Source: Das Nordlicht, 27 October 1921 · 📰
From: Balmas, Bessarabia
28 September 1921
Dear Nordlicht:
It is a real horror to hear about the starvation and misery in Soviet Russia. The Russians were trying to show the world what kind of notions and nonsense they had in their heads. Now so many innocents must suffer. The socialist rules and regulations have not brought forth anything decent in half a century and will never work as long as the world may last.
The Bolsheviks are defining ways and means to rob decent folk of their hard earned property just like the Socialists or Social Democrats before them. Today, the Russians proclaim themselves Social Democrats of the people, and they are trying to restructure and reshape society into their mold.
Back in 1840, I believe, a tailor named Weitling and in 1850, an Israelite named Marx began to spread socialist ideas in Germany. Ferdinand LaSalle, another Jew from Breslau, took up this ideology in 1862 and created quite a following. Germany did not tolerate such absurdity and passed laws to combat such nonsense. They fled Germany just to cling to their ideas elsewhere. They spread these beliefs among family and friends very carefully and secretively, complete with an underground network producing socialist literature.
In 1880, the leading socialists had a summit meeting in Switzerland at the Castle Wynden in the Zurich District. This is where they laid the ground plan for turning the existing world upside down. Many other meetings have followed this initial one. Socialism is spreading stealthily and assuming a revolutionary character, which the Russians will have to battle with for a long time to come.
Just think back on the dynamite attacks, the murders and bloodshed, the desecration of churches etc. Such socialists who plunder, destroy and kill for their goal are anarchists and nihilists. The socialist ideas are widely spread in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and finally Russia where a lasting monument will remain to its ruin and devastation for our children and grandchildren to choke on.
Bolsheviks want the state to control all private wealth and distribute the wealth and work evenly among the socialist populace. They want to abolish religion, order and family life, as we know it. The socialist slogan is, “Ownership is theft, and therefore there will be no personal property in the new Russian state. All will share in the collective property of the state. All have to work and will receive a work card which when filled out will entitle him to purchase what he needs to survive.” Authorities like God and boss are to be abolished. They do not exist. People who follow such beliefs can be called Atheists or Republicans. Some hide their atheism behind the phrase, “religion is a private matter.”
A man and a woman may live together as long as they feel like it, but may leave the union and live with another partner as the mood strikes them. Children are not members of the family, but property of the state. They are entrusted into the mother’s care until they are able to walk. Then they are sent to state educational organizations and live in state homes. The state decides what the children learn. They are taught things a grown man would be ashamed to talk about. There are no family kitchens, just a community kitchen. Reports from Kutschurgan and Cherson regions say that Selz has one.
There are no jails because all crime is caused by private property. Under the new system, all people are equal to angels (angels without religion!!) and there will be no more crime. godless people without religion, who are only interested in personal gratification, adhere to these principles, as well as the dirt poor that have nothing more to lose, just gain from public wealth for all. Decent Christian folk would rather be shot than live these lies. Although, there are a few people who are innocents caught in the middle of this upheaval and have to do the best they can to survive.
The reasons for the ability of such principles to spread lie in the increasing poverty of the working class, and the great stinginess and great appetites of the rich than the dwindling of religion among the people. The rich I am talking about are not the well-to-do farmers who work and sweat for their incomes, but the factory owners and the great capitalists who do not treat their workers in accordance with the biblical laws. In order to turn large profits, they pay meager wages for the hard workers, demand long hours and weekend work without extra pay. They could care less about the health of their workers, and destroy their morale, morals and religion. Many a poor soul was sucked into their socialist clutches. These big owners are themselves lazy and dependent. Where religion is outlawed, the devil rules and tries his level best to spread misery and lawlessness. This is the evil loose in the world today. The only way to fight back is to stand fast and work on bettering the situation of the working class. The rich have to show mercy to the poor, further religion and religious beliefs, and set more Christian examples rather than tearing them down. I urge all Christians to stand fast by their faith and observe the Ten Commandments, then the Lord will protect the righteous. There is no shame in being poor, but there is shame in poverty of virtue and goodwill.
Let me close this subject now and if people are still willing to read my column, I am willing to write it. Order the Nordlicht for friends and family as the farmers here really respect its views. Greetings to the readers here and there.
Romuald Dirk
Letter: Balmas, Bessarabia
30 September 1921
Dear Nordlicht:
I am glad to find my paper arriving on time these past weeks; now, I just wish it would be published twice a week. There is so much going on in this world.
There is the Staats-Anzeiger too, but their constant heckling and quarreling, their gossip and such are not of the same standard as the Nordlicht perspectives.
Dear brother Christian Merk [Merck} in Karslruhe, North Dakota, the family and I are all well and hope to hear from you by letter or Nordlicht message after threshing season. Let me know about your harvest there. Things are bleak here. Many are already suffering and the misery increases daily. Greetings to you and your family.
Your brother,
Johannes Merk [Merck]
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Letter: Balmas, Bessarabia
1 October 1921
Dear Nordlicht:
Please publish my few lines in your paper so that my old friend, Michael Lesmeister, in Harvey knows that I am still among the living. I would have written to the Staats-Anzeiger too if that dear friend had bought me a subscription to it. But, right now there is a bet going on in Balmas that the Nordlicht is a better paper, so I would like to be a future reader. The subscription I received from Mr. Lesmeister is running out on October 20. Being the good friend that he is, I am sure he can renew it for me, an old friend.
Many folks here would also like to let their friends know that a subscription to the Nordlicht would mean lots and lots of joy to them and be treasured by all. The infighting and name calling you find in many papers these days are pleasantly absent in the Nordlicht. People get sick and tired of such bickering. There is a ripe market for the Nordlicht over here.
Greetings to my father Lukas, mother Pauline and all my sisters and brothers.
Balthasar Bachmann