We, the undersigned, belong to the different shades of Russian Socialistic thought. We differ on many things, but we firmly agree in that the defeat of Russia in her struggle with Germany would mean her defeat in her struggle for freedom, and we think that, guided by this conviction, our adherents in Russia must come together for a common service to their people, in the hour of the grave danger the country is now facing.We address ourselves to the politically conscious working-men, peasants, artisans, clerks—to all of those who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, and who, suffering from the lack of means and want of political rights, are struggling for a better future for themselves, for their children, and for their brethren.We send them our hearty greeting, and persistently say to them: Listen to us in this fatal time, when the enemy has conquered the Western strongholds of Russia, has occupied an important part of our territory and is menacing Kiev, Petrograd, and Moscow, these most important centers of our social life.Misinformed people may tell you that in defending yourselves from German invasion you support our old political régime. These people want to see Russia defeated because of their hatred of the Czar's government. Like one of the heroes of our genius of satire, Shchedrin, they mix fatherland with its temporary bosses. But Russia belongs not to the Czar, but to the Russian working-people. In defending Russia, the working-people defend themselves, defend the road to their freedom. As we said before, the inevitable consequences of German victory would be the strengthening of our old régime.The Russian reactionaries understand this very thoroughly.In a faint, half-hearted manner they are defending Russia from Germany. The Ministers who resigned recently, Maklakov and Shcheglovitov, presented a secret report to the Czar, in November, 1914, in which they explained how advantageous it would be for the Czar to make a separate peace with Germany.They understand that the defeat of Germany would be a defeat of the principles of monarchism, so dear to all our European reactionaries.Our people will never forgetthe failure of the Czar's government to defend Russia. But if the progressive, the politically conscious people will not take part in the struggle against Germany, the Czar's government will have an excuse for saying: "It is not our fault that Germany defeats us; it is the fault of the revolutionists who have betrayed their country," and this will vindicate the government in the eyes of the people.The political situation in Russia is such that only across the bridge of national defense can we reach freedom. Remember,we do not tell you, first victory against the external enemy and then revolution against the internal, the Czar's government.In the course of events the defeat of the Czar's government may serve as a necessary preliminary condition for, and even as a guaranty of, the elimination of the German danger. The French revolutionists of the end of the eighteenth century would never have been able to have overcome the enemy, attacking France on all sides, had they not adopted such tactics only when the popular movement against the old régime became mature enough to render their efforts effective.Furthermore, you must not be embarrassed by the arguments of those who believe that every one who defends his country refuses thereby to take part in the struggle of the classes. These persons do not know what they are talking about. In the first place, in order that the struggle of the classes in Russia should be successful, certain social and political conditions must exist there.These conditions will not exist if Germany wins.In the second place, if the working-man of Russia cannot but defend himself against the exploitation of the Russian landed aristocrat and capitalist it seems incomprehensible that he should remain inactive when the lasso of exploitation is being drawn around his neck by the German landed aristocracy (theJunker) and the German capitalist who are, unfortunately, at the presenttimesupported by a considerable part of the German proletariat that has turned traitor to its duty of solidarity with the proletariat of other countries.By striving to the utmost to cut this lasso of German imperialistic exploitation, the proletariat of Russia will continue the struggle of the classes in that form which at the present moment is most appropriate, fruitful, and effective.It has been our country's fate once before to suffer from the bloody horrors of a hostile invasion. But never before did it have to defend itself against an enemy so well armed, so skilfully organized, so carefully prepared for his plundering enterprise as he is now.The position of the country is dangerous to the highest degree; therefore upon all of you, upon all the politically conscious children of the working-people of Russia, lies an enormous responsibility.If you say to yourselves that it is immaterial to you and to your less developed brothers as to who wins in this great international collision going on now, and if you act accordingly, Russia will be crushed by Germany. And when Russia will be crushed by Germany, it will fare badly with the Allies. This does not need any demonstration.But if, on the contrary, you become convinced that the defeat of Russia will reflect badly upon the interests of the working population, and if you will help the self-defense of our country with all your forces, our country and her allies will escape the terrible danger menacing them.Therefore, go deeply into the situation. You make a great mistake if you imagine that it is not to the interests of the working-people to defend our country. In reality, nobody's interests suffer more terribly from the invasion of an enemy than the interests of the working-population.Take, for instance, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. When the Germans besieged Paris and the cost of all the necessaries of life rose enormously, it was clear that the poor suffered much more than the rich. In the same way, when Germany exacted five billions of contribution from vanquished France, this same, in the final count, was paid by the poor; for paying that contribution indirect taxation was greatly raised, the burden of which nearly entirely falls on the lower classes.More than that. The most dangerous consequence to France,due to her defeat in 1870-71, was the retardation of her economic development. In other words, the defeat of France badly reflected upon the contemporary interests of her people, and, even more, upon her entire subsequent development.The defeat of Russia by Germany will much more injure our people than the defeat of France injured the French people. The war now exacts incredibly large expenditures. It is more difficult for Russia, a country economically backward, to bear that expenditure than for the wealthy states of western Europe. Russia's back, even before the war, was burdened with a heavy state loan. Now this debt is growing by the hour, and vast regions of Russia are subject to wholesale devastation.If the Germans will win the final victory, they will demand from us an enormous contribution, in comparison with which the streams of gold that poured into victorious Germany from vanquished France, after the war of 1871, will seem a mere trifle.But that will not be all. The most consequent and outspoken heralds of German imperialism are even now saying that it is necessary to exact from Russia the cession of important territory, which should be cleared from the present population for the greater convenience of German settlers. Never before have plunderers, dreaming of despoiling a conquered people, displayed such cynical heartlessness!But for our vanquishers it will not be enough to exact an unheard-of enormous contribution and to tear up our western borderlands. Already, in 1904, Russia, being in a difficult situation, was obliged to conclude a commercial treaty with Germany, very disadvantageous to herself. The treaty hindered, at the same time, the development of our agriculture and the progress of our industries. It affected, with equal disadvantage, the interests of the farmers as