The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 16, 1927, Page 6

Ten. Years Ago (Continued from April 2, DOWN WITH THE TSARIST MONARCHY!—DE- MAND A PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT OF THE WORKERS AND THE VILLAGE POOR! Manifesto of the Petrograd Committee of the Bol- sheviki in the Second Half of February, 1917, Russian Soc. Dem, Labor Party. Proletarians of all countries, unite! Comrades! The noose, which the ruling classes have thrown round the neck of the European peoples is constantly being drawn tighter. Millions of human lives have been destroyed. The flower of the youth of the people has perished or has returned crippled. il- lions of stalwart young men are languishing in prison. Work has stopped, starvation is striding through the country. ‘The two years’ slaughter for the benefit of the strong ones of the world has cost the lives of 15 millions in all the countries at war. What a monstrous crime! . What a disgrace for those who started this decimation of the best forces of the peoples! The great and difficult task of putting an end to this crime, rests on us, the proletarian vanguard of enslaved democracy; which is shedding its blood for an alien cause. Has, during these two and a half years, a single, feeble voice of reason been raised from among the ruling classes, in whose hands is the fate of the peoples they are oppressing? . Two years. have passéd sinee the National Duma condemned the rep- resentatives of the Russian working class. The Na- tional Duma, which, at its sessions, pratiles about the flourishing industry of Russia, is devastating the country and handing it over to those hungry wolves, the landowners, the capitalist employers and the bankers. When our deputies were torn from the midst of the National Duma and, after a quick settling of accounts, banished to the cold:and dis- tant regions of Siberia, the landowners and capi- talists in the Duma rubbed their hands with joy that they could not speak “more freely.” For two years the Duma has kept silence while its rights have been trodden underfoot. It will maintain this silence even on the second anniversary’ of the ban- ishment of our deputies. At the same time, it and its agents asseverate loudly and vociferously that the subservient speeches of the “fellow” members have found a sympathetic response among the work- ing class which they have beheaded. There are even some*groups of workers with chauvinist tendencies who, dazzled by the storm of war, carry the ideology of the Duma Liberals into the circles of the workers. Now, when it is planned to summon the National Duma on February 14th (27th), the most imposing rumors are being circulated as to its intentions, It is not difficult to guess that the National Duma has no intention of doing anything new, but that the Liberals in the Duma are once more prepared to clench their fist behind the back of the workers who have raised their heads. In the factories the ery has gone forth to support the National Duma, nay, even urging towards a decisive step—by presenting the demands of the workers at the gates of the Tauric palace. This appeal is.not only useless, it is treacherous. Those who are so credulous as to have hopes of obtaining anything from the inhabi- tants of the palaces of the Czar and of the ruling classes, will pay dearly for the procession of the people to present their petition at those palaces. When they are suffering from a lack of gunpowder, the Liberals and the Liberal Labor politicians love to present themselves to the people as decided, cham- pions of the people’s dause. Thefr true intentions however, they conceal. Comrades! they are demand- ing your help, they are demanding that you make it possible for them to hand over the country still more completely to the slaughter of war and to the war being carried on eternally “to a victorious end.” They do not say it openly, but that is the dream they cherish in secret. When the Liberals shout about their discontent with the present government and in secret are di- viding up between them the future ministerial posts, when energetic phrases about doing away with the present power escape them or when, they speak of a “Provisional Government” to be based on the organized people, but with all these sounding words make no mention of the war, we know what their fine language means. We are firmly convinced that this severe trial 8f the people and this mockery of the people will only cease under the mighty blows of democracy. We must explain to the Liberals that all our efforts are directed against the war which they have kindled, that we are offering them war without quarter. We are opposed to the Tsarist monarchy, which you love so dearly because it shields your greed and your dark deeds. We are opposed to the Tsarist monarchy against which you want to fight, but the defeat of which fills you with dread, as the Tsarist government alone makes it . possible for you to treat the people as your play- thing. We are in favor of a democratic republic which places the power in the hands of the people itself. We are in favor of a provisional, revolu- tionary government of the workers and the village poor. Such a government would be able to summon a Johit ye The Dollar reg OSC and Pound Join Hands a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of a gen- eral, equal, direct and secret franchise. We are op- posed to th® chauvinist, cPiminal greed of the Na- tional capitalists, who are dividing up the world, who are inflicting deep wounds on the world. We