The Peasants' Party programme which the Chita Assembly are debating is worth studying for several reasons. First is noticeable the absolute negation of all personal freedom. Clause 8 professes to guarantee private property except land and mines, rather a big exception in a place like Russia; but clause 10 effectually upsets it by promising Government contro] and, in case of necessity, nationalization of factories, banks and public works." In clause 3 there is a reference to the rights of trade unions. But as clause 7 enacts that all labour is to be compulsory from the age of 18 upwards, one does not quite see what the unions, with their cherished principle-of the right to "down tools" at a moment's notice, will do. Worst of all from Labour's point of view is the dreadful heresy in clause 5 that a man can be compelled to bear arms in defence of his country. One wonders what our Western labour leaders will say of this practical proof of the mild, free and loving disposition of Bolshevism. The second curious fact is that such a programme should be advanced by the peasants, who in Siberia at least, were previously supposed to be rather anti-Communist than otherwise. If the report to-day be correct, it means that there is now a full-blooded Bolshevist Government stretching all across Siberia to the sea—for Vladivostok is in with Chita as far as it dares to go. Rumours of that Government's war preparation may may be untrue, but must not be forgotten.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.