Ten Days That Shook the World Part 20

11.

LENIN's "LETTER TO THE COMRADES"

This series of articles appeared in Rabotchi Put several days running, at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I give here only extracts from two instalments: 1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the people, and that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.

"Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers, pedants, or simply don't want to look the real situation in the face. In the last elections we received in all the country more than fifty per cent of all thevotes....

"The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants' revolution. In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian uprising with wonderful political results.... Even Dielo Naroda has been scared into yelling that the land must be turned over to the peasants, and not only the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council of the Republic, but also the Government itself, has been similarly affected. Another valuable result was the bringing of bread which had been h.o.a.rded by the pomieshtchiki to the railroad stations in that province. The Russkaya Volia had to admit that the stations were filled with bread after the peasants' rising....

"2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and the bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

"Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as regards workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of the bourgeoisie. If yunkers and Cossacks say they will fight, you believe them; if workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is the distinction between such doubts and siding politically with the bourgeoisie?

"Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not strong enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break the Const.i.tuent. But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the Const.i.tuent by sabotage, by lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by opening the front to the Germans. This has already been done in the case of Riga....

"3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government to force the calling of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and to suppress any further Kornilov attempts.

"Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of 'All Power to the Soviets.' Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes in the faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have 'promised' to call the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the calling of the Const.i.tuent is guaranteed, and its success a.s.sured.

"Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the 'Lieber-Dans.' Either we must drop 'All Power to the Soviets' or make an insurrection; there is no middle course."

"4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our heroic soldiers and sailors.

"Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of Kornilovtsi. If the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give up Petrograd, it can do it doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements with the Germans or the British; open the fronts. It can sabotage the Army's food supply. At all these doors has it knocked.

"We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the Revolution. Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and truthfully served the bourgeoisie for years.... Half the Lieber-Dans are cowardly compromisers; half of them simple fatalists...."

"5. We're getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play everything on one card?"

"Answer: This is the argument of a soph.o.m.ore with no practical experience, who reads that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly is being called and trustfully accepts the legal and const.i.tutional way. Even the voting of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly will not do away with hunger, or beat Wilhelm.... The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd cannot be decided by waiting for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. Hunger is not waiting. The peasants' Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals who ran away did not wait.

"Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals and generals, do not take an interest in voting.

"6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our strength. But why should we risk everything by making an attempt ourselves?

"Answer: History doesn't repeat. 'Perhaps Kornilov will some day make an attempt!' What a serious base for proletarian action! But suppose Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what then? This att.i.tude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary party on one of the bourgeoisie's former mistakes.

"Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat-either that or the dictators.h.i.+p of Kornilov.

"Let us wait, comrades, for-a miracle!"

12.

MILIUKOV's SPEECH (Resume).

"Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our princ.i.p.al task, and that, to a.s.sure it, we must have discipline in the Army and order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a power capable of daring, not only by persuasion, but also by force.... The germ of all our evils comes from the point of view, original, truly Russian, concerning foreign policy, which pa.s.ses for the Internationalist point of view.

"The n.o.ble Lenin only imitates the n.o.ble Keroyevsky when he holds that from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the aged West, and which will replace the old banner of doctrinary Socialism by the new direct action of starving ma.s.ses-and that will push humanity forward and force it to break in the doors of the social paradise...."

These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would bring about the decomposition of the whole capitalist regime. Starting from that point of view, they were able to commit the unconscious treason, in wartime, of calmly telling the soldiers to abandon the trenches, and instead of fighting the external enemy, creating internal civil war and attacking the proprietors and capitalists....

Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left, demanding what Socialist had ever advised such action....

"Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat can condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and break down the dictators.h.i.+p of these cliques.... Not by an accord between Governments for a limitation of armaments, but by the disarming of these Governments and the radical democratisation of the military system...."

He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government as Ministers with the avowed purpose of carrying on the cla.s.s struggle!

"The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated these gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it was for Russia, and sent us some apostles of the Universal Conflagration....

"The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no art of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the Allies, 'We want nothing, we haven't anything to fight with!' And then our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the brotherhood of peoples will be accomplished!"

Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that even Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of "that unhappy doc.u.ment which will forever be your indictment." He then attacked Skobeliev, whose position in foreign a.s.semblies, where he would appear as a Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy of his Government, would be so strange that people would say, "What's that gentleman carrying, and what shall we talk to him about?" As for the nakaz, Miliukov said that he himself was a pacifist; that he believed in the creation of an International Arbitration Board, and the necessity for a limitation of armaments, and parliamentary control over secret diplomacy, which did not mean the abolition of secret diplomacy.

As for the Socialist ideas in the nakaz, which he called "Stockholm ideas"-peace without victory, the right of self-determination of peoples, and renunciation of the economic war- "The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish to say, 'to the successes of the Revolution,' because I believe that the defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the Revolution....

"The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One had only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be convinced that, in this hall, the influence of the revolutionary democracy on foreign policy is so strong, that the Minister does not dare to speak face to face with it about the honour and dignity of Russia!

"We can see, in the nakaz of the Soviets, that the ideas of the Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction-that of Utopianism, and that of German interests....

Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded by popular a.s.semblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to undertake peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced annexations, were pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal declaration bound only him who made it.... "Anyway, we will imitate the Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies...."

The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia were symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia, supported, said Miliukov, by German money.... Amid bedlam from the Left, he contrasted the clauses of the nakaz concerning Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the nationalities in Germany and Austria. The nakaz embraced the German and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.

Pa.s.sing to Terestchenko's speech, he contemptuously accused him of being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to think in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must belong to Russia....

"You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is fighting, and that when he does know, he'll fight.... It is true that the soldier doesn't know why he is fighting, but now you have told him that there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no national interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends...."

Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the a.s.sistance of America, "will yet save the cause of humanity," he ended: "Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the West, who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only begin to enter, with ill-a.s.sured and hesitating steps! Long live our brave Allies!"

13.

INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY.

The a.s.sociated Press man tried his hand. "Mr. Kerensky," he began, "in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution--"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. "Abroad the Revolution is no longer fas.h.i.+onable!"

"What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?"

"That is a foolish question to ask." Kerensky was annoyed. "Russia entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she bore the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater than those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the right to demand of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms to bear." He stopped for a moment and stared at his interlocutor. "You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the Russians are asking where is the British fleet-with German battle-s.h.i.+ps in the Gulf of Riga?" Again he ceased suddenly, and as suddenly burst out. "The Russian Revolution hasn't failed and the revolutionary Army hasn't failed. It is not the Revolution which caused disorganisation in the army-that disorganisation was accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren't the Russians fighting? I will tell you. Because the ma.s.ses of the people are economically exhausted,-and because they are disillusioned with the Allies!"

The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United States, and in a few days sent back by the American State Department, with a demand that it be "altered." This Kerensky refused to do; but it was done by his secretary, Dr. David Soskice-and, thus purged of all offensive references to the Allies, was given to the press of the world....

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.

1.

RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES.

Workers' Control.

1. (See Ppage 43) 2. The organisation of Workers' Control is a manifestation of the same healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are party organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in employment, Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary clubs in the sphere of culture.

3. The working-cla.s.s has much more interest in the proper and uninterrupted operation of factories... than the capitalist cla.s.s. Workers' Control is a better security in this respect for the interests of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary will of the owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for material profits or political privileges. Therefore Workers' Control is demanded by the proletariat not only in their own interest, but in the interest of the whole country, and should be supported by the revolutionary peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.

4. Considering the hostile att.i.tude of the majority of the capitalist cla.s.s toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper distribution of raw materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient management of factories, is impossible without Workers' Control.

5. Only Workers' Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the workers' conscious att.i.tude toward work, and making clear its social meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a firm self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour's possible productivity.

6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace basis, and the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well as among the different factories, can be accomplished without great disturbances only by means of the democratic self-government of the workers themselves.... Therefore the realisation of Workers' Control is an indispensable preliminary to the demobilisation of industry.

7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers' Control on a national scale, in order to bring results, must extend to all capitalist concerns, and not be organised accidentally, without system; it must be well-planned, and not separated from the industrial life of the country as a whole.

8. The economic life of the country-agriculture, industry, commerce and transport-must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so as to satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide ma.s.ses of the people; it must be approved by their elected representatives, and carried out under the direction of these representatives by means of national and local organisations.

9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried out under supervision of the peasants' and land-workers' organisations; that relating to industry, trade and transport operated by wage-earners, by means of Workers' Control; the natural organs of Workers' Control inside the industrial plant will be the Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the Trade Unions.

