THE LOCAL BOLSHEVIKS.

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 949, 19 September 1918, Page 8

THE LOCAL BOLSHEVIKS.

A Menace to the Community

WE are glad to notice that our looal evening contemporary lias at last come to the conclusion, long ago ago arrived at by this journal, that the Revolutionary Socialist movement m this city is a veryl real and dsmgerous menace to the cause of Law a_nd Oraei. At the conclusion of an article dealing with the Russian Bolshevik leaders, tne "Post" observes: "There local Bolsheviks self-confessed and blatant, and men must at all times be measured by their ideals. This, of course, is a direct reference to the Red Flag wavers of the Alexandra Hall, one of whose leaders recently announced that having been nicknamed Bolsheviks he and his friends would fit on the cap "they stood for the Bolshevik ideals. It is* of course, somewhat embarrassing for the local Bolsheviks that Lenin and Trotsky have been adjudged guilty, and guilty "up to the hilt, of deliberate treachery to their own country. JNot only has. this been the case, buii these German-paid Revolutionary Socialists have been proved guilty of deliberate treachery to the Allies. Even before the open declaration of war against the Allies the Russian Bolshevik leaders were thwarting the Allies' efforts m every possible way.

They were then secret, they are now open, enemies to the Allies ; that is of Great Britain and of New Zealand as a part of the British. Empire! Nevertheless, our local Bolsheviks still seem, determined to deify these wholesale assassins, these murderers; of brave soldiers like General Brusiloff, these fiends in human shape, who are drenching Russia in the blood of the innocent and recalling the foulest deeds of the French Revolution. Only the other day one of the leaders of 'the local Bolsheviks in a speech glorifying the use of the Red Flag, which is the admitted symbol of bloodshed and anarchy, had the insolence to declare that the intervention of the Allies in Russia was a "danger." A "danger" to whom? To any honest, law-abiding,. God-fearing Russian man or woman' Most assuredly not! A "danger" to the carryingout of the best ideals of the genuine Russian patriots, who were responsible for the fall of the Romanoffs, and,who carried out a great revolution almost without bloodsheid ? Again the answer is in the negative. It was only after the Lenins and Trotskys and the Bolshevik element generally 'appeared on the scene at Petrograd and Moscow that "the reign of bloodshed and anarchy began. Great Britain, France, and America have all solemnly declared that their intervention is_ not intended to interfere with Russian liberties. But the Bolshevik Anarchist is an enemy not only to his own countryman but to the cause of true and honest democracy all the world over.

We would now ask what is our Government going to do with our local Bolsheviks? Are they to be allowed to deliver speeches and defending Lenin and Trotsky, glorifying the Bolshevik Anarchists generally and declaring that the Allies' intervention is a "danger?" Are they to be permitted to conduct what is to all true intents and purposes, if not nominally, a pro-enemy propaganda? Or will the Government have the courage to do the right and courageous thing, and declare the local Revolutionary Socialist organisation an illegal and seditious association and suppress it? The Government has full power under the War Regulations to put an end to the campaign of sedition and anarchy which is being so openly and impudently carried on. It should do its duty s to a patriotic and loyal community without fear of the consequences.