are in favor of international solidarity amongst the workers, which will bring peace and happiness to mankind. On the tenth of February (February 23rd, new style—Ed.), the day when Tsarist justice raised its hand against our deputies, who devoted their strength to fight for our slogans, we send them our fraternal greetings. We demand their immediate return and we shall celebrate this day by a one-day strike as a sign of our readiness to sacrifice our lives in the fight for the slogans which our deputies proclaimed openly. Down with the Tsarist monarchy! War against war! Long live the Provisional Revolutionary Govern- ment! Long live the Constitutional National Assembly! Long live the Democratic Republic! Long live international socialism! The Petregrad Committee of the R. S. D. L. P. * * * “THE TIME FOR AN OPEN FIGHT HAS COME! OUT INTO THE STREETS!” Proclamation of the Bolsheviki on March 10th (February 25th) 1917, Praletarians of all countries, unite! ! Life has become impossible! No food! No fuel! No clothing! At the front—blood, mutilation, death. Levy after levy of troops, and transport after transport. Our sons and brothers arg led to the human slaughter- house like herds of cattle. It is no lomger possible to keep silent! They allow our brothers and sons to be led to the slaughter while we ourselves perish of hunger and cold, and still to remain silent—that would be unthinkable, criminal, despicable cowardice. It is in vain that you try to save yourselves. If not prison then shrapnel; if not shrapnel—then dis- ease or death from starvation! It would be unworthy of us to hide our head in the sand and not to look forward. The country is devastated. There is no bread. Famine is approach- ing. Still worse things are to come. We are faced by epidemics, we are faced by cholera. . . When we demand bread, we are answered lead! Who is responsible? The Tsarist power and the bourgeoisie are re- sponsible. They are robbing the people at the front as they are robbing the people at home. The landed proprietors and the capitalists are enriching them- selves through the war; by now they can hardly count their profits. They are dragging the war on eternally. For the sake of war profits and of the conquest of Constantinople, Armenia and Po- land, they are driving the people to the slaughter, There are no limits to their brutal greed. They will never renounce their profits and put with . an end to the war out of good will. It is high time to bridle the reactionary bourgeois beast, The Liberals and the reactio the ministers and the National Duma, the aristocracy and the agricultural administration—all have united during the war into a blood-thirsty horde. The Tsarist court, the bankers and the priests are scooping in gold. An idle band of robbers is gnaw- ing the bones of the people, is drinking the blood of the people. And we are suffering. We are perish- ing! We are starving. We are working ourselves to death. We are dying in the trenches. We cannot keep silent! Up then and-fight! Out into the street! yourselves, your children and your brothers! In Germany, in Austria, in Bulgaria, the work- ing class is raising its head. In those eountriés, it is fighting against its bloodthirsty bourgeoisie for peace and freedom. Let-us help it and. ourselves! Let us help by fighting against our own oppressors! Rise! Organize yourselves for the fight! Form eommittees of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the workshops, in the factories, in the provinces, in the towns, in the districts, in the bar- racks, in the whole of Russia. They will be fight- ing committees, committees of freedom. Explain to the peasants, to the petty bourgeois, to the sol- diers, that their salvation is only possible through the victory of the Social Democrats. The time for open fight has come. Strikes, meet- ings, demonstrations, do not weaken the orgahiza- tion, but strengthen it. Make use of every oppor- tunity, of every day which offers itself! Always and everywhere ‘vith the masses and with your own re- volutionary slogans! Let the accomplices of capital call our mode of action “a game of change with strikes” and describe it as putchism. Our salvation is to be found in an immediate and continued fight and not in postpon- ing the fight indefinitely. Call all to join in the fight! It is better to die in the glorious fight for the cause of the workers than to lay down one’s life for the profit of capital or to perish from hunger and overwork. Individual actions may grow into a revolution throughout Russta, which again will give an impulse to revolution in other countries, We have a hard fight before us, but a real vic- tory awaits us. Rise as one man under the. Red banner of revolution! Down with the Tsarist monarchy! Long live the Democratic Republic! Hurrah for the eight hours’ day! The whole lard of the landowners to the people! Down’ with the war! Long live the fraternal alliance of the workers of the whole world! Long live the Socialist International! THE FLOOD For ti : The flood-gates of Revolt open wide Swift waters rushing onward wave on wave Engulfing all the earth, nothing can save A sinking earth from the ever swelling tide. The pent-up tears of centuries, the flood Of martyred multitudes, let loose, will drown Each dungeon, throne, and altar, scepter, crown Beneath the swelling currents of the flood. All round and round the tall black shadows loom And mingle with the waters skyward rearing And as we watch the roof-tops disappearing We hear the tolling of the knell of doom.