Those "friends," whoever they were, were possibly Bolsheviki themselves, and are not said to have denied that the women were nationalized, but merely that they had never heard or read of the "decree." Lots of things are enforced by authorities without decrees. The Bolshevist authorities may have had no decrees for the murder of the many thousands of innocent citizens whom they tortured and put to death.
Dr. Harold Williams states, moreover, that it is certain that "the Central Bolshevist Government has issued no order of the kind" (i.e., of nationalization), but he does not deny that in different places the local Bolshevist authorities may have nationalized women.
Further on it is admitted that not the official national Soviet organ, but the local Vladimir Soviet organ, "Izvestija," was the Bolshevist paper which stated that the Bolshevists of Vladimir had nationalized women.
The article in "New Europe," republished in "The Call," concludes with these words:
"As this puts an entirely different complexion on the matter, and as the Central Moscow Government cannot be held responsible for the lucubrations of every local committee, we desire to withdraw unreservedly the imputation and to express our regret for the mistake."
This article in the March 13, 1919, issue of "New Europe," which thus apologizes for the "mistake" that it claims it made in a previous issue, has been quoted far and wide by American Socialists and other radicals of our country. Yet witnesses who were questioned at the Senatorial investigation at Washington, in February, 1919, attested to the nationalization by the Bolshevists.
On February 7, 1919, the Orthodox Greek Archbishop of Omsk and other clergy of the Russian Church sent a letter to Pope Benedict XV,