THE BLACK POPE OF BOLSHEVISM

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 260, 30 July 1919, Page 7

THE BLACK POPE OF BOLSHEVISM

A SINISTER FIGURE

NEW PICTURE OF THE RUSSIAN TERROR M. A. Sokololf, the writer of the following article jii the London "Times," was ;it one time it Bolshevist, but broKe away from the party when it severed its relations with uie (social-Democrats. He then became one of the editors of M. Gorky's newspaper, the ".Novnya Jisn," until it wns suppressed by the Bolshevist Government.

The Roinan Catholic Church had two heads, one crowned with the tiara and possessed of all the outward signs of authority, another ensconced in the recon-1 dite corners of the offices of tho Society of Jesus, silent, inaccessible, and omnipotent. Tho first bestow.ed blessings and laid bans; the second pulled the wires and put into action tho formidable machinery of the Church militant. Bolshevism, likewise, has two heads. If its spiritual wisdom is embodied in the person of Lenin, tho infallible and the impeccable, its temporal sword is entrusted to the care of the firm, tho never-wavering M Dzerjinsky. Even as the General of the Society of Jesus was the Black Pope of the Eonian Catholic Church, so M. Dzcrjmsky is the Black Popo of Bolshevism. His official title is modest and unassuming. He is nothing more than the Commissar}' of the Extraordinary Commission for eradicating profiteering and counterrevolutionary conspiracies, an institution designed to take the place of tho oldfashioned Police Department. Under ordinary conditions lie would have ended .his days ns a second-rate official or a intellectual of advanced views. The history of Russia would have nothing to tell, about him except tho mero fact that he existed. A-freak of fortune hns made him a person under whoso scrutinising stare not only common mortals, but even the members of the allpowerful Council of tho People's Commissaries wince, fall back, and experience uncomfortable forebodings of some retribution in store for them. , He did not cut too brilliant a figure in the ranks of the party. People who 1 know; him personally are rather doubtful of hispoliticnl gifts and even go so far "c t? *"' iny uim an -V considerable amount ot theoretical knowledge He has spent so much of his time in prisons and the mines of Siberia that he had hut a. few chances of wandering through the mazes of tho Marxist doctrine to some practical yurpose. However, from those incidental excursions to the fields of learning Tic has obtained three fundamental truths to 'be treasured up in his mind to the end of his days: first,-that there is such n thing as class-struggle; second, that da«s----?i n l RS ,- e mcal,s c,fiss var > and third, that class war means extermination. And as to the methods of that extermination, he- had fliem from his Siberian gaolers, who knew to perfection even-thing connected with tho subject.

A Modern Torquemada. The general effect of these methods was often eclipsed if not totally/ extinguished by the deplorable custom' of bribery, which would be, of course, utterly °, ut ° f Viwe in such an institution as the Extraordinary Comniiwio'i. Dzerjinsky is free from that weakne.-s. He is an honest'gaoler. He can never be Ji ?' >°F assun ff«l, or talked round, or adulated into lenience. Torquemada himself might have envied those stern <>yes burning with fanatical hatred, those thin ascetic bloodless lips, that pale brow, those resourceful brains, enhancing the scourge'of cruelty by the scourge of honesty. If the temple of universal happiness is to bo cemented liv blood and erected on an enormous pyramid of .mutilated corpses, then, indeed, Dzerjinsky is the only man to be entrusted .with laying out its foundations. It would be an exaggeration to say that he has succeeded in inculcating upon the minds of those around him that elevated spirit of self-denial. .Kir from that. As late as in the month of November, 1918, no less a person, than his right-hand man, M. Peters, at whose orders hundreds had been put to death - was tried for blackmailing,: not to speak i if a \,° T otllers ' vho were tried' and shoj for the same thing. But the execihtions have somehow failed to be an effective deterrent, -and it is a secret to nobody that the Extraordinary Commission with its numberless ramifications spread all over the country, has become a place where blackmail, extortion, and acts of personal vengeance are being practised on an unheard-of scale. Even the most enraged Communists, while speaking of the Commission, cannot help a grimace, of difgust, twitching their

All the spies, informers, and agents provocateurs'of the old regime, and all the pickpockets and murderers of the new era seem to have found shelter in the lap of that hospitable organisation, fecuni of society" and "wasps' 'nest" ai ; e . . ftb °ut the gentlest nicknames by which those guardian angels of the Bolshevist order are universally .styled, And yet without them, as everybody knows, Irotskya temple of happiness would have crumbled into dust, a long time ago. ihey are indispensable for the Communistic virtues to prosper. Avowed miscreants though they are, they are not to be dispensed with. And thus it comes about that curses and oaths hurled in such profusion at the heads of murderers and blackmailers are usually ended withi the* invariable refrain: "There is no. trod but the Extraordinary Commission, and Dzerjinsky is its prophet."

