America the Target in a New Russian Revolution

Details of the Collapse of the Great Conspiracy Against the United States

ROY L. McCARDELL

THERE are unmistakable indications that Russia's Soviet Government is again on the point of collapse. It has of course collapsed before, first on Kerensky and then on Admiral Kolchak, and after that, may have been before—such is the confusion of Russian affairs—on General Wrangel.

According to my own observations, here in Petrograd, the present tragic condition of Russia is not due to economic disintegration aggravated by drought and famine, nor to constant internecine warfare, but to the failure of a carefully conceived and well executed plan on the part of Lenin, by which the United States was to have been brought into the fold of Bolshevism through a campaign of sabotage cleverly directed at America's moving-picture industry and periodical press.

When I interviewed Lenin to-day at the headquarters of the Supreme Economic Kommissionitzky, on the Nevsky Prospekt, I found him anxious to explain this recent and abortive revolution.

Mr. Lenin said:

"You may tell the readers of your magazine that our plan was to attack capitalism in America through two channels: (1) the moving-pictures and (2) the popular magazines. We had decided to devote our gold reserve to bringing about the downfall of capitalism and the triumph of Soviet rule in America, by a method known to Sociologists as 'boring from within' on two of your leading industries, rather than to devote that reserve to the purchase of food for our people, since the vindication of our principles and the triumph of our cause always comes before any merely material considerations with us.

The Ruination of the Movies

WE therefore sent several trusted agents to America. The young Kommissar who was given a million dollars with which to go to America and demoralize the film industry of your country did his work well. We have positive proof that the present low condition of your moving-pictures is due to his liberal expenditure of that million dollar fund in buying up Rolls-Royce cars."

"I don't quite follow you," I said.

"By that means," Lenin continued, "both capitalism and the bourgeoisie were dealt a crushing blow. Not being able to secure RollsRoyce cars, in either New York or Hollywood—because our agent had bought them all—your movie stars could not possibly go to and from their work. Hence, no movingpictures have been made in the United States, (except comic films and frozen North serials) as the moving-picture actresses were marooned at home. And, as the people in America must have new movies with pretty actresses in them, they are now on the point of revolt.

"Having reduced your leading industry to this state, our agents began a campaign against another of your leading industries.

"We were aware that the popular periodicals in America represented the highest triumph of your art impulse. It was on this knowledge that we relied. By a scientific study of what the Yankee public wants, your magazine editors have standardized your periodicals down to the last detail, even using the system of interchangeable parts and quantity production. The formula had been reduced to such a beautiful simplicity that even the most backward and deficient editor could understand and follow it. It consisted of the following essential parts: one picture, by Neysa McMein, of a pretty girl on the cover; one story of business success, one of scandal in high society, one of domestic sentiment of the wholesome middle-western type, one of a poor girl representing virtue persecuted but triumphant, and a serial detective story.

Lenin's Diabolic Scheme

WITH these facts in view, I knew exactly where to strike, in order to bring down the whole capitalistic system of America with a single blow. The idea was wholly my own, but Trotsky has claimed credit for it, because he once worked on a Socialistic New York newspaper. But this claim is preposterous, as Trotsky's publication was never known to print a picture of a pretty girl on its cover. My contention is further proved by the fact that I shall soon have Trotsky incarcerated in the fortress of Petropavlovsk because of the failure of our plan.

"This was the idea, in a nutshell: There occurred, just as we were beginning our campaign, a serious strike in the printing plants of the American periodicals. We took advantage of this strike by placing our most trusted agents in positions where they had access to the manuscript files, illustration cabinets, editorial departments and composing rooms. On a given night, we made our great concerted effort, an effort which we thought would bring your entire capitalistic system down in ruins.

"What did our men do? They took the magazine advertisements in all the magazine offices and printed them as stories; and they printed the stories as advertisements. Thus, the strange case of Addison Sims of Seattle was printed with a picture designed to advertise ladies' underwear, posed by a leading society girl—or Follies girl—I forget exactly which. This splendid feature was credited to Wallace Irwin and played up as a love-story entitled The Man Who Remembered. They then took the picture of the Onyx Hosiery girl, or something like it, from the colored advertisements and printed it as a cover, over the caption The Village Hose Company.

"They changed the headings and display type of the advertisements and ran them in the text pages of the periodicals as love stories and business stories and special articles— crediting them to the ten picked authors who write everything except the advertisements in all American publications of popular appeal. These individuals are, as you know, the Irwin Brothers—'Wallace and Will; Albert Payson Terhune, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Irvin S. Cobb, Fanny Hurst, Joseph Hergesheimer, Robert W. Chambers, Rupert Hughes and Dr. Frank Crane.

"Joseph Hergesheimer's name was placed at the head of the Home Dressmaking Institute advertisement; while his own story was printed as a Correspondence School in Millinery; Mrs. Rinehart was allotted the department of Dreams and Social Etiquette. And so, as Little Buttercup used to say, we mixed those babies up.

"Then we waited for the crash. We listened for a peal of sardonic laughter to rise from plutocrat, proletariat, and bourgeoisie alike. We expected that the publication offices would be mobbed, the news-stands raided, and that, thenceforward, the public would read nothing but the Liberator, the Call and the Appeal to Reason.

"We thought that the capitalistic press would be simply swept away by the storm of public derision; and that your populace, being no longer doped by the adolescent sentimentality of the sexless sex stories, or befuddled by the American Magazine's business success articles, would no longer sustain your capitalistic system in any of its larger manifestations.

"But we were wrong."

"This brilliantly conceived and daringly executed coup failed, fizzled, fell flat. I am chagrined to confess that not one out of seventy million magazine readers in America noted anything except an improvement in their favorite publications; and ten million of these, in their pleased enthusiasm, wrote letters to the editors remarking that the new issues were the best and jazziest numbers they had ever seen*

Trotsky's Suggestion

YOU see, we thought the American reading public had a sense of humor, even of sardonic humor. We see now that we should have stopped the periodicals altogether, and let the people see how much brighter the day— and their minds—would become without them. It was of no avail that we published the Saturday Evening Post as the Cosmopolitan, or Munsey^s as Collier's Weekly. The great American reading public was ravished with delight to see Velvet Joe, (pictured as Charles M. Schwab) telling how he succeeded in business; and the old jimmypipe joysmoke stuff as a new story by Fannie Hurst. Circulations doubled, and the editors were swamped with enthusiastic letters of appreciation and praise.

"Ah, I wonder if, after all, Trotsky wasn't right?" added the imperturbable Lenin.

"What do you mean?" your correspondent inquired.

"Well," concluded Lenin, gloomily, "Trotsky warned me that I would be defeated in this 'boring from within' attack on the periodical business, as I outlined it."

"But, why—?"

"Trotsky said that if we really wanted to put a crimp in the circulations of the American magazines, we should simply order our emissaries to print one issue of each magazine with a portrait of Irvin Cobb on the covers instead of the usual pretty girl by Neysa McMein."

"Yes," he sighed regretfully, "I'm afraid that Trotsky was right."