In England, at the beginning of May 1926, just before the General Strike, the workers on the Daily Mail refused to print certain articles with which they disagreed. In an official statement from Downing Street this was described as a "gross interference with the freedom of the Press." The men that produced the paper had claimed a say in what they printed! The Soviet Government, early in 1918, went far further than the workers on the Daily Mail. It confiscated all the privately owned printing presses and transferred them in their entirely to the organizations of the workers, peasants, and soldiers. From the point of view of the private owners of newspapers, the young Soviet Government was guilty of the most outrageous interference with the freedom of the Press.

We are not fighting for ourselves - we are fighting for the children, for the happiness of generations... Let them grow up brave and strong in spirit and body, let them never trade their conscience; let them be happier than us and wait for the triumph of freedom, brotherhood and love..

Some surprise may be felt that the priests and monks were deprived of the right to vote and to stand for election. It must be remembered, however, that the Church in Tsarist Russia was the largest single land-owner, and when the landed estates were confiscated the priests and monks, together with the other land-lords, almost without exception, joined forces with the armed counter- revolution. Religious freedom was guaranteed from the first days of the Revolution, and "freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda" was assured to every citizen by the Constitution. At the same time, however, the Church was disestablished, and deprived of its income from land and industry, and the schools were completely taken over by the State. In this way religion became a private, as opposed to a State, concern; religious groups had now to pay their own priests without any form of State subsidy or unearned income from property.