This page needs to be proofread.
BOLO—BOMBTHROWERS
469

in 1921 in harmony with the Peruvian Government with regard to the question. Bolivia's aspirations had apparently again turned toward the "revindication" of Antofagasta.

Bibliography.—Anuario de Leyes, Resoluciones y Disposiciones Supremas (República de Bolivia) (1911); Anuario National Estadístico y Geográfico de Bolivia (1917–9); Boletín de la Oficina National de Estadística (1910–5); Comercio Especial de Bolivia, Exportatión, Importatión, Bancos, 1915–1916; E. Díaz de Medina, Bolivia, Breve Resumen Histórico, Físico y Politico (1914); Informe y A nexos del Ministerio de Instructión Publica y Agricultura (1916–9); 'Memoria presentada al Congreso Ordinario . . . el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores y Cullo (1910–9); Ministerio de Hacienda, Memoria presentada á la Legislatura (1911–9); Mensaje del Presidente Constitutional de la Republica al Congreso (1910–9); Monthly Bulletin of the International Bureau of the American Republics (1910–21); Pan-American Union, Bolivia, General Descriptive Data (1909–20); P. Walle, Bolivia: Its People and Its Resources, etc. (1914).  (W. S. Ro.) 


BOLO, PAUL (d. 1918), French financial agent and traitor, was born at Reunion, of humble parentage. He became at an early age a dentist in Marseilles, and afterwards appears for many years to have lived by his wits. In 1905 he made a biga- mous marriage with the rich widow of a Bordeaux wine merchant. He entertained lavishly in Paris and Biarritz, and was received by many influential people, in spite of the fact that he under- went a term of imprisonment for fraud in connexion with one of his financial transactions. In 1914 Bolo met in Paris Abbas Hilmi, Khedive of Egypt, to whom he proposed various finan- cial schemes, and the Khedive bestowed upon him the title of Pasha. On the outbreak of the World War Bolo appears to have entered into communication with German agents for the purpose of supporting a " defeatist " movement in certain Paris newspapers. In 1915-6 he travelled in the United States, and received considerable sums, amounting to over 300,000, from representatives of Count Bernstorff, at the time German ambassador to Washington. During 1917, however, the French Government under M. Clemenceau displayed much energy in hunting down treasonable conspiracies, and in Sept. 1917 Bolo was arrested. His trial by court-martial, begun on Feb. 4 1918, ended in his being found guilty of treason. Attempts were made to connect M. Caillaux with Bolo's proceedings, and Caillaux's acquaintance with the adventurer was brought up later to his discredit at his own trial in 1920. A sensa- tional feature of Bolo's trial was the appearance of Mon- signor Bolo, brother of the accused and a well-known preacher in Paris, as a witness for the defense, though as he had hardly seen his brother for thirty years, his evidence was of small value. Bolo was sentenced to death and shot at Vincennes, April 17 1918.


BOLSHEVISM, the name given since the Russian revolution to the form of Communism adopted under the Soviet system of government. Bolshevism as a doctrine and an organization is not of purely Russian growth ; it is a branch of European Com- munism. The development of the latter is discussed in the article COMMUNISM. The earliest and most powerful expression of modern Communism is to be found in the Communist Mani- festo drawn up by K. Marx and F. Engels in 1847. This Mani- festo has remained a kind of gospel for extreme Communists, and its pronouncements served as a guidance in the attempt of the Russian Bolsheviks (Russian for " Majority " party) to create a Communist republic in Russia. Another element in the circle of ideas appropriated by the Bolsheviks was provided by the activity of Bakunin, the indefatigable Russian anarchist, who fought for world revolution in 1849 in Dresden and in 1870 in Lyons, and who passed 12 years of his life in prison and in exile. He was an admirer of Marx's learning and analytical power, but he would never submit to the tyrannical pedantry of Marx's school and stood up for an elemental awaking of revolutionary instincts. State and law were enemies to be fought and overthrown without any regard for tradition or practical considerations. A third element was introduced by the rise of militant syndicalism in France (see SYNDICALISM). These three currents combined to produce the three fundamental ideas of Bolshevism : the conquest of society by the proletariat class, the power of revolutionary instinct and the dictatorship of a compact minority.

