"The following quotation from a speech of one of the most active Bolshevist leaders, Zinoviev, printed in the 'Northern Commune' of September 19, 1918, fully expresses the spirit of the Bolshevist terrorism: "'To overcome our enemies we must have our own Socialist Militarism. We must win over to our side 90 millions out of the 100 millions of population of Russia under the Soviets. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them; they must be annihilated.' "The program of annihilating ten million of the opponents of Bolshevism in Russia (Mr. Zinoviev has considerably underestimated their number) began to be executed by the Bolsheviki from the first moment of their coming into power. In the beginning of March, 1918, they held mass executions in Rostov-on-the-Don, killing, among others, many youths. The Moscow 'Russkiya Viedomosti' (Russian News) in its issue of March 23, 1918, reported that the president of the Rostov Municipal Council and the Chairman of the Don Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, B. C. Vasiliev, the mayor of the city, P. Petrenko, the former Chairman of the Rostov-Nakhichevan Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, P. Melnikov, and even M. Smirnov, at that time Chairman of the Council, have handed in a petition to the Bolshevist War-Revolutionary Council asking them to shoot them 'instead of the innocent children who are executed without law and justice.' A group of women, horrified by what was going on, also asked that they be shot instead of the children. In their petition they wrote as follows: "'If, according to you, there is need of sacrifices in blood and life in order to establish a Socialistic state and to create new ways of life, take our lives, kill us, grown mothers and fathers, but let our children live. They have not yet had a chance to live; they are only growing and developing. Do not destroy young lives. Take our lives and our blood as ransom.... "'We, mothers, have served the country by giving our sons, husbands and brothers. Pray, take our last possession, our lives, but spare our children. Call us, one after the other, for execution, when our children are to be shot! Every one of us would gladly die in order to save the life of her children or that of other children. "'Citizens, members of the War Revolutionary Council, listen to the cries of the mothers. We cannot be kept silent!'"
Charles Dumas, a French Socialist, on his return to France from Russia, wrote a book in which he warns his fellow-comrades on the dangers of Bolshevism, and among other things he says: