The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 16, 1926, Page 13

| Saviet Power HE second anniversary of Soviet power impels us to tf @ general survey of that which has been Af higved during this time, and to contemplate the sig- licance and purpose of the transformation that has len acomplished. L The bourgeoisie and its partisans accuse us of the jolation of democracy. We assert that the Soviet over- gave an impetus to the development of a democracy { | both a depth and a breadth hitherto unseen in this orld; and at that a democracy precisely for the toil- i Masses oppressed by capitalism—consequently a bmocracy for the overwhelming majority of the people, nsequently a socialist’ democracy ‘(for the toilers) distinction ” from “a “bourgéois ‘democracy (for the bow ters, the: capitalists,” “the rich), ' | ‘Who is right? ” i To. penetrate, thoroughly into this aupetion, to com- ‘rehend it more deeply, means to take Stock of two bar's experience and better to prepare for its further velopment, e position of woman exploien with particular clar- e difference between bourgeois and socialist .de- ‘acy, especially clearly answers the above question. In a bourgeois republic (i. e., where there is private wnership of land, factories, mills, stocks and so forth) ven though it may be the most democratic republic, he position of woman, nowhere in the world, not in a jingle most advanced. country, has become one of full quality. And this notwithstanding the fact that from he time of the great French (bourgeois-democratic) evolution more than a century and a half has elapsed. Bourgeois democracy in words promises equality and iberty. In reality not one, not even the most advanced sourgeois republic, has given to the feminine half of uman kind either full equality with man before the pw, or freedom from guardianship and oppression by an. P Bourgeois democracy is a democracy of pompous phrases, solemn phrases, solemn words, grandiloquent promises, loud slogans of liberty and equality, but in eality this conceals the lack of freedom, the non-equal- ity of woman, the lack of freedom and the non-equality bf the toiling and the exploited, | Soviet or socialist democracy sweeps aside the pom- bous but false words and declares a merciless war on ‘sndarneeriey of tad ai dont Yale capital- is fall breaks | some bottles on the counter. ere too, then? Ah, ah.. Automobiles all siseig th the avenue, parked ong the curbs, or twisted and wrecked by the shock of a Wall or a tree. A cart has stopped n the middle of the street with a huge wooden orse with a big black glass eye. It’s the end of life! A little rubbish on the avement, not much: little disorder, Things ren’t disturbed. It’s: outside the zone of the explosion. . . but it’s the end of life. . The chemical agent has penetrated everywhere, evi ere the moving-picture of the world is #-opped short. What, everywhere? ...Cold sweat, strangled breath. Everywhere... what? Is it possible? | I laugh aloud at the stupidity of the ques- ‘tion, which I asked myself aloud. I leg it at a gallop in one direction, then in another. Who am I, where am I, what am I doing? Go on... make certain, go to the post office, to the railway station. There will be the tele- graph ticker that... I jump into a big car that is waiting, I dash to the post office. I don’t pay any attention any more to the costumed attitudes, scattered r he here and there. But the post | to the entrails, all its machinery and dead the ‘railway station; a pano- _a station made ‘of ‘at an n, with painted wooden dummies, ar- and dréssed—with real hair—by the decorators. I just begin to take in the reality, measure it. And then, ay al a superhuman terror. I’m not made for. that! I passionately refuse to accept this hell—_——._ I want to hide myself. I cloge my.eyes, I put. my hands in front of them, to shut out this happy city which has become a dreadful museum, these people who were laughing and talking—and who are as silent as the stones they are planted on. If I could wake up, as one does at the end of a story, to good tepid every-dayness, and say: “It was a dream!” Between my fingers I see a young man tying his shoelaces, who will never stop doing that through all eternity: d th Positicn of Woman ists or well-fed peasants, who prosper on the specula- tive sale of surplus bread to the hungry workers. Down with this abominable lie! There cannot be, there is not and will not be “equality” of the oppressed with the oppressors, of the exploited with the exploit- ers. There cannot be, there is not and will not be real “liberty” while there is no liberty for woman from the privileges established by law in favor of man, liberty for the worker from the yoke of capital, liberty for the toiling peasant fromthe yoke of the capitalist, the land- owner and the merchant.~ Let the liars and hypocrites, the blockheads and the blind, the bourgeois and their adherents deceive the people by speaking of liberty in general and equality . in general, of democracy in general, We say to the workers and peasants—tear the mask off of these liars, open the eyes of the blind ones. Ask: “Equality of which sex with what sex?” “Which nation with what nations?” “Which class with what class?” “Liberty from what yoke or from what class? Liber- ty for what class?” Whoever speaks of polities, of democracy, of liberty, of equality, of socialism, without raising these ques- tions, without placing them in the forefront, without fighting against the hiding, the concealment and obli- teration of these questions,—is the worst enemy of the toilers, is a wolf in sheep’s skin, is the most male- volent opponent of the workers and peasants, is the servant of the landowners, czars and capitalists, Within two years, in one of the most backward countries of Europe, the Soviet power has done as much for the emancipation of woman, for her equal- ity with the “strong” sex, as well as all the foremost, enlightened “democratic” republics of the world to- gether have done in a hundred and thirty years. Enlightenment, culture, civilization, liberty,—in all the capitalistic, bourgeois republics of the world these pompous words are joined together with incredibly base, repulsively foul, bestially coarse laws of inequal- ity of women under the legal code of marriage and divorce, of inequality for an