improving American trade with that country or of restoring Russian credit "so long as the present political and economic system continues." Issued at that moment, April 18th, 1921, it had a special significance. It indicated that the American Government attached no importance whatever to the so-called "reforms" and the pretended abandonment of communism by the Soviet Government early in March. For not only the pro-Bolshevists but numerous groups of greedy capitalists and their newspapers as well as a number of well meaning but uninformed or superficial editors and correspondents had swallowed Lenin's bait, that is, his pretense that he had reformed and had compromised fundamentally with "capitalism."
In this letter Mr. Hughes did not limit himself to pointing out the incapacity of the Soviet Government to organize production. Even should it be able to do so successfully, he pointed out that "the attitude and action of the present authorities of Russia have tended to undermine its political and economic relations with other countries."
In the Note above quoted, in refusing to receive a Soviet trade delegation Mr. Hughes had stated that among the fundamental institutions of modern civilization which were indispensable if Russian production was to be restored was the establishment of "freedom of labor." Evidence given below will show that the enslavement of labor is indeed the chief underlying cause of the entire collapse of the Bolshevist system and of the frightful suffering it has inflicted not only upon labor but upon the entire population of the country.