well as of those engaged in industry. It is easy to imagine what kind of a treaty victorious German imperialism would impose upon us. In economic matters, Russia would become a German colony. Russia's further economic development would be greatly hindered if not altogether stopped. Degeneration and deprivation would be the result of German victory for an important part of the Russian working-people.What will German victory bring to western Europe? After all we have already said, it is needless to expatiate on how manyof the unmerited economic calamities it will bring to the people of the western countries allied to Russia. We wish to draw your attention to the following: England, France, even Belgium and Italy, are, in a political sense, far ahead of the German Empire, which has not as yet grown up to a parliamentary régime. German victory over these countries would be the victory of the old over the new, and if the democratic ideal is dear to you, you must wish success to our Western Allies.Indifference to the result of this war would be, for us, equal to political suicide. The most important, the most vital interests of the proletariat and of the laboring peasantry demand of you an active participation in the defense of the country. Your watchword must be victory over the foreign enemy. In an active movement toward such victory, the live forces of the people will become free and strong.Obedient to this watchword, you must be as wise as serpents. Although in your hearts may burn the flame of noble indignation, in your heads must reign, invariably, cold political reckoning. You must know that zeal without reason is sometimes worse than complete indifference. Every act of agitation in the rear of the army, fighting against the enemy, would be equivalent to high treason, as it would be a service to the foreign enemy.The thunders of the war certainly cannot make the Russian manufacturers and merchants more idealistic than they were in time of peace. In the filling of the numerous orders, inevitable during the mobilization of industry for war needs, the capitalists will, as they are accustomed to, take great care of the interests of capital, and will not take care of the interests of hired labor. You will be entirely right if you wax indignant at their conduct. But in all cases, whenever you desire to answer by a strike, you must first think whether such action would not be detrimental to the cause of the defense of Russia.The private must be subject to the general. The workmen of every factory must remember that they would commit, without any doubt, the gravest mistake if, considering only their own interests, they forget how severely the interests of the entire Russian proletariat and peasantry would suffer from German victory.The tactics which can be defined by the motto, "All or nothing," are the tactics of anarchy, fully unworthy of the consciousrepresentatives of the proletariat and peasantry. The General Staff of the German Army would greet with pleasure the news that we had adopted such tactics.Believe us that this Staff is ready to help all those who would like to preach it in our country. They want trouble in Russia, they want strikes in England, they want everything that would facilitate the achievement of their conquering schemes.But you will not make them rejoice. You will not forget the words of our great fabulist: "What the enemy advises is surely bad." You must insist that all your representatives take the most active part in all organizations created now, under the pressure of public opinion, for the struggle with the foe. Your representatives must, if possible, take part not only in the work of the special technical organizations, such as the War-Industrial Committees which have been created for the needs of the army, but also in all other organizations of social and political character.The situation is such that we cannot come to freedom in any other way than by the war of national defense.
We, the undersigned, belong to the different shades of Russian Socialistic thought. We differ on many things, but we firmly agree in that the defeat of Russia in her struggle with Germany would mean her defeat in her struggle for freedom, and we think that, guided by this conviction, our adherents in Russia must come together for a common service to their people, in the hour of the grave danger the country is now facing.
We address ourselves to the politically conscious working-men, peasants, artisans, clerks—to all of those who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, and who, suffering from the lack of means and want of political rights, are struggling for a better future for themselves, for their children, and for their brethren.
We send them our hearty greeting, and persistently say to them: Listen to us in this fatal time, when the enemy has conquered the Western strongholds of Russia, has occupied an important part of our territory and is menacing Kiev, Petrograd, and Moscow, these most important centers of our social life.
Misinformed people may tell you that in defending yourselves from German invasion you support our old political régime. These people want to see Russia defeated because of their hatred of the Czar's government. Like one of the heroes of our genius of satire, Shchedrin, they mix fatherland with its temporary bosses. But Russia belongs not to the Czar, but to the Russian working-people. In defending Russia, the working-people defend themselves, defend the road to their freedom. As we said before, the inevitable consequences of German victory would be the strengthening of our old régime.
The Russian reactionaries understand this very thoroughly.In a faint, half-hearted manner they are defending Russia from Germany. The Ministers who resigned recently, Maklakov and Shcheglovitov, presented a secret report to the Czar, in November, 1914, in which they explained how advantageous it would be for the Czar to make a separate peace with Germany.They understand that the defeat of Germany would be a defeat of the principles of monarchism, so dear to all our European reactionaries.
Our people will never forgetthe failure of the Czar's government to defend Russia. But if the progressive, the politically conscious people will not take part in the struggle against Germany, the Czar's government will have an excuse for saying: "It is not our fault that Germany defeats us; it is the fault of the revolutionists who have betrayed their country," and this will vindicate the government in the eyes of the people.
The political situation in Russia is such that only across the bridge of national defense can we reach freedom. Remember,we do not tell you, first victory against the external enemy and then revolution against the internal, the Czar's government.
In the course of events the defeat of the Czar's government may serve as a necessary preliminary condition for, and even as a guaranty of, the elimination of the German danger. The French revolutionists of the end of the eighteenth century would never have been able to have overcome the enemy, attacking France on all sides, had they not adopted such tactics only when the popular movement against the old régime became mature enough to render their efforts effective.
Furthermore, you must not be embarrassed by the arguments of those who believe that every one who defends his country refuses thereby to take part in the struggle of the classes. These persons do not know what they are talking about. In the first place, in order that the struggle of the classes in Russia should be successful, certain social and political conditions must exist there.These conditions will not exist if Germany wins.
In the second place, if the working-man of Russia cannot but defend himself against the exploitation of the Russian landed aristocrat and capitalist it seems incomprehensible that he should remain inactive when the lasso of exploitation is being drawn around his neck by the German landed aristocracy (theJunker) and the German capitalist who are, unfortunately, at the presenttimesupported by a considerable part of the German proletariat that has turned traitor to its duty of solidarity with the proletariat of other countries.
