The United States will serve as the best example of this. Here, during the war, the following laws were promulgated: It was forbidden to speak slightingly of the president; it was forbidden to say anything to the discredit of the Allies; it was forbidden to declare that the entry of the U.S. and of the Entente into the war was the outcome of sordid, material motives; it was forbidden to advocate a premature peace; it was forbidden to utter any public condemnation of the policy of the U.S. government; it was forbidden to say anything to the credit of Germany; it was forbidden to advocate the overthrow of the existing order, the abolition of private property, the class war, etc. The penalty for breaking any of these laws ranged from 3 to 20 years’ imprisonment. In the course of a single year, about 1500 workers were arrested for such offences. The working-class organisation known as the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) was savagely attacked, and some of its leaders were lynched. As an example of the “right to strike,” we may mention the strike at the Arizona copper mines in the year 1917, when many of the workers were shot, others flogged and others tarred and feathered; when whole families were hunted from their homes and reduced to beggary. Again, during the strike at Rockefeller’s coal mines, at Ludlow in the State of Colorado, Rockefeller’s gunmen shot and burned several hundred workmen and workwomen. Although Congress is elected by universal suffrage, it merely carries out the orders of the trust kings, for nearly all the congressmen are in the pay of the trusts. The uncrowned kings are the real dictators of America. Among them we may name: Rockefeller, the head of the Standard Oil Trust, which controls, in addition to the oil wells, a vast number of banks; Morgan, the railway king, also in control of numerous banks; Schwab, the steel king; Swift, the head of the meat trust; Dupont, the powder king, who amassed incredible wealth during the war. Suffice it to say that Rockefeller’s income is $10,000 per hour! Who can withstand such strength? This gang of Schwabs and Rockefellers holds everything in its hands in the name of “democracy.”
Even if what is termed bourgeois democracy did really exist, in comparison with the Soviet Power it would not be worth a cracked