tion, Vol. 1 (Sphere Books, pp 227-28). the typographical workers took orders only from the Soviet. roads, the printing establishments. thus far moved forward. The Republica affair has led to an impassioned defence of an unrestricted freedom of the press not only from the capitalist class but also from a num ber of so-called socialists. We think it instructive to draw their attention to Trotsky's remarks on this question in his History of the Russian RevoluOn the night of 28 February, the Executive Conmittee [of the Petrograd Soviet] closed up the monarchist press and established a licensing system for newspapers. Protests were heard, those shouting the loudest who had been accustomed to stop the mouths of others. After a few days the Committee had to take up again the problem of a free press: to permit or not to permit the publication of reactionary papers? Disagreements arose. Doctrinaires of the type of Sukhanov [an "independent' socialist | stood for absolute freedom of the press. Cheidze [a Menshevik] at first disagreed: how can we leave weapons at the uncontrolled disposition of our mortal enemies? It occurred to nobody, by the way, to turn over the whole question to the decision of the Government. Anyway, that would have been useless;
On 5 March the Executive Committee confirmed this fact as follows: "The right press is closed and the issue of new papers will depend upon the decision of the Soviet.' But as early as the 10th, under pressure from bourgeois circles, that resolution was annulled. "They took only three days to come to their senses, exults Sukhanov. Ill-faunded exultation! The press does not stand above society: the conditions of its existence during a revolution reflect the progress of the revolution itself. When the latter assumes, ur may assume, the character of a civil war, not one of the warring camps will permit the existence of a hostile press within the sphere of its influence -no more than it will let escape from its control the arsenals, the railIn a revolutionary struggle the press is only one kind of weapon. The right to speech is certainly not higher than the right to life. A revolution takes the latter too into its own hands. We may lay this down as a law: revolutionary governments are the more liberal, the more tolerant, the more 'magnanimous' to the reaction, the shallower their programme, the more they are bound up with the past, the more conservative their role. And the converse: the more gigantic their tasks and the greater the number of vested rights and interests they are to destroy, the more concentrated will be the revolutionary power, the more naked its dictatorship. Whether this is a good thing or bad, it is by these roads that humanity has The Soviet was right when it wanted to retain control of the press. Why did it so easily give this up? Because in general it was refusing to make a serious fight. It remained silent about peace, about the land, even about a republic. Having turned over the power to a conservative bourgeoisie, it had neither a reason for fearing the right press, nor a possibility of struggling against it. The Government, on the other hand, began after a few months, with the support of the Soviet, to suppress ruthlessly the left press. The Bolshevik papers were shut down one after another. buted in Lisbon, particularly at the 19 July Socialist Party demonstration, by the comrades of the Liga Communista Internacionalista (Internationalist Com munist League), the Portuguese sympathising organisation of the Fourth Inter
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