By striving to the utmost to cut this lasso of German imperialistic exploitation, the proletariat of Russia will continue the struggle of the classes in that form which at the present moment is most appropriate, fruitful, and effective.
It has been our country's fate once before to suffer from the bloody horrors of a hostile invasion. But never before did it have to defend itself against an enemy so well armed, so skilfully organized, so carefully prepared for his plundering enterprise as he is now.
The position of the country is dangerous to the highest degree; therefore upon all of you, upon all the politically conscious children of the working-people of Russia, lies an enormous responsibility.
If you say to yourselves that it is immaterial to you and to your less developed brothers as to who wins in this great international collision going on now, and if you act accordingly, Russia will be crushed by Germany. And when Russia will be crushed by Germany, it will fare badly with the Allies. This does not need any demonstration.
But if, on the contrary, you become convinced that the defeat of Russia will reflect badly upon the interests of the working population, and if you will help the self-defense of our country with all your forces, our country and her allies will escape the terrible danger menacing them.
Therefore, go deeply into the situation. You make a great mistake if you imagine that it is not to the interests of the working-people to defend our country. In reality, nobody's interests suffer more terribly from the invasion of an enemy than the interests of the working-population.
Take, for instance, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. When the Germans besieged Paris and the cost of all the necessaries of life rose enormously, it was clear that the poor suffered much more than the rich. In the same way, when Germany exacted five billions of contribution from vanquished France, this same, in the final count, was paid by the poor; for paying that contribution indirect taxation was greatly raised, the burden of which nearly entirely falls on the lower classes.
More than that. The most dangerous consequence to France,due to her defeat in 1870-71, was the retardation of her economic development. In other words, the defeat of France badly reflected upon the contemporary interests of her people, and, even more, upon her entire subsequent development.
The defeat of Russia by Germany will much more injure our people than the defeat of France injured the French people. The war now exacts incredibly large expenditures. It is more difficult for Russia, a country economically backward, to bear that expenditure than for the wealthy states of western Europe. Russia's back, even before the war, was burdened with a heavy state loan. Now this debt is growing by the hour, and vast regions of Russia are subject to wholesale devastation.
If the Germans will win the final victory, they will demand from us an enormous contribution, in comparison with which the streams of gold that poured into victorious Germany from vanquished France, after the war of 1871, will seem a mere trifle.
But that will not be all. The most consequent and outspoken heralds of German imperialism are even now saying that it is necessary to exact from Russia the cession of important territory, which should be cleared from the present population for the greater convenience of German settlers. Never before have plunderers, dreaming of despoiling a conquered people, displayed such cynical heartlessness!
But for our vanquishers it will not be enough to exact an unheard-of enormous contribution and to tear up our western borderlands. Already, in 1904, Russia, being in a difficult situation, was obliged to conclude a commercial treaty with Germany, very disadvantageous to herself. The treaty hindered, at the same time, the development of our agriculture and the progress of our industries. It affected, with equal disadvantage, the interests of the farmers as well as of those engaged in industry. It is easy to imagine what kind of a treaty victorious German imperialism would impose upon us. In economic matters, Russia would become a German colony. Russia's further economic development would be greatly hindered if not altogether stopped. Degeneration and deprivation would be the result of German victory for an important part of the Russian working-people.
What will German victory bring to western Europe? After all we have already said, it is needless to expatiate on how manyof the unmerited economic calamities it will bring to the people of the western countries allied to Russia. We wish to draw your attention to the following: England, France, even Belgium and Italy, are, in a political sense, far ahead of the German Empire, which has not as yet grown up to a parliamentary régime. German victory over these countries would be the victory of the old over the new, and if the democratic ideal is dear to you, you must wish success to our Western Allies.
Indifference to the result of this war would be, for us, equal to political suicide. The most important, the most vital interests of the proletariat and of the laboring peasantry demand of you an active participation in the defense of the country. Your watchword must be victory over the foreign enemy. In an active movement toward such victory, the live forces of the people will become free and strong.
Obedient to this watchword, you must be as wise as serpents. Although in your hearts may burn the flame of noble indignation, in your heads must reign, invariably, cold political reckoning. You must know that zeal without reason is sometimes worse than complete indifference. Every act of agitation in the rear of the army, fighting against the enemy, would be equivalent to high treason, as it would be a service to the foreign enemy.
The thunders of the war certainly cannot make the Russian manufacturers and merchants more idealistic than they were in time of peace. In the filling of the numerous orders, inevitable during the mobilization of industry for war needs, the capitalists will, as they are accustomed to, take great care of the interests of capital, and will not take care of the interests of hired labor. You will be entirely right if you wax indignant at their conduct. But in all cases, whenever you desire to answer by a strike, you must first think whether such action would not be detrimental to the cause of the defense of Russia.
The private must be subject to the general. The workmen of every factory must remember that they would commit, without any doubt, the gravest mistake if, considering only their own interests, they forget how severely the interests of the entire Russian proletariat and peasantry would suffer from German victory.
The tactics which can be defined by the motto, "All or nothing," are the tactics of anarchy, fully unworthy of the consciousrepresentatives of the proletariat and peasantry. The General Staff of the German Army would greet with pleasure the news that we had adopted such tactics.Believe us that this Staff is ready to help all those who would like to preach it in our country. They want trouble in Russia, they want strikes in England, they want everything that would facilitate the achievement of their conquering schemes.
But you will not make them rejoice. You will not forget the words of our great fabulist: "What the enemy advises is surely bad." You must insist that all your representatives take the most active part in all organizations created now, under the pressure of public opinion, for the struggle with the foe. Your representatives must, if possible, take part not only in the work of the special technical organizations, such as the War-Industrial Committees which have been created for the needs of the army, but also in all other organizations of social and political character.
