August 4, 1914: The Czar addresses the people (left). 1915: Nizhny Novgorod (right)
Sources: webpage and Lunapic
1. THE TASKS OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN WAR.
The European and World War has the clearly defined character of a bourgeois imperialist and dynastic war. A struggle for markets and for the freedom to loot foreign countries, a striving to suppress the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and of democracy, a desire to deceive, divide and slaughter the proletarians of all countries by setting the wage slaves of one nation against another's so as to benefit the bourgeoisie. These exclusively are the real content and significance of the war.
[...]
The betrayal of socialism by most leaders of the Second International (1889-1914) signifies its ideological and political bankruptcy. This collapse has been caused mainly by a prevalent petty-bourgeois opportunism in its ranks—the bourgeois nature—whose danger the finest representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of all countries have long been warning about.
The opportunists had long been preparing to wreck the Second International by denying the socialist revolution and promoting bourgeois reform instead, by jettisoning the class struggle with its inevitable conversion into civil war eventually and preaching instead cooperation among classes.
The opportunists preached bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and defence of the fatherland, thereby ignoring or dismissing the fundamental truth of socialism set forth in the Communist Manifesto long ago: workingmen have no country.
They confined their struggle against militarism to a sentimental philistine point of view instead of perceiving the need for a revolutionary war waged by the proletarians of all countries against the bourgeoisie of all countries.
They made a fetish out of the transitional need to use the bourgeois parliament and observe bourgeois legality, forgetting that a clandestine organization and illegal agitation are imperative at times of crisis.
[...]
When the German bourgeoisie tout the defence of the fatherland and of fighting tsarism they are lying because the policy of the Prussian Junkerdom headed by Wilhelm II and of Germany's big bourgeoisie has always been to buttress the tsarist monarchy. Regardless of the war's outcome they are sure to attempt bolstering it.
When the German bourgeoisie tout freedom for cultural and national growth they are lying because the Austrian bourgeoisie, their partner, launched a robber-baron campaign against Serbia and the German bourgeoisie themselves oppress the Danes, the Poles and the Frenchmen (in Alsace-Lorraine). They wage a war of aggression against Belgium and France to loot those wealthier and freer countries. They started an offensive when the time seemed ripe for the use of the latest military hardware and for thwarting the implementation of the so-called big military programme in Russia.
Similarly when the French bourgeoisie tout defence of the fatherland, etc., they lie because they are defending underdeveloped countries and spending thousands of millions in the hire of Russian Black-Hundred gangs for a war of plunder on Austrian and German soil.
Neither belligerent alliance tails the other in cruelty and atrocities of warfare.
[...]
The following must now be the slogans of Social-Democracy:
First, full-fledged propaganda in the army and in the theatre of war for a socialist revolution and the need to use weapons not against their brothers—the wage slaves of enemy countries—but against the reactionary bourgeois governments and parties of all countries; the urgent need to set up clandestine cells inside all the warring armies in order to conduct such propaganda in every language; a merciless struggle against the chauvinism and "patriotism" of the philistines and bourgeoisie of all countries without exception.
As regards confronting the leaders of the present International who have betrayed socialism, it is imperative to appeal to the revolutionary consciousness of the working masses who bear the entire burden of the war and who in most cases despise opportunism and chauvinism.
Secondly, as an immediate slogan, propaganda for the establishment of republics in Germany, Poland, Russia and other countries, and for the fusion of all European states into a republican United States of Europe.
Thirdly, a particular struggle against the tsarist monarchy and against Great-Russian or Pan-Slavic chauvinism. Additionally the advocacy of a revolution in Russia with liberation and self-determination for the oppressed nationalities. Lastly the immediate slogans of a democratic republic, confiscation of the landed estates and an eight-hour working day.
2. KARL MARX → The Marxist Doctrine → Dialectics.
Marx and Engels considered Hegelian dialectics to be the greatest achievement of classical German philosophy, the most comprehensive profound doctrine of evolvement, the richest in content. They thought that any other formulation of the principle of evolvement or evolution was one-sided, deficient and certain to distort or mar the actual process developing in Nature or in society which often proceeds by leaps, catastrophes and revolutions.
Engels writes,
Marx and I were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics [from the destruction of idealism and Hegelianism] and apply them to a materialist concept of Nature ... Nature certifies dialectics and it must be said that modern natural science has furnished extremely rich data [this was written before the discovery of radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements, etc.!] whose daily compendium confirms thus far that natural processes are in the final analysis dialectical and not metaphysical.
The great postulate is that the world is not a complex set of ready-made objects but a complex set of processes where those objects apparently static, as our mental images of them, go in fact through a perpetual cycle of coming-into-being and passing-away ... This great postulate has so permeated common consciousness, especially since the time of Hegel, that it is hardly ever disputed now. But to acknowledge this fundamental idea verbally and to apply it in detail to every area of research are two different things ... For dialectical philosophy nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It insists on the transitory nature of everything.1 Nothing can exist forever except this perpetual process of becoming and unbecoming, of an endless ascendency from the lower level to the higher.2 And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of dialectics in the thinking brain.
Thus, according to Marx, dialectics is "the science of the general laws of motion for both the external world and human thought".3
This revolutionary aspect of Hegel's philosophy was adopted and developed by Marx. Dialectical materialism "does not need a philosophy hovering over the other sciences." From previous philosophy survives "the science of thought and its laws—formal logic and dialectics."
Dialectics, as understood by Marx in conformity with Hegel, includes what is now called the theory of knowledge or epistemology which also regards its field historically, studying the origin and trend of knowledge, the transition from ignorance to knowledge.
In our times the idea of evolvement, of evolution, has almost completely suffused the social consciousness, albeit not through Hegelian philosophy. The idea derived from Hegel's philosophy and formulated by Marx and Engels is far broader and far more sophisticated than the popular idea of evolution.