The combination proved admirably adapted in Russia for the practical purpose of the overthrow of the previously exist- ing order. Theoretically it was a compound of contradictory elements. This was clearly discerned and exposed by a leading Marxist writer, Kautsky. He said in his book on the Dictator- ship of the Proletariat:

" The Socialist party which governs Russia to-day gained power in fighting against other Socialist parties, and exercises its authority while excluding other Socialist parties from the executive.

" The antagonism of the two Socialist movements is not based on small personal jealousies: it is the clashing of two fundamentally distinct methods, that of democracy and that of dictatorship.

" For us, therefore, Socialism without democracy is unthinkable."

Kautsky had no difficulty in showing that, in consequence of this fundamental flaw, the practical results of Soviet rule were deplorable. It was obliged to work by means of an unwieldy bureaucracy:

" The absolute rule of bureaucracy leads to its ossification, to arbitrariness and stultification. The forcible suppression of all opposition is its guiding principle. How can a dictatorship remain at the helm against the will of the majority of the people?

" In circumstances where the majority of the population mistrust the proletarian party, or stand aloof from it, this attitude would be shared by the bulk of the intellectuals. In that case, a victorious party would not only be without great intellectual superiority to the rest of the people, but would even be inferior to its opponents in this regard, although its outlook in general social matters might be a much higher one.

" The method of Paraguay is therefore not practicable in Europe. There remains to be considered the method adopted by Napoleon the First on Brumaire 18 1799, and his nephew, the third Napoleon, on Dec. 2 1852. This consists in governing by the aid of the superi- ority of a centralized organization to the unorganized masses of the people, and the superiority of military power, arising from the fact that the armed force of the Government is opposed to a people who are defenseless or tired of the armed struggle.

" Can a Socialist system of production be built up on this foundation? This means the organization of production by society, and requires economic self-government throughout the whole mass of the people. State organization of production by a bureaucracy, or by the dictatorship of a single section of the people, does not mean Socialism. Socialism presupposes that broad masses of the people have been accustomed to organization, that numerous economic and political organizations exist, and can develop in perfect freedom. The Socialist organization of Labour is not an affair of barracks."

No wonder that Lenin and Trotsky were highly incensed by Kautsky's criticism. They excommunicated him as a traitor to the cause, along with other Socialist leaders. But it was significant that they had to adopt the badge of "Communism" in order to mark their precise position in the field of rival doctrines. They had ceased to be Socialists in the accepted sense of the term.

The course taken by Bolshevist rule in Russia is narrated in the article RUSSIA.


BOMBTHROWERS. When, contrary to all expectation, and therefore to all ideas that had governed war preparations, the World War, instead of reaching its decision in the open field, came to the deadlock of trench warfare, there arose a demand for short-range engines which could throw bombs to a greater distance than was possible by hand, or, alternatively, could throw heavier bombs to the same distance.

Eventually this need was met by the development of trench mortars and trench guns, many types of which were loosely called bombthrowers, but all of which are differentiated from bombthrowers in the sense here meant by the fact that they used an explosive propellant. These are dealt with under TRENCH ORDNANCE. But in the first phases of trench warfare such ordnance either did not exist at all or existed only in such small numbers and in so imperfect a form, that for the needs of day-by-day trench warfare along the front temporary substitutes were evolved. To these substitutes the name " Bombthrower " is so far as army usage is concerned restricted.

They relied for their propulsive effort, like ancient and mediaeval engines, on the energy of springs. In some cases the spring was a system of powerful rubber pieces put in tension when the weapon was cocked and suddenly released by the pulling of a