The situation is such that we cannot come to freedom in any other way than by the war of national defense.
That the foregoing Manifesto expressed the position of the vast majority of Russian Socialists there can be no doubt whatever. Between this position and that of the Porazhentsi with their doctrine that Russia's defeat by Germany was desirable, there was a middle ground, which was taken by a not inconsiderable number of Socialists, including such able leaders as Paul Axelrod. Those who took up this intermediate position were both anti-Czarists and anti-German-imperialists. They were pro-Ally in the large sense, and desired to see the Allies win over the Central Empires, if not a "crushing" victory, a very definite and conclusive one. But they regarded the alliance of Czarism with the Allies as an unnatural marriage. They believed that autocratic Russia's natural alliance was with autocratic Germany and Austria. Their hatred of Czarism led them to wish for its defeat, even by Germany, provided the victory were not so great asto permit Germany to extend her domain over Russia or any large part of it. Their position became embodied in the phrase, "Victory by the Allies on the west and Russia's defeat on the east." This was, of course, utterly unpractical theorizing and bore no relation to reality.
Thanks in part to the vigorous propaganda of such leaders as Plechanov, Deutsch, Bourtzev, Tseretelli, Kerensky, and many others, and in part to the instinctive good sense of the masses, support of the war by Socialists of all shades and factions—except the extreme Bolsheviki and the so-called "Internationalist" sections of Mensheviki and Socialist-Revolutionists—became general. The anti-war minority was exceedingly small and had no hold upon the masses. Had the government been both wise and honestly desirous of presenting a united front to the foe, and to that end made intelligent and generous concessions to the democratic movement, it is most unlikely that Russia would have collapsed. As it was, the government adopted a policy which could not fail to weaken the military force of the nation—a policy admirably suited to German needs.
Extremes meet. On the one hand there were the Porazhentsi Socialists, contending that the interests of progress would be best served by a German victory over Russia, and plotting to weaken and corrupt the morale of the Russian army and to stir up internal strife to that end. On the other hand, within the royal court, and throughout the bureaucracy, reactionary pro-German officials were animated by the belief that the victory of Germany was essential to the permanence of Absolutism and autocratic government. They, too, like the Socialist"defeatists," aimed to weaken and corrupt the morale of the army and to divide the nation.
These Germanophiles in places of power realized that they had unconscious but exceedingly useful allies in the Socialist intransigents. Actuated by motives however high, the latter played into the hands of the most corrupt and reactionary force that ever infested the old régime. This force, the reactionary Germanophiles, had from the very first hoped and believed that Germany would win the war. They had exerted every ounce of pressure they could command to keep the Czar from maintaining the treaty with France and entering into the war on her side against Germany and Austria. When they failed in this, they bided their time, full of confidence that the superior efficiency of the German military machine would soon triumph. But when they witnessed the great victorious onward rush of the Russian army, which for a time manifested such a degree of efficiency as they had never believed to be possible, they began to bestir themselves. From this quarter came the suggestion, very early in the war, as Plechanov and his associates charged in their Manifesto, that the Czar ought to make an early peace with Germany.
They went much farther than this. Through every conceivable channel they contrived to obstruct Russia's military effort. They conspired to disorganize the transportation system, the hospital service, the food-supply, the manufacture of munitions. They, too, in a most effective manner, were plotting to weaken and corrupt the morale of the army. There was universal uneasiness. In the Allied chancelleries there was fear of a treacherous separate peace between Russia and Germany. It was partly to avert that catastrophe by means of a heavy bribe that England undertook the forcing of the Dardanelles. Allover Russia there was an awakening of the memories of the graft that ate like a canker-worm at the heart of the nation. Men told once more the story of the Russian general in Manchuria, in 1904, who, when asked why fifty thousand men were marching barefoot, answered that the boots were in the pocket of Grand-Duke Vladimir! They told again the story of the cases of "shells" for the Manchurian army which were intercepted in the nation's capital,en routeto Moscow, and found to contain—paving-stones! How General Kuropatkin managed to amass a fortune of over six million rubles during the war with Japan was remembered. Fear that the same kind of treason was being perpetrated grew almost to the panic point.
So bad were conditions in the army, so completely had the Germanophile reactionaries sabotaged the organization, that the people themselves took the matter in hand. Municipalities all over the country formed a Union of Cities to furnish food, clothes, and other necessaries to the army. The National Union of Zemstvos did the same thing. More than three thousand institutions were established on the different Russian fronts by the National Union of Zemstvos. These institutions included hospitals, ambulance stations, feeding stations for troops on the march, dental stations, veterinary stations, factories for manufacturing supplies, motor transportation services, and so on through a long catalogue of things which the administration absolutely failed to provide. The same great organization furnished millions of tents and millions of pairs of boots and socks. Civil Russia was engaged in a great popular struggle to overcome incompetence, corruption, and sabotage in the bureaucracy. For this work the civilian agencies were not thanked by the government. Instead, they were oppressed and hindered. Against themwas directed the hate of the dark forces of the "occult government" and at the same time the fierce opposition and scorn of men who called themselves Socialists and champions of proletarian freedom!
There was treachery in the General Staff and throughout the War Department, at the very head of which was a corrupt traitor, Sukhomlinov. It was treachery in the General Staff which led to the tragic disasters in East Prussia. The great drive of the Austrian and German armies in 1915, which led to the loss of Poland, Lithuania, and large parts of Volhynia and Courland, and almost entirely eliminated Russia from the war, was unquestionably brought about by co-operation with the German General Staff on the part of the sinister "occult government," as the Germanophile reactionary conspiracy in the highest circles came to be known.
