communistic activity and its Russian
supporters. He pours scorn upon
these little revolutionaries in the
mean streets who send plaintive let
ters to their paymasters in Moscow
asking for enough money to pay a
typist and lamenting that they are
in debt for 14 pounds. There is a
comic side to all that, and it is certain
that these back street bolshevists,
mostly young and work-shy agitators,
are unimportant in numbers and have
no power as a political party. They
have, however, the poisonous power
of disease-infected microbes. They
are working as disease germs work in
the human body.
In many factories of England and
Scotland they have formed “cells” of
four, five or six individuals who work
under direct instruction from Russian
paymasters and, witHbut acknowledg
ing themselves as Communists, try to
inflame ill feeling between- masters
and men and to create an atmosphere
of discontent and class bitterness.
Believes in Workmen.
For a long time I have refused to
believe that all this underground
work should be taken seriously and
even now, after the experience of the
gen end strike, I am still convinced
that British workingmen are largely
immune from these mental poison
mongers who are not working for lib
erty and prosperity, but for destruc
tion and misery.
But what is more serious is the in
tellectual sympathy of certain trade
union leaders with Lenin’s gospel of
social revolution. Cook, who is sec
retary of the miners’ union and who
for nine weeks has refused all efforts
for compromise and conciliation,
avows himself to be “a humble dis
ciple of Lenin.” In his only publish
ed lwok he advocates the overthrow
of capitalism and the forcible seizure
of industry after ruining the present
employers.
