Against the tolerance of Kerensky, the arbitrary and despotic methods of the Bolsheviki stand out in strong contrast.  Many non-Bolshevist Socialist organs were suppressed; papers containing matter displeasing to the Bolshevik authorities were suspended, whole issues were confiscated, and editors were imprisoned, precisely as in the days of the Czar.  It became necessary for the Socialist-Revolutionists to issue their paper with a different title, and from a different place, every day.  Here is the testimony of Inna Rakitnikov again, contained in an official report to the International Socialist Bureau: 

All the non-Bolshevik newspapers were confiscated or prosecuted and deprived of every means of reaching the provinces; their editors’ offices and printing-establishments were looted.  After the creation of the “Revolutionary Tribunal” the authors of articles that were not pleasing to the Bolsheviki, as well as the directors of newspapers, were brought to judgment and condemned to make amends or go to prison, etc.

The premises of numerous organizations were being constantly pillaged.  The Red Guard came there to search, destroying different documents; frequently objects which were found on the premises disappeared.  Thus were looted the premises of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist party (27 Galernaia Street) and—­several times—­the office of the paper Dielo Naroda (22 Liteinia Street) ... the office of the paper Volya Naroda, etc....  But the Central Committee ... continued to issue a daily paper, only changing its title, as in the time of Czarism, and thus continued its propaganda....

The Yolya Naroda, referred to by Inna Rakitnikov, was the official organ of the Socialist-Revolutionary party.  It was raided on several occasions.  For example, in January, 1918, the leaders of the party reported that a detachment of Bolshevik Red Guards had broken into the office of the paper, committed various depredations, and made several arrests.[26] Here is another Socialist witness:  One of the ablest of the leaders of the Bohemian Socialists in the United States is Joseph Martinek, the brilliant and scholarly editor of the Bohemian Socialist weekly, the Delnicke Listy.  He has always been identified with the radical section of the movement.  A student of Russian history, speaking the language fluently, it was his good fortune to spend several weeks in Petrograd immediately before and after the Bolshevik counter-revolution.  He testifies that the “freedom of the press established by Kerensky” was “terminated by the Bolsheviki."[27] This is not the testimony of “capitalist newspapers,” but of Socialists of unquestionable authority and standing.  The Dielo Naroda was a Socialist paper, and the volunteer venders of it, who were brutally beaten and shot down by Red Guards, were Socialist working-men.[28] When Oskar Tokoi, the well-known