No wonder that Plechanov and his friends in their Manifesto to the Russian workers declared that the reactionaries were defending Russia from subjugation by Germany in "a half-hearted way," and that "our people will never forget the failure of the Czar's government to defend Russia." They were only saying, in very moderate language, what millions were thinking; what, a few months later, many of the liberal spokesmen of the country were ready to say in harsher language. As early as January, 1915, the Duma met and cautiously expressed its alarm. In July it met again, many of the members coming directly from the front, in uniform. Only the fear that a revolution would make the continuance of the war impossible prevented a revolution at that time. The Duma was in a revolutionary mood. Miliukov, for example, thundered:
" ... In January we came here with ... the feeling of patriotic alarm. We then kept this feeling to ourselves.Yet in closed sessions of committees we told the government all that filled the soul of the people. The answer we received did not calm us; it amounted to saying that the government could get along without us, without our co-operation. To-day we have convened in a grave moment of trial for our fatherland. The patriotic alarm of the people has proved to be well founded, to the misfortune of our country. Secret things have become open, and the assertions of half a year ago have turned out to be mere words. Yet the country cannot be satisfied with words.The people wish to take affairs into their own hands and to correct what has been neglected. The people look upon us as legal executors of their will."
Kerensky spoke to the same general effect, adding, "I appeal to the people themselves to take into their hands the salvation of the country and fight for a full right to govern the state." The key-note of revolution was being sounded now. For the spirit of revolution breathed in the words, "The people wish to take affairs into their own hands," and in Kerensky's challenge, "I appeal to the people themselves to take into their hands the salvation of the country." The Duma was the logical center around which the democratic forces of the country could rally. Its moderate character determined this. Only its example was necessary to the development of a great national movement to overthrow the old régime with its manifold treachery, corruption, and incompetence. When, on August 22d, the Progressive Bloc was formed by a coalition of Constitutional Democrats, Progressives, Nationalists, and Octobrists—the last-named group having hitherto generally supported the government—there was a general chorus of approval throughout the country, If the program of the Bloc was not radical enough to satisfy the various Socialist groups, even the Laborites, led by Kerensky,it was, nevertheless, a program which they could support in the main, as far as it went.
All over the country there was approval of the demand for a responsible government. The municipal councils of the large cities passed resolutions in support of it. The great associations of manufacturers supported it. All over the nation the demand for a responsible government was echoed. It was generally believed that the Czar and his advisers would accept the situation and accede to the popular demand. But once more the influence of the reactionaries triumphed, and on September 3d came the defiant answer of the government to the people. It was an order suspending the Duma indefinitely. The gods make mad those whom they would destroy.
Things went from bad to worse. More and more oppressive grew the government; more and more stupidly brutal and reactionary in its dealings with the wide-spread popular unrest. Heavier and heavier grew the burden of unscientific and unjustly distributed taxation. Worse and worse became the condition of the soldiers at the front; ever more scandalous the neglect of the sick and wounded. Incompetence, corruption, and treason combined to hurry the nation onward to a disastrous collapse. The Germanophiles were still industriously at work in the most important and vital places, practising sabotage upon a scale never dreamed of before in the history of any nation. They played upon the fears of the miserable weakling who was the nominal ruler of the vast Russian Empire, and frightened him into sanctioning the most suicidal policy of devising new measures of oppression instead of making generous concessions.
Russia possessed food in abundance, being far better off in this respect than any other belligerent on either side, yet Russia was in the grip of famine. There was a vastsurplus of food grains and cereals over and above the requirements of the army and the civilian population, yet there was wide-spread hunger. Prices rose to impossible levels. The most astonishing anarchy and disorganization characterized the administration of the food-supply. It was possible to get fresh butter within an hour's journey from Moscow for twenty-five cents a pound, but in Moscow the price was two and a half dollars a pound. Here, as throughout the nation, incompetence was reinforced by corruption and pro-German treachery. Many writers have called attention to the fact that even in normal times the enormous exportation of food grains in Russia went on side by side with per capita underconsumption by the peasants whose labor produced the great harvests, amounting to not less than 30 per cent. Now, of course, conditions were far worse.
When the government was urged to call a convention of national leaders to deal with the food situation it stubbornly refused. More than that, it made war upon the only organizations which were staving off famine and making it possible for the nation to endure. Every conceivable obstacle was placed in the way of the National Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Cities; the co-operative associations, which were rendering valuable service in meeting the distress of working-men's families, were obstructed and restricted in every possible way, their national offices being closed by the police. The officials of the labor-unions who were co-operating with employers in substituting arbitration in place of strikes, establishing soup-kitchens and relief funds, and doing other similar work to keep the nation alive, were singled out for arrest and imprisonment. The Black Hundreds were perniciously active in all this oppression and in the treacherous advocacy of a separate peace with Germany.
In October, 1916, a conference of chairmen of province zemstvos adopted and published a resolution which declared:
The tormenting and horrifying suspicion, the sinister rumors of perfidy and treason, of dark forces working in favor of Germany to destroy the unity of the nation, to sow discord and thus prepare conditions for an ignominious peace, have now reached the clear certainty that the hand of the enemy secretly influences the affairs of our state.
The tormenting and horrifying suspicion, the sinister rumors of perfidy and treason, of dark forces working in favor of Germany to destroy the unity of the nation, to sow discord and thus prepare conditions for an ignominious peace, have now reached the clear certainty that the hand of the enemy secretly influences the affairs of our state.
An adequate comprehension of the things set forth in this terrible summary is of the highest importance to every one who would attempt the task of reaching an intelligent understanding of the mighty upheaval in Russia and its far-reaching consequences. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not responsible for the disastrous separate peace with Germany. The foundations for that were laid by the reactionaries of the old régime. It was the logical outcome of their long-continued efforts. Lenine, Trotzky, and their Bolshevist associates were mere puppets, simple tools whose visions, ambitions, and schemes became the channels through which the conspiracy of the worst reactionaries in Russia realized one part of an iniquitous program.