10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for the majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on all the owners of plants employing this kind of labour in the given district.

11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and management of the Trade Unions, as cla.s.s organisations acting within the limits of the whole industrial plan, and in accordance with it.

12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to begin legal action against all employers who violate labour contracts or labour legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in any branch of labour.

13. On all questions relating to Workers' Control over production, distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the workers of individual establishments through their Factory-Shop Committees.

14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales, refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee, which has the right to exclude from partic.i.p.ation in the discussion any members of the factory administration.

15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the supplying of the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour power and technical staff (including equipment), and all other supplies and arrangements, and also to a.s.sure the factory's adherence to the general industrial plan. The factory administration is obliged to surrender to the organs of Workers' Control, for their aid and information, all data concerning the business; to make it possible to verify this data, and to produce the books of the company upon demand of the Factory-Shop Committee.

16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by the Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts, which cannot be investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall be referred to the district central organisation of Factory-Shop Committees charged with the particular branch of labour involved, which shall discuss the matter with the inst.i.tutions charged with the execution of the general industrial plan, and find means to deal with the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the factory.

17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an effective plan of distribution among the different factories of orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by trades.

18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop Committees represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial and local inst.i.tutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general industrial plan, and to organise economic relations between the towns and the villages (workers and peasants). They also possess final authority for the management of Factory-Shop Committees and Trade Unions, so far as Workers' Control in their district is concerned, and they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning workers' discipline in the routine of production-which regulations, however, must be approved by vote of the workers themselves.

2.

THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI.

Russkaya Volia, October 28. "The decisive moment approaches.... It is decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us... a second edition of the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that with their plans and intentions, with their impertinent policy of wis.h.i.+ng to separate themselves from everything consciously national, they have been definitely defeated....

"What are the chances of Bolshevik success?

"It is difficult to answer that question, for their princ.i.p.al support is the... ignorance of the popular ma.s.ses. They speculate on it, they work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop....

"The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a clearly-defined att.i.tude toward the Bolsheviki....

"And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal power, and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated as mutineers and traitors...."

Birzhevya Viedomosti, October 28. "Now that the Bolsheviki have separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle against them is very much simpler-and it is not reasonable, in order to fight against Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation. The Government should not even allow the manifestation....

"The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their authors would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are carrying on is not a political struggle against the Government, or even for the power; it is propaganda for anarchy, ma.s.sacres, and civil war. This propaganda must be extirpated at its roots; it would be strange to wait, in order to begin action against an agitation for pogroms, until the pogroms actually occurred...."

Novoye Vremya, November 1. "h.e.l.lip; Why is the Government excited only about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets), and not about September 12th, or October 3d?

"This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our Allies smart....

"Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one attempted to put out the Russian conflagration?

"There were other things to do....

"The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every one is now asking, 'Did it ever exist?"

3.

MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI.

Dielo Naroda, October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). "The most frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they impute exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary Government all the calamities which the ma.s.ses are so cruelly suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from objective causes.

"They make golden promises to the ma.s.ses, knowing in advance that they can fulfil none of them; they lead the ma.s.ses on a false trail, deceiving them as to the source of all their troubles....

"The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution...."

Dien, October 30 (Menshevik). "Is this really 'the freedom of the press'? Every day Novaya Rus and Rabotchi Put openly incite to insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns actual crimes. Every day they urge pogroms.... Is that 'the freedom of the press'?...

"The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the right to insist that the Government machinery does not remain pa.s.sive while the threat of b.l.o.o.d.y riots endangers the lives of its citizens...."

4.

"YEDINSTVO"

Plekhanov's paper, Yedinstvo, suspended publication a few weeks after the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report, Yedinstvo was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an announcement in the last number admitted that it was unable to continue because there were too few subscribers....

5.

WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?

The French newspaper Entente of Petrograd, on November 15th, published an article of which the following is a part: "The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government of Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.

"This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong. Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators-no!

"No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously, without mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they multiplied their agitation, intensified their propaganda in the factories, the barracks, at the Front, in the country, everywhere, even fixing in advance the date of their taking up arms, the date of their seizure of the power....

"They-conspirators? Never...."

6.

APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION From the Central Army Committee.