Tortures and Shootings. As_l have said, the Extraordinary Com. mission has its representatives everywhere. Each small town, each bi" village has a Commission of its own; and the traditional division of administrative land judiciary powers being abolished, j there remains not a single earthly affair that could not be brought within the purview of this institution. Very often its members administer justice on the spot, shooting without much ado all those whose guilt has been, in their opinion, more or less established. It is done openly or in a more or less covert manner when criminals are led to the gaol, ro secure the course of justice, there have been reintroduced tortures of the same kind as .had been practised in some notorious prisons of the old Russia. Prisoners are fed with pickled herrings, to be refused drink afterwards, or they are flogged and beaten by the hour, or they have - wooden pins driven under . their finger-nails, (r, as is the case at the Moscow prison, they are put down on an electric chair. There is, though, a difference between the old times 41m the new. Under the Tsurs regime people in authority tried to hush up or explain away those proceedings, wlnle Bolshevist Russia has put the question of tortures on the order of the day. The Extraordinary Commission issues a weekly newspaper ("Messenger of the E.G."), distributed in UlO capital and in the provinces, where readers will find very interesting discussions on the advisability of tortures from the Communist point ot view. The siiino publication gives sometimes rather instructive statistical items of tho activity of the Commission. And every word every ugure, breathes terror, blood, death. I saw many a Bolshevist throw away in horror those blood-drenched rcconfi of human perversity. But 011 the following day I found them as loyal as over, holding forth to the tune "There is no God by the Extraordinary Commission, and Dzerjiusky is its prophet." I witnessed Communist women faint and Communist agitators fall into iits of hysterics on hearing of the deeds of tho Commission. , And stilt their loyalty to the party pre- J vailed over pricks of conscience, ;,nd an article in the "Izvestia" or 0. speech by Trotsky always succeeded in' setting their doubts at rest. Some people call ii the power of conviction. Nothing of what I saw corroborates this assertion. ' Dilated eyes, that strange, vague stare peculiar to pcoplo under hypnotic suggestion, those unaccountable mental leaps from tlie utter dejection of a natural, deeply suffering man to the fanatical wrath of a fire-eating terrorist testify to , a psychic disease rather than to force of character. If terrorism is preached from day today, if it is printed in big typo on every sheet of newspaper, if it is extolled by men of theory and freely indulged in by men of action, if not a single printed line or a single spoken word is allowed to doubt its blessings—no wonder that tho Bolshevist rank and filo should in

the long run become obsessed villi tho idea; and RrumblQ, curse, or weep as they may, the people of the Extraordinary Commission, who know their customers, will only laugh at their short-lived fits of opposition. The Extraordinary Commission has achieved its object, at least for the time being, far more thoroughly than its clumsy predecessors of the Tsar's epoch. The whole of the country has been so firmly enmeshed in the network of Communistic espionage that there is hardly anybody who would dare to express his opinions in public. For centuries, even in the darkest periods of their history, .Russians thought themselves entitled, if not to opposition, at least to whispered criticism, until they have learned from the Communistic Government that the chief, nay, the only, political virtue expected from them is complete abstinence from speech.

A Scene in Moscow, The point has struck home, apparently. I shall never forget a scene I witnessed in one of the big thoroughfares of Moscow on a bright October morning. A heavily-laden cart .was approaching at an unusually high speed. As it drew near I discerned two Red Guards sitting iu the front seat, with six coffins piled high up behind them. These were the remnants of the executed being conveyed from the prison of Butyrka. to the outskirts of the city. The coffins were spotted with blood; one of them bore a clear print of a bloody hand, belonging, seemingly, to one of the executioners. The Red Guards looked joviul, contented, ouiet. Their,rosy-cheeked, youthful, almost boyish faces betrayed no interest in tiie hideous load with which they were charged. One of them was lolling a story that must have been rather amusing, because tho other laughed in a most satisfied way. "Eresh ones!" whispered a man in a shopkeeper's coat, waiting fur the tramcar, to his neighbour, who, by the way of reply, winked 'it him knowingly. And nobody, not even a most experienced spy of tho now formation, would bo able to say what they really meant by their looks. Passers-by gazed at the cart for a moment, and then turned their heads awav and hurried ni. Only an old, wrinkled woman, who must have forgotten the times she was living in, made an attempt at relapsing into the old superstitious ways. She slopped and lilted up her right.hands for crossing herself, then, suddenly thought better of it, dropped her hand hastily, and, after easting roiind a few timid "glances, hurried on at the top of her poor shaky speed. The bright street was bright for mo no more. In its doorways, behind the curtains of the windows, iii the gestures of men. in their looks and words and thoughts, I discerned the same ominous shadow that casts its poisonous gloom over all the expanse of the country, the shadow of the Mack Pope of Bolshevism.

A Bolshevist message stales that Peters, who was concerned in the Sidney,. Street murders, has been appointed. Chief of Internal Defence.