The Revolution itself was a genuine and sincere effort on the part of the Russian people to avert the disaster and shame of a separate peace; to serve the Allied cause with all the fidelity of which they were capable. There would have been a separate peace if the old régime had remained in power a few weeks longer and the Revolution been averted. It is most likely that it would have been a more shameful peace than was concluded at Brest-Litovsk,and that it would have resulted in an actual and active alliance of the Romanov dynasty with the dynasties of the Hohenzollerns and the Habsburgs. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had this great merit: it so delayed the separate peace between Russia and Germany that the Allies were able to prepare for it. It had the merit, also, that it forced the attainment of the separate peace to come in such a manner as to reduce Germany's military gain on the western front to a minimum.
The manner in which the Bolsheviki in their wild, groping, and frenzied efforts to apply theoretical abstractions to the living world, torn as it was by the wolves of war, famine, treason, oppression, and despair, served the foes of freedom and progress must not be lost sight of. The Bolshevist, wherever he may present himself, is the foe of progress and the ally of reaction.
When the Duma assembled On November 14, 1916—new style—the approaching doom of Czar Nicholas II was already manifest. Why the Revolution did not occur at that time is a puzzle not easy to solve. Perhaps the mere fact that the Duma was assembling served to postpone resort to drastic measures. The nation waited for the Duma to lead. It is probable, also, that fear lest revolution prove disastrous to the military forces exercised a restraining influence upon the people. Certain it is that it would have been easy enough to kindle the fires of revolution at that time. Never in the history of the nation, not even in 1905, were conditions riper for revolt, and never had there been a more solid array of the nation against the bureaucracy. Discontent and revolutionary temper were not confined to Socialists, nor to the lower classes. Landowners, capitalists, military officials, and Intellectuals were united with the peasants and artisans, to an even greater extent than in the early stages of the First Revolution. Conservatives and Moderates joined with Social Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionists in opposition to the corrupt and oppressive régime. Even the president of the Duma, Michael Rodzianko, a conservative landowner, assailed the government.
One of the principal reasons for this unexampled unityagainst the government was the wide-spread conviction, based, as we have seen, upon the most damning evidence, that Premier Sturmer and his Cabinet were not loyal to the Allies and that they contemplated making a separate peace with Germany. All factions in the Duma were bitterly opposed to a separate peace. Rodzianko was loudly cheered when he denounced the intrigues against the Allies and declared: "Russia gave her word to fight in common with the Allies till complete and final victory is won. Russia will not betray her friends, and with contempt refuses any consideration of a separate peace. Russia will not be a traitor to those who are fighting side by side with her sons for a great and just cause." Notwithstanding the intensification of the class conflict naturally resulting from the great industrial development since 1906, patriotism temporarily overshadowed all class consciousness.
The cheers that greeted Rodzianko's declaration, and the remarkable ovation to the Allied ambassadors, who were present, amply demonstrated that, in spite of the frightful suffering and sacrifice which the nation had endured, all classes were united in their determination to win the war. Only a corrupt section of the bureaucracy, at one end of the social scale, and a small section of extreme left-wing Socialists, at the other end of the social scale, were at that time anti-war. There was this difference between the Socialist pacifists and the bureaucratic advocates of peace with Germany: the former were not pro-German nor anti-Ally, but sincere internationalists, honest and brave—however mistaken—advocates of peace. Outside of the bureaucracy there was no hostility to the Allies in Russia. Except for the insignificant Socialist minority referred to, the masses of the Russian people realized that the defeat of the Hohenzollern dynastywas necessary to a realization of the ideal of a free Russia. The new and greater revolution was already beginning, and determination to defeat the Hohenzollern bulwark of the Romanov despotism was almost universal. The whole nation was pervaded by this spirit.
Paul Miliukov, leader of the Constitutional Democrats, popularly known as the "Cadets," furiously lashed Premier Sturmer and quoted the irrefutable evidence of his pro-Germanism and of his corruption. Sturmer reeled under the smashing attack. In his rage he forbade the publication of Miliukov's speech, but hundreds of thousands of copies of it were secretly printed and distributed. Every one recognized that there was war between the Duma and the government, and notwithstanding the criticism of the Socialists, who naturally regarded it as a bourgeois body, the Duma represented Russia.
Sturmer proposed to his Cabinet the dissolution of the Duma, but failed to obtain the support of a majority. Then he determined to get the Czar's signature to a decree of dissolution. But the Czar was at the General Headquarters of the army at the time and therefore surrounded by army officers, practically all of whom were with the Duma and inspired by a bitter resentment of the pro-German intrigues, especially the neglect of the army organization. The weak will of Nicholas II was thus beyond the reach of Sturmer's influence for the time being. Meanwhile, the Ministers of the Army and Navy had appeared before the Duma and declared themselves to be on the side of the people and their parliament. On his way to visit the Czar at General Headquarters, Premier Sturmer was met by one of the Czar's messengers and handed his dismissal from office. The Duma had won.
The evil genius which inspired and controlled him led Nicholas II to appoint as Sturmer's successor the utterlyreactionary bureaucrat, Alexander Trepov, and to retain in office as Minister of the Interior the infamous Protopopov, associate of the unsavory Rasputin. When Trepov made his first appearance as Premier in the Duma he was loudly hissed by the Socialists. Other factions, while not concealing their disappointment, were more tolerant and even became more hopeful when they realized that from the first Trepov was fighting to oust Protopopov. That meant, of course, a fight against Rasputin as well. Whatever Trepov's motives might be in fighting Protopopov and Rasputin he was helping the opposition. But Trepov was no match for such opponents. It soon became evident that as Premier he was a mere figurehead and that Rasputin and Protopopov held the government in their hands. Protopopov openly defied the Premier and the Duma.
In December it began to be rumored in political circles that Sturmer, who was now attached in some not clearly defined capacity to the Foreign Office, was about to be sent to a neutral country as ambassador. The rumor created the utmost consternation in liberal circles in Russia and in the Allied embassies. If true, it could only have one meaning, namely, that arrangements were being made to negotiate a separate peace with Germany—and that meant that Russia was to become Germany's economic vassal.
