appellation of “party-less”. The existence of any “second” 
organisation is not tolerated, not even in the form of a “faction” of this 
very same communistic party; for in this is already seen a menace to its 
autocratic rule. The well remembered struggle with the opposition of 
Trotzky, sufficiently testifies to this fact. In “Tzaristic’” Russia, from the 
moment when a constitution had been introduced, the political parties 
obtained partly legal and partly semi-legal rights of existence. 
In the same way as it dealt with political organisations, Bolshevism 
dealt with all non-political social organisations, in fact, destroyed them. 
A memorable example of this can be found in the establishment of the 
organisation — with the sanction and under the control of the Bolshevies — 
for combatting famine, which led to the arrest and banishment of all 
its members. A similar fate befell the few institutions which for a short 
time vegetated under the Bolshevics, or attempted to organise themselves 
in the “springtime” of the “NEP”. From time to time sessions of scientists 
take plate at which special questions are debated mellowed by Sovietic 
speeches and Lenin-ideology. This is all that remains of the once abundant 
and manifold public life of the “Tzaristic” time. 
Those elements that cannot possibly remain disorganised are either 
swallowed up by the com-party (Communistic party), or are incorporated 
into the State mechanism. Such is the fate of the trade and professional 
unions, and of the co-operative system, their success in any State consisting 
mainly in their complete independence. The State, however. as we shall 
see. 1s entirely under the control of the com-party. 
JIA