What Are You Doing - Where Do You Stand?
Issue
W hat Are You Doing - W here Do You Stand?
Gilbert E. Brach
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EDITORIAL BOARD
GILBERT E. BRACH .................................. Edtor-n-Chief
SYLVESTER F. DONOVAN, EDWARD T. CURLEY ...... Associates
JOHN T. LINDSAY .............................. Advertising Manager
EDWARD C. PLANTZ, JOHN C. SUTTON ................ Assistants
HERBERT C. HIRSCHBOECK..................... Business Manager
MATT F. BILEK, JAMES C. DUTTON.................... Assistants
THOMAS C. DWYER ............................ Circulation Manager
VICTOR I. MINAHAN, JR., LEO J. COHEN............... 4ssistants
CLIFTON WILLIAMS ............ Faculty Advisor
WHAT ARE YOU DOING -WHERE
DO YOU STAND?
It is the prevailing sentiment in this country that the
revolution in Russia in March, 1917, was the awakening of the Russian
nation from its lethargy of centuries. True, the shackles of
feudalism were thrown off for a new order of government, but
the revolution was the direct result of the protesting peoples
whose opposition to the oppressive system had been met with
deaf ears, or perhaps, a free trip to Siberia. Russia had been
plodding along in a rut, because she had been kept ignorant by
the minority in power, who ruled not for the people, but for
themselves. The strong arm of force was used to keep the people
in line with the existing system. But as history points out to us,
force cannot keep down the spirit of a subjected peoples.
The Russians met secretly to discuss their plight. I am told
they met in dug-outs, in thick forests, in attics, and from these
places disseminated their doctrines. They formed various parties,
the two leading ones being the Mensheviki (meaning minority),
and the Bolsheviki (meaning majority). The former proposed to
change the existing political order by slow progressive action.
It was the latter's motive to set aside the old order and establish
a new based upon the doctrines as laid down by leading German
radicals.
Those in power in Russia knew that the people were very much
dissatisfied over their, condition, but made no effort to improve
it. The sentiment of the ruling minority correctly expressed
in the words of Milukov, who, upon looking from his window
and seeing a throng of the revolutionists carrying the red flag
said: "There goes the Russian revolution and it will be crushed
in fifteen minutes." But he was mistaken, for he had misjudged.
The very forces upon which the Tsar's government had relied
were swayed by the passions of the masses. The Cossacks joined
the revolution and the old regime was replaced by Kerensky and
his followers.
The world rejoiced, for those in power proposed to set up a
Democracy fashioned after ours. The people were told to go
back to work, for the next move was the formation of a state.
The people went back to work. They gathered together into
small organizations and elected one of their number whom they
could trust to represent them as a delegate at Petrograd. These
organizations were formed according to the trade in which a man
earned his livelihood as, for instance, the machinists, engineers,
teachers, farmers, and so on. This action was spontaneous
wherever there was a group of Russians, even to the warships in
the foreign waters. At Petrograd the delegates elected formed
the All Russian Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers.
The Soviet was the natural organization of the Russian people.
It would appear to have its origin in the mir of the village and
the artel of the city. The assembly of the mir under the old
regime was made up of all the peasant householders of the
village community, who elected a headman called (starosta). This
organization governed the village community from very early
history. The nmir was dominated by police commissioners
representing the government.
The artel clearly manifests the co-operative spirit of the
Russians. It has been one of the prominent features of the Russian
social life, and is characteristic of the very people who formed it.
When any workmen would migrate from any of the provinces to
an industrial center, they would immediately unite info groups of
.from fen to fifty, settle in a house together, and each was then
obliged to pay his share to the elected elder of the artel. Wherever
there was a gathering of Russian people, whether in industry, in
the forests, on journeys, there was a network of artels.
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After the successful political revolution the people of Russia
were not satisfied. They demanded the land, the factories, for
they claimed that everything should be nationalized for the people.
It is at this juncture of the turmoil that followed the revolution
that the Bolsheviks saw their opportunity, for the minds of the
great mass of the people were neutral, as the psychologist woul (...truncated)