is proven by
the destruction in a public bonfire of court records, the
destruction of prisons and the liberation of all criminals who are
sympathetic with the cause. We know it to be a fact that some of
the worst criminal characters in all Russia hold positions under
the Bolshevist Government, while others are helping as agitators."

A press dispatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, states that it has been
decided by the Bolsheviki regime that control of desire of impulse, even
when self-imposed, is against the freedom of man, that as a consequence
unbelievable orgies and indecencies take place, and that all restraint
is at an end. The despatch states, futhermore[11], that the aristocrats
remaining in Russia have lost all will and energy. They accept
degradation or death with complete fatalism and do not even try to save
their wives and daughters.

The deplorable condition of that part of Russia under Bolshevist rule
was described in the Declaration adopted by the Socialist groups in Omsk
on February 23, 1919. The Declaration says in part:

"The main prop of an agricultural country such as Russia
principally is, the peasant population, is pauperized, starving and
is being driven under the banners of the Red Armies by lash and
rifle. The numerically small class of intellectuals is being shot
down and exterminated. The cities have been handed over to the
pillage and rule of Red Army troops. The prisons are overcrowded.
The enemies of the people have carried out their destructive
program to the very end, and given the people, in place of bread,
peace and freedom--a new inter-Russian war, the complete exhaustion
of all the productive forces of the land, economic, industrial and
railroad desolation, unemployment, a terrorizing reign of disorder
and a lapse into barbarity."

The Council of the All-Siberian Co-operative Assemblies, in a
Declaration brought to this country by C. A. Kovalsky, a prominent
Russian writer and a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists,
says:

"The All-Siberian Co-operative Movement--as the expression of the
unity of the creative democratic elements--strives for the
rehabilitation of the destroyed statehood of Russia....

"The immediate aims of our political activities must be--the
support of the existing Omsk Government, which has proclaimed
itself a democratic rule; the st