sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki, who, as you know, tried to cover their follies and their abominable crimes against the plan of the Russian people, and against all the other Socialist parties, under the lying pretext of internationalist ideas, ideas which they have, in reality, trampled under foot and betrayed.

Yours fraternally, E. ROUBANOVITCH, June 28, 1918. Member of the B.S.I.

“The Bolsheviki who promised liberty, equality, peace, etc., have not been ashamed to follow in the footsteps of Czarism.  It is not liberty; it is tyranny.” (Extract from a letter of a young Russian Socialist, an enthusiast of liberty who died all too soon.)

I

Organization of the Peasants after the Revolution in Soviets of Peasant Delegates

A short time after the Revolution of February the Russian peasants grouped themselves in a National Soviet of Peasant Delegates at the First Congress of the Peasants of All-Russia, which took place at Petrograd.  The Executive Committee of this Soviet was elected.  It was composed of well-known leaders of the Revolutionary Socialist party and of peasant delegates sent from the country.  Without adhering officially to the Revolutionary Socialist party, the Soviet of Peasant Delegates adopted the line of conduct of this party.  While co-ordinating its tactics with the party’s, it nevertheless remained an organization completely independent.  The Bolsheviki, who at this Congress attempted to subject the peasants to their influence, had not at the time any success.  The speeches of Lenine and the other members of this party did not meet with any sympathy, but on the contrary provoked lively protest.  The Executive Committee had as its organ the paper Izvestya of the National Soviet of Peasant Delegates.  Thousands of copies of this were scattered throughout the country.  Besides the central national Soviet there existed local organizations, the Soviets, the government districts who were in constant communication with the Executive Committee staying at Petrograd.

From its foundation the Executive Committee exercised great energy in the work of the union and the organization of the peasant masses, and in the development of the Socialist conscience in their breasts.  Its members spread thousands and hundreds of thousands of copies of pamphlets of the Revolutionary Socialist party, exposing in simple form the essence of Socialism and the history of the International explaining the sense and the importance of the Revolution in Russia, the history of the fight that preceded it, showing the significance of the liberties acquired.  They insisted, above all, on the importance of the socialization of the soil and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.  A close and living tie was created between the members of the Executive Committee staying at Petrograd and the members in the provinces.  The Executive Committee was truly the expression of the will of the mass of the Russian peasants.