Page:René Marchand - Why I Side with the Social Revolution (1920).pdf/80

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truth will undoubtedhy come to light: the more it will have been sullied the more brilliant will be its revenge. But the perusal of the infamy published by the French press in regard to Russia is none the less profoundly instructive. It is a vivid illustration of the formidable power which the capitalist Governments and the large financial syndicates have in their hands in order „to form the opinion“ in accordance with their combinations. Never was the action of the press more cynically criminal; and never was its responsibility before the popular masses more heavy. If we desire to liberate ourselves from the past, which has caused us and still causes us so many sufferings, then the lying press, in the pay of capital, is one of the first instruments of oppression that we must destroy. It is necessary to finish once for ail with this abominable poisoning bf ideas, of consciences and souls. The press, with the modern printing plant, must be requisitioned by the people for the education of the people and not for its enthralment.

Faithful to the tactics that were being followed in Russia, the Governments of the Entente had nothing more urgent to do in Germany, than to cynically reconcile themselves with the late servants of Wilhelm and to declare Liebknecht an outlaw, the man whom during four and a half years, in the name of principles that they had held up to us, they had not ceased to call, for the sake of their propaganda, „the only honest German“!

In France, the masters of iron-works and industrials eagerly dicussed in „private councils“, the question of the advantages and disadvantages involved for their pockets in the re-anne-