H. Bruce-Lockhart, to whom reference has been made, in his telegram to the British Foreign Office, November 10, 1918, stated:
"The Bolsheviki have abolished even the most primitive forms of justice. Thousands of men and women have been shot without even the mockery of a trial, and thousands more are left to rot in the prisons under conditions to find a parallel to which one must turn to the darkest annals of Indian or Chinese history.... "The Bolsheviki who destroyed the Russian army, and who have always been the avowed opponents of militarism, have forcibly mobilized officers who do not share their political views, but whose technical knowledge is indispensable, and by the threat of immediate execution have forced them to fight against their fellow-countrymen in a civil war of unparalleled horror."
Concerning religious conditions in Russia, the Rev. Dr. George S. Simons, shortly after his return from that country, testified before the Senatorial Committee, which, in February, 1919, was investigating the nature of Russian Bolshevism:
"The Bolshevik is not only an atheist, but he also seeks to make all religions impossible. They assert that all misery is due to the superstition that there is a God. One of their officials told me: "'We now propose to enlighten our children, and with this purpose in view, we are issuing a catechism on atheism for use in all the schools.' "The man who told me this was the Commissionaire of Enlightenment and Education."
On February 7, 1919, an appeal was sent to Pope Benedict XV, by the Orthodox Greek clergy of that part of Russia which had not fallen a prey