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This is what sometimes compels us to resort to measures which so greatly impede any friendliness between us and honourable officers, whom we so much wish to interest in the Revolution. From the conditions in which we work there is no escape, so long as treason and conspiracy enfold us all around, and they do, this fact cannot be denied!
Wholesale responsibility for that cannot, of course, be cast on the entire officer class, nor do we do so. The way we have been acting for the last two years bears. witness to the fact that we, In principle, do not.
But circumstances frequently oblige us to resort to mass arrests, and it does happen that innocent men stay in prison unexamined for considerable periods. Yes, when trees are felled, chips will fly; there is no way out of it. Still, all that can be done to minimize the evil is being done.
II. Why the Innocent Sometimes have to Suffer.
You will agree that any sensible representative of the Soviet power would prefer to see an officer fighting against the landlord gentry than sitting idle in prison, a burden to the State. To this most painful question I answer openly. candidly, that this cannot be radically altered at this particular moment, not until a radical mass
