The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1919. MARCH OF THE BOLSHEVISTS

Waikato Times, Volume 90, Issue 14028, 3 April 1919, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 1919. MARCH OF THE BOLSHEVISTS

If the cabled messages are To be taken at their face value the impression is scarcely to be resisted that Bblshevism is still gaining ground, especially in Eastern Europe. The new Government, in Longary is said to be openly communistic, and it is reported that a Russian army is en ron'e to assist the Hungarian extremists in the establishment of a Soviet republic. If Bolshevism gets a firm footing in Hungary the danger that it may spread seriously to the neighbouring States is accentuated. Poland and the Balkans may next be invaded by it. The new Czecho-Slovak States may find it more than difficult to resist the sinister movement which appeals to. all forces that are antagonistic to order and to established systems of government. The war and the collapse of the war have, in countries where the old regime has been overthrown, prepared the soil only too well for the Bolshevist and his methods. The capacity of organised resistance to revolutionaries in States where the government is in a condition of flux has beeifl fatally weakened, 1 and opportunities for mischief have been liberally presented. It is impossible yet to see the end of the Bolshevist movement in Europe. It is unthinkable, however, that Bolshevism, which is essentially a destructive movement, feeding upon the very life-blood of any country it is able to capture, can permanently survive. But its capacity for evil is so immense that the menace of the movement can hardly be exaggerated. It might have been imagined that the state of affairs which Bolshevism so quickly brought about in Russia would have been a sufficient warning to the peoples of all other States, and have secured that their gales would be resolutely closed against it. Apparently this has not been so. , The avenues of communication and intercourse in the case of countries contiguous to Russia have been unguarded, and there have been within the citadel only too many willing to raise the standard of anarchy. Shrinking. at nothing, conscienceless, by its very recklessness Bolshevism has secured in Russia and elsewhere an initial impetus which it has proved very difficult to arrest. It is quite possible that leaders like Lenin find the current which they have let loose beyond all their power to 1 direct. Bolshevism appeals not to democracy, for with democracy it has no commerce, but to lust, covetousness, ignorance, and class-hatred. Its avowed enemies are the capitalist and the bourgeoise. In the Bolshevist world there is no room for anything but the “proletariat," which shall have everything and control everything.

The most significant revelations of the real nature of Bolshevism have (as a contemporary points out) come from enlightened Russians who have seen its workings. Theirs has been the most passionate warning against any thought of the part of the Western Powers of having any dealings with the Bolshevists except at the point of the sword. All tho evidence that has been provided since Russia fell under the sway of her present tyranny goes to prove the truth of the assertion that Bolshevism is the blank negation of ordered government and ordered civilisation, and that there will be no tranquility in Europe until it is stamped out as a political force. Judged in the light of its methods the Bolshevist Government is simply a criminal Government. The picture of what it has done in Russia in its ruthless suppression of opposition is so lurid that there are those who discredit it. They claim that it must be an exaggerated picture and that a state of affairs so appalling would never be tolerated by the Russian people. But these people have had no alternative but to endure the horrors, starvation included, that havd in' the train of Bolshevism." The Daily Telegraph.*m an instructive article observes: “The one constructive effort of Lenin and Trotsky, who came into power preaching the blessings of universal peace, has been the Army of the Red Guard. This is the prop and support of Bolshevism. It exists and thrives on rapine. Others may bo starving: the Red Guards live well. Their pockets arc stuffed with the roubles which the Government printing

presses are burning out at such a rate

that every day’s output sees a new depreciation of value. These Praetorians of anarchy know no discipline. They are given authority and license to loot wherever they carry their new gospel of the poor.” The Bolshevists have had more than a year in which to reveal themselves, and this they have sufficiently done. They have established their power so far by slaughtering off their opponents and their critics. They have almost crushed down all opposition. Give them a little longer and they will also have destroyed all industries in Russia. For the bourgeoise. according to Bolshevist theory, must be removed from all control of factories, mills, or commercial undertakings, and must be transformed into barefoot paupers, declassed, thrown out of social life, enslaved and placed under the tireless watch of the “Commitlees of the Poorest," which, established in every village, have full control of the life and property of their neighbours. The fact that such is the stuff of which Bolshevism is made is the more significant when it is remembered that the ultimate goal of the leaders of the move-, ment is not a national but a world revolution. In the light of present portents it is impossible to scout the suggestion that the Powers that have successfully defended civilisation against one great menace, that of German militarism, may have yet to protect it against another—none can say how formidable—in Bolshevism.