The Bolshevik court at Moscow last week sentenced fifteen of
the Social Revolutionary leaders to death. The Bolshevik dictators then announced that the executions would be post- poned unless the Party to which the prisoners belonged continued to oppose the existing despotism. it is not easy to differentiate between the two shades of Socialism professed by prosecutors and defendants. But the Social Revolutionaries profess a belief in democracy. Lunacharsky, speaking at the trial, imputed it to them as a crime that they wished for free elections. " It was more than probable," he said, " that, if free elections were instituted, the Social Revolutionaries would obtain an overwhelming majority, as they had behind them the wealthy peasantry and the small bourgeoisie." Lunacharsky went on to say that " the proletariat must destroy its chief enemy." The " proletariat," then, is admittedly a small minority which is tyrannizing over the vast majority of Russians. Such a despotism cannot endure, and the " workers of the world," to whom it is fond of appealing, can have no sympathy with it.
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