illegitimate child as com- pared with a “lawful” child, of privileges for men and degradation and insults for women. ., The yoke of capital, the’ pressure of “sacred” priv- ate property, the despotism, of bourgeois, dullness, of I see the superliuman persistance of that ges- ture, even to decomposition, even to dust. And that other man, who was lighting a cigarette, and whom death blew out at the same time as his match, that monumental second will become hundreds and thousands of years. At this moment I feel a thought within my depths—a thought that weighs like lead: I must go to Carla. But Ido not want to. It is she, of all creatures, who terrifies me most. Flight. The road, the road! Or better, the airplane. I didn’t think of that before. I must be crazy. I must run after life and overtake it by force. : No: not that, not at all. I feel myself nailed here. Suddenly that terror that made me jerk like a marionette on a string, changes to an im- mense exaltation. I, I alone, I am everything! Without a pause, I march to the middle of the street like a Potentate, like an unchained Pharaoh. This multitude is Mine. It is con- centrated where Iam. It puffs me up. Here am I entering the conquered city. The super- natural silence is my security, my serenity, my incense. Someone moved there... Someone... Who has dared to move? Dh, it was a flap of tin in the wind. I stand still in my tracks, stupefied by this wave of ferocious despotism—and enormous happiness!—that breaks over me. It seems that as I timidly adapt myself to the enormous casualty; I have only primitive, new, glowing feelings—like a savage, like the first man. I go into a jeweler’s shop. At the rear are human shapes that I glimpse but do not look at. Ireach into the bowls of unset gems and | strew them on the floor. Again in the street. I, I alone. What shall I do? lam gy I go into a bakery, drawn by the odor. I take eakes, I eat them, I go away. These acts have put me ‘solidly and directly in contact with the prodigiousness of the real- ity around me, so that in spite of myself I for- get to some extent: What to do? Well, what- ever I want to. - by LENIN petty-bourgeois avarice,—that is what has prevented even the most democratic republics of the bourgeoisie from making any attempt against these foul and base laws. The Soviet- Republic, the republic of workers and peasants, has swept away these laws all at once, has not left a stone unturned in the structure of bourgeois lies and bourgeois hypocrisy. Down with this lie!, Down with the liars who talk of liberty and equality for all while there is an op- pressed sex, while there are classes of oppressors, while there As private ownership in capital, in stocks, while there are those who are stuffed with surplus while enslaving the hungry. Not liberty fer all, not equality for all, but struggle against the oppressors and exploiters—the demolition of the possibility to oppress and to exploit. This is our slogan: Liberty and equality for the oppressed sex! Liberty and equality for the worker, for the toiling peasant! Struggle against the oppressors, struggle against the capitalists, struggle against the speculator-kulak!’~' This is our fighting slogan, this is our proletarian truth, the truth of struggle against capital, the truth which we have flung into the face of the capitalist world with its sweet-tasting, hypocritical, puffed-up phrases of liberty and equality in general, of liberty and equality for all. And exactly because we tore away the mask of this hypocrisy, because with revolutionary energy we are accomplishing this liberty and equality for the op- pressed and for the toilers against the oppressors, against the capitalists, against the kulaks,—exactly for this reason the Soviet power has become so dear to the workers of all the world, Exactly for this reason, on the day of the second anniversary of Soviet power, in all the countries of the world the sympathy of the working masses, the sympathy of the oppressed and exploited—is on our side. Exactty for this reason, on the day of the second anniversary of the Soviet power, in spite.of hunger and ‘cold, in spite of all our misfortunes inflicted upon us -by the invasion of the Russian Soviet Republic by the, imperialists, we are filled with firm faith in the just- ness of our cause, with firm faith in the inevitable victory of the all-world Soviet power. Everything is mine, riches... and secrets, then! The impressive thing about my gran- deur is ‘that it is not a bundle of dreams and imagination, but real, immediate, positive, de- cipherable. I am actually, in all simplicity, the king of everything. I can go anywhere into the most hidden chambers in the depths of houses, palaces, private and public monuments, a Robinson Crusoe in a city of phenomenal Tiches. * Ican take my eyes and hands into any sanctuary it pleases me to haunt, among the fresh ruins. I am the prey of vast forces that.lead me on, and of a new passion—oh, oh, a sharp new joy seizes me in every fibre: Curiosity. How’ far could that smothering extermina- tion have reached? Perhaps... No, «that’s impossible. During one moment I hemes that perhaps I was king of the whole world: France, Italy, Europe... Carla... I must go immediately to the Grand Hotel where she and her mother are staying. Yes, I must. I am afraid, but I must see her. Courage! I must get that drama over with first.. The four great glass leaves of the revolving door turn on the doorstep. The palace is en- cumbered with peaceful spectres who are |: dered in the corners, in armchairs, at the ele, vator cage. I search each face one after the other., No... I go upstairs. A shape has been waiting for hours on the landing to let me pass. No. 51. That’s the room. I break the panel with a bammer I picked up on the way. I go in. The room is empty: they weren’t here. Our little spirit is so miserable, so petty, that I sigh with relief! On the mahogany lies her opal ring. I shiver before that little essential particle of her, re- | maining there. A flower, thrown aside and fallen to the floor, has not had time to fade. Tears .come to my eyes: that portrait... The landing on the stairs;-the rows of doors. Then Hell begins, ‘ (To be continued newt week in the New Saturday | Magazine Supplement of the Daily Worker —-the issue of Saturday, Janudry 23.) >.