The Duma demanded a responsible Ministry, a Cabinet directly responsible to, and controlled by, the Duma as the people's representative. This demand had been constantly made since the First Revolution. Even the Imperial Council, upon which the Czar had always been able to rely for support against revolutionary movements, now joined forces with the Duma in making this demand. That traditionally reactionary, bureaucratic body, composedof former Premiers, Cabinet Ministers, and other high officials, formally demanded that the Czar take steps to make the government responsible to the popularly elected assemblage. This was a small revolution in itself. The fabric of Czarism had cracked.
There can be no doubt in the mind of any student of Russian affairs that the unity of the Imperial Council and the Duma, like the unity of classes, was due to the strong pro-Ally sentiment which at that time possessed practically the entire nation. On December 12th—new style—Germany offered Russia a separate peace, and three days later the Foreign Minister, Pokrovsky, visited the Duma and announced that Russia would reject the offer. The Duma immediately passed a resolution declaring that "the Duma unanimously favors a categorical refusal by the Allied governments to enter, under present conditions, into any peace negotiations whatever." On the 19th a similar resolution was adopted by the Imperial Council, which continued to follow the leadership of the Duma. Before adjourning for the Christmas holidays the Duma passed another resolution, aimed chiefly at Protopopov and Sturmer, protesting against the sinister activities which were undermining the war-making forces of the nation, and praising the work of the zemstvos and working-class organizations which had struggled bravely to sustain the army, feed the people, care for the sick and wounded, and avert utter chaos.
On December 30th, in the early hours of the morning, the monk Rasputin was murdered and his body thrown into the Neva. The strangest and most evil of all the actors in the Russian drama was dead, but the systemwhich made him what he was lived. Rasputin dead exercised upon the diseased mind of the Czarina—and, through her, upon the Czar—even a greater influence than when he was alive. Nicholas II was as powerless to resist the insane Czarina's influence as he had proved himself to be when he banished the Grand-Duke Nicholas for pointing out that the Czarina was the tool of evil and crafty intriguers. Heedless of the warning implied in the murder of Rasputin, and of the ever-growing opposition to the government and the throne, the Czar inaugurated, or permitted to be inaugurated, new measures of reaction and repression.
Trepov was driven from the Premiership and replaced by Prince Golitizin, a bureaucrat of small brain and less conscience. The best Minister of Education Russia had ever had, Ignatyev, was replaced by one of the blackest of all reactionaries. The Czar celebrated the New-Year by issuing an edict retiring the progressive members of the Imperial Council, who had supported the Duma, and appointing in their stead the most reactionary men he could find in the Empire. At the head of the Council as president he placed the notorious Jew-hating Stcheglovitov. As always, hatred of the Jew sprang from fear of progress.
As one reads the history of January, 1917, in Russia, as it was reported in the press day by day, and the numerous accounts of competent and trustworthy observers, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Protopopov deliberately sought to precipitate a revolution. Mad as this hypothesis seems to be, it is nevertheless the only one which affords a rational explanation of the policy of the government. No sooner was Golitizin made Premier than it was announced that the opening of the Duma would be postponed till the end of January, in order that theCabinet might be reorganized. Later it was announced that the Duma opening would be again postponed—this time till the end of February. In the reorganization of the Cabinet, Shuvaviev, the War Minister, who had loyally co-operated with the zemstvos and had supported the Duma in November, was dismissed. Pokrovsky, the Foreign Minister, who had announced to the Duma in December the rejection of the German peace offer, was reported to be "sick" and given "leave of absence." Other changes were made in the Cabinet, in every case to the advantage of the reactionaries. It was practically impossible for anyone in Russia to find out who the Ministers of the government were.
Protopopov released Sukhomlinov, the former Minister of War who had been justly convicted of treason. This action, taken, it was said, at the direction of the Czarina, added to the already wide-spread belief that the government was animated by a desire to make peace with Germany. That the Czar himself was loyal to the Allies was generally believed, but there was no such belief in the loyalty of Protopopov, Sturmer, and their associates. The nation meantime was drifting into despair and anarchy. The railway system was deliberately permitted to become disorganized. Hunger reigned in the cities and the food reserves for the army were deliberately reduced to a two days' supply. The terror of hunger spread through the large cities and through the army at the front like prairie fire.
It became evident that Protopopov was carrying out the plans of the Germanophiles, deliberately trying to disorganize the life of the nation and make successful warfare impossible. Socialists and labor leaders charged that his agents were encouraging the pacifist minority and opposing the patriotic majority among the workers.The work of the War Industries Committee which controlled organizations engaged in the manufacture of war-supplies which employed hundreds of thousands of workers was hampered in every way. It is the testimony of the best-known and most-trusted working-class leaders in Russia that the vast majority of the workers, while anxious for a general democratic peace, were opposed to a separate peace with Germany and favored the continuation of the war against Prussianism and the co-operation of all classes to that end. The pacifists and "defeatist" Socialists represented a minority. To the minority every possible assistance was given, while the leaders of the working class who were loyal to the war, and who sought to sustain the morale of the workers in support of the war, were opposed and thwarted in their efforts and, in many cases, cast into prison. The Black Hundreds were still at work.
Socialist leaders of the working class issued numerous appeals to the workers, warning them that Protopopov's secret police agitators were trying to bring about strikes, and begging them not to lend themselves to such treacherous designs, which could only aid Germany at the expense of democracy in Russia and elsewhere. It became known, too, that large numbers of machine-guns were being distributed among the police in Petrograd and placed at strategic points throughout the city. It was said that Protopopov was mad, but it was the methodical madness of a desperate, reactionary, autocratic régime.
