... If we are going to nationalise the banks, can
we then tolerate the financial journals? The old r?gime must die;
that must be understood once and for all...." Applause and angry cries.
Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon
this important question, which should be left to a special
committee. Again, passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a
hammer-blow. "The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still
with us; consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of
repression against the Press.
"We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of
power we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois
newspapers would mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a
Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward-or go
back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the Press' goes
backward, and halts our headlong course toward Socialism.
"We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first
revolution threw off the yoke of Tsarism. _If the first revolution
had the right to suppress the Monarchist papers,_ then we have the
right to suppress the bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate
the question of the freedom of the Press from the other questions of
the class struggle.
Pages:
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366