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CURRENT TERMS DEFINED 105
to the local soviet. So with the soldiers and so with the peasants in
section surrounding the city.
But the shop owners, the merchants, the bankers, the lawyers, the
land owners have no vote and no representatives. They have been
disfranchised. Burton Knisely in the Baltimore "Sun," 191S.
A soviet is the executive committee of a labor union. The Bolsheviki
are the people who are running the Russian Soviets. The former
is a kind of political machinery derived from industrial organizations.
The latter is the particular party now in control of the machinery in
Russia. It is the same difference as exists in our country between governmental
institutions and political parties...
The soviet is designed to sweep aside as unnecessary all such
things as kings, presidents, parliaments, legislatures, courts, cabinets,
capitalists, landlords, employees, armies, nations, classes, and boundary
lines. We may call this as absurd, as impossible, or as wicked as
we please, but since it is just now the only government of a hundred
million Russians and fifty million Germans we are obliged to try to
understand it. "Independent," 1918.
Sinn Fein
Seventeen years ago a clever young journalist named Arthur
Griffith began to edit a small weekly paper in Dublin. His writings
became popular with a certain section of the people as the result of his
caustic treatment of economic problems in Ireland; but he developed
into a person of local importance after the issue of his book entitled
The Resurrection of Hungary. In this book Griffith pointed out that
Hungary had lifted herself out of poverty into wealth, and had secured
virtual independence by a policy of self-reliance. He showed that by
withdrawing her members from the Parliament at Vienna, boycotting
Austrian goods, fostering Hungarian industries, and generally acting
when necessary on the principles of passive resistance, Hungary had,
after an unsuccessful republican insurrection, freed herself from Austrian
control. Griffith declared that what Hungary had done Ireland
could do; and his arguments drew to him a great many thoughtful, and
quite a number of wealthy, people. It was eventually decided by the
persons associated with Arthur Griffith that a political party should be
formed to carry out in Ireland the "Hungarian Policy." But as a
foreign name was undesirable, the new party took for its designation
the words Sinn Fein, which are pronounced Shin Fane, and mean "selfreliance."
The first president of Sinn Fein was Mr. Edward Martyn, of Tulyra
Castle, Co. Galway...The largest hall in Dublin was engaged for
a day in November 1905, and under the chairmanship of Edward
Martyn, Arthur Griffith expounded the "Sinn Fein Policy"...
In spite of opposition the new movement seemed to be gaining
ground until a by-election was fought on the issue, and the Sinn Fein
candidate defeated. After that Sinn Fein died, and had practically been