Protopopov and Sturmer and their associates recognized as clearly as the liberals did the natural kinship and interdependence of the three great autocracies, the Romanov,Habsburg, and Hohenzollern dynasties. They knew well that the crushing of autocracy in Austria-Hungary and Germany would make it impossible to maintain autocracy in Russia. They realized, furthermore, that while the nation was not willing to attempt revolution during the war, the end of the war would inevitably bring with it revolution upon a scale far vaster than had ever been attempted before, unless, indeed, the revolutionary leaders could be goaded into making a premature attempt to overthrow the monarchy. In that case, it might be possible to crush them. Given a rebellion in the cities, which could be crushed by the police amply provided with machine-guns, and by "loyal" troops, with a vast army unprovided with food and no means of supplying it, there would be abundant justification for making a separate peace with Germany. Thus the Revolution would be crushed and the whole system of autocracy, Russian, Austrian, and German, preserved.
The morning of the 27th of February—new style—was tense with an ominous expectancy. In the Allied chancelleries anxious groups were gathered. They realized that the fate of the Allies hung in the balance. In Petrograd alone three hundred thousand workers went out on strike that day, and the police agents did their level best to provoke violence. The large bodies of troops massed at various points throughout the city, and the police with their machine-guns, testified to the thoroughness with which the government had prepared to crush any revolutionary manifestations. Thanks to the excellent discipline of the workers, and the fine wisdom of the leaders of the Social Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionists, and the Labor Group, who constantly exhorted the workers not to fall into the trap set for them, there was no violence.
At the opening session of the Duma, Kerensky, leaderof the Labor Group, made a characteristic address in which he denounced the arrest of the Labor Group members of the War Industries Committee. He directed his attack against the "system," not against individuals:
"We are living in a state of anarchy unprecedented in our history. In comparison with it the period of 1613 seems like child's play. Chaos has enveloped not only the political, but the economic life of the nation as well. It destroys the very foundations of the nation's social economic structure.
"Things have come to such a pass that recently one of the Ministries, shipping coal from Petrograd to a neighboring city, had armed the train with a special guard so that other authorities should not confiscate the coal on the way! We have arrived already at the primitive stage when each person defends with all the resources at his command the material in his possession, ready to enter into mortal combat for it with his neighbor. We are witnessing the same scenes which France went through at the time of the Revolution. Then also the products shipped to Paris were accompanied by special detachments of troops to prevent their being seized by the provincial authorities....
"Behold the Cabinet of Rittich-Protopopov-Golitizin dragging into the court the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee, charged with aiming at the creation of a Russian Social-Democratic republic! They did not even know that nobody aims at a 'Social-Democratic' republic. One aiming at a republic labors for popular government. But has the court anything to say about all these distinctions? We know beforehand what sentences are to be imposed upon the prisoners....
"I have no desire to criticize the individual members of the Cabinet. The greatest mistake of all is to seektraitors, German agents, separate Sturmers.We have a still greater enemy than the German influence, than the treachery and treason of individuals. And that enemy is the system—the system of a medieval form of government."
How far the conspiracy of the government of Russia against the war of Russia and her Allies extended is shown by the revelations made in the Duma on March 3d by one of the members, A. Konovalov. He reported that two days previously, March 1st, the only two members of the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee who were not in prison issued an appeal to the workers not to strike. These two members of the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee, Anosovsky and Ostapenko, took their exhortation to the bureau of the War Industries Committee for its approval. But, although approved by this great and important organization, the appeal was not passed by the government censor. When Guchkov, president of the War Industries Committee, attempted to get the appeal printed in the newspapers he was prevented by action emanating from the office of Protopopov.
Through all the early days of March there was labor unrest in Petrograd, as well as in some other cities. Petrograd was, naturally, the storm center. There were small strikes, but, fortunately, not much rioting. The extreme radicals were agitating for the release of the imprisoned leaders of the Labor Group and urging drastic action by the workers. Much of this agitation was sincere and honest, but no little of it was due to the provocative agents. These, disguised as workmen, seized every opportunity to urge revolt. Any pretext sufficed them; they stimulated the honest agitation to revolt as a protest against the imprisonmentof the Labor Group, and the desperate threat that unless food was forthcoming revolution would be resorted to for sinister purposes. And all the time the police and the troops were massed to crush the first rising.
The next few days were destined to reveal the fact that the cunning and guile of Protopopov had overreached itself; that the soldiers could not be relied upon to crush any uprising of the people. There was some rioting in Petrograd on March 3d, and the next day the city was placed under martial law. On March 7th the textile workers went out on strike and were quickly followed by several thousand workers belonging to other trades. Next day there was a tremendous popular demonstration at which the workers demanded food. The strike spread during the next two or three days until there was a pretty general stoppage of industry. Students from the university joined with the striking workmen and there were numerous demonstrations, but little disposition to violence. When the Cossacks and mounted police were sent to break up the crowds, the Cossacks took great care not to hurt the people, fraternizing with them and being cheered by them. It was evident that the army would not let itself be used to crush the uprising of the people. The police remained "loyal," but they were not adequate in numbers. Protopopov had set in motion forces which no human agency could control. The Revolution was well under way.
The Duma remained in constant session. Meantime the situation in the capital was becoming serious in the extreme. Looting of stores began, and there were many victims of the police efforts to disperse the crowds. In the midst of the crisis the Duma repudiated the government and broke off all relations with it. The resolution of the Duma declared that "The government which covered its hands with the blood of the people should no longerbe admitted to the Duma. With such a government the Duma breaks all relations forever." The answer of Czar Nicholas was an order to dissolve the Duma, which order the Duma voted to ignore, remaining in session as before.
On Sunday, March 11th, there was a great outpouring of people at a demonstration. Police established on the roofs of some public buildings attacked the closely packed throngs with machine-gun fire, killing and wounding hundreds. One of the famous regiments, the Volynski, revolted, killed its commander, and joined the people when ordered to fire into the crowds. Detachments of soldiers belonging to other regiments followed their example and refused to fire upon the people. One or two detachments of troops did obey orders and were immediately attacked by the revolutionary troops. There was civil war in Petrograd.
While the fighting was still going on, the president of the Duma sent the following telegram to the Czar: