Kootenay Committee on Intergroup Relations, Volume LXXXIV

SESSION RESUMED

MR. BOURNE: Perhaps we could concentrate for the next little while on the first two theories that we grouped. The first one that the Government was responsible for Peter the Lordly's death. And the second that the death was caused by Bolshevik conspiracy aided by certain Doukhobors in Canada. It's obvious and particularly obvious because of the statement which was tabled this morning that a large number of Doukhobors have always believed that the Government was responsible for Peter the Lordly's death. I guess you could say there were a number of reasons for this. One, that the police were not able very quickly to arrest and charge the person responsible. You could argue that they obviously weren't able to do that because they were in the conspiracy, being part of the Government, or you could argue that they weren't able to do this because it was not possible to obtain the information from the Doukhobor Community, particularly from those who did know something about it. It doesn't surprise me if that is true and you've heard in the CPR report read yesterday that the standard response from Doukhobors who were interviewed by the police was, "I just can't say, I just can't say." It does not surprise me that the Doukhobor community would be very reluctant to say anything about something as horrendous as the death of their leader.

The other theory that in fact it was the Bolsheviks that did this. We did read a reference in which Peter Chistiakov said that it was very much to the advantage of the Bolsheviks, and those Canadian Doukhobors who were working with them, to make sure that the people believed that the government was responsible. This, in modern day language, is known as disinformation, the spreading of false information about serious events. [...] So, you could argue perhaps as you subscribed to the Bolshevik theory that their disinformation program was very successful in that they were able to persuade the Doukhobor people that it was the Government and therefore removed the blame from themselves.

I'm not dismissing the other three theories that the non-Doukhobor, non-Government, the accidental one and the fifth that I've -- it's escaped me for a minute. But let's just try and concentrate on those two for the time being in order to keep this discussion in perspective. [...]