Marxist dialectics is evolution that repeats previous patterns along a different path on a higher plane ("the negation of negation"), progresses not in a straight line but along winded tracks (so to speak) and incurs discrete leaps, catastrophes, revolutions (singularities).
Marxist dialectics is evolution that transforms quantity to quality,4 indulges internal impulses, is driven by contradiction and by conflicting forces or tendencies acting on a given body, phenomenon or society.
Marxist dialectics probes the relationship between all the components of a phenomenon—history disclosing ever new facets—a relationship that impels uniform universal motion in compliance with set laws.
These are some of the features of dialectics, a doctrine of evolution richer than its popular twin. (Cf. Marx's letter to Engels of January 8, 1868, where he ridicules Stein's "wooden" trichotomies which it would be absurd to mistake for materialist dialectics).
3. KARL MARX → The Marxist Doctrine → The Class Struggle.
It is common knowledge that in any given society the strivings of some members clash with the strivings of others, that social life is full of contradictions. History recounts the struggles between nations or within them and records alternating periods of revolution and reaction, peace and war, stagnation, rapid material progress and decline.
Marx's theory of the class struggle is the template for discovering the laws underlying this maze and seeming chaos. Only a study of the net strivings of a society's members can deliver a scientific description of the outcome.
Now social conflict stems from the differences in rank and lifestyle of the various classes that make up a given society. As Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto,
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (Engels subsequently added: "with the exception of the history of the primitive community"). Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now veiled, now open fight, a fight that each time finished either in a revolutionary remaking of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
[...]
The modern bourgeois society that sprouted from the wreck of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. However our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses this distinctive feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is progressively splitting into two large hostile camps. Two big classes confront each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
Ever since the Great French Revolution, European history has tellingly revealed in a number of countries what actually lies at the bottom of events—the struggle of classes. Already the Restoration period in France produced a number of historians (Thierry, Guizot, Mignet and Thiers) who, in summing up what was taking place, were obliged to admit that class struggle was the key to all of French history.
The modern period enshrines the complete victory of the bourgeoisie in its representative institutions, extended or universal suffrage, the wide circulation among the masses of an inexpensive daily press, the genesis of mighty ever-expanding unions of workers and unions of employers, etc. Still the class struggle is transparently the mainspring of events, though in a very lopsided "peaceful" and "constitutional" fashion sometimes.
The following passage from Marx's Communist Manifesto will show us what he expected from social science, an objective analysis of the position of each class in modern society,
Of all the classes that confront the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is the truly revolutionary class. Other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry whose special and essential by-product is the proletariat. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight the bourgeoisie to preserve their rank as a fraction of the middle class. Therefore they are not revolutionary but conservative. Nay, more, they are reactionary because they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance they turn revolutionary they do so only in light of their impending descent to the class of the proletariat; thus they do not defend their present but their future interests and desert their current class to situate themselves at the head of their next one, the proletariat.
Marx gave brilliant and profound examples of materialist historiography in a number of historical works, analyzing the position of every class and sometimes of various subclasses, showing plainly why and how "every class struggle is a political struggle."
The passage quoted above illustrates what complex sets of class relations and transitions Marx analyzed in order to arrive at the cause of historical evolvement.
4. A GERMAN VOICE ON THE WAR.
In a single night the aspect of the world has changed... Everyone puts the blame on his neighbour, everyone claims to be on the defensive, to act only in a state of urgent defence. Everyone, don't you see, is defending only his most sacred values, the hearth, the fatherland... National vainglory and national jingoism triumph... Even the great international working class obeys national orders, workers are killing one another on the battlefields... Our civilization has proven bankrupt... Writers of European fame are not ashamed to come forth as ragingly blind chauvinists... We had too much faith in the possibility of imperialist madness being curbed by fear of economic ruin... We are experiencing an undisguised imperialist war for mastery of the world. There is no trace anywhere of a fight for great ideas, except perhaps the overthrow of the Russian Minotaur...the tsar and his grand dukes who have delivered the noblest men of their country to the hangmen... But do we not see how noble France the bearer of liberty's ideals is now an ally of the hangman tsar? How honest Germany...breaks its word and strangles unhappy neutral Belgium?... How will it all end? If poverty prevails, if despair gains the upper hand, if brother recognizes his brother in enemy uniform, then perhaps the unexpected might happen, weapons may perhaps be turned against those who are urging the people to war, and nations taught to hate each other might discard that hatred and unite at once. We do not want to be prophets, but should the European war bring us a step closer to an European social republic, then this war will, after all, not have been as senseless as it seems to be presently.
Whose voice is this? Perhaps one coming from a German Social-Democrat?
Far from it! Headed by Kautsky, the German Social-Democrats have become "wretched counter-revolutionary windbags," as Marx called those Social-Democrats who after publication of the Anti-Socialist Law behaved "in accord with the circumstances," in the manner of Haase, Kautsky, Südekum and Co. today.1
No, our quotation is from a magazine of petty-bourgeois Christian democrats published by a group of kind-hearted little churchmen in Zurich (Neue Wege, Blätter für religiöse Arbeit, meaning "New Ways, Pages for Religious Work," September, 1914).
That is the degree of humiliation we have come to: God-fearing philistines venture to say that it would not be bad to turn weapons against those who "are urging the people to war" while "authoritative" Social-Democrats like Kautsky "scientifically" defend the most despicable chauvinism or declare like Plekhanov 2 that the propaganda of civil war against the bourgeoisie is a harmful "utopia"!
Indeed if such "Social-Democrats" wish to be in the majority and constitute the official "International" (= an alliance for international justification of national chauvinism) then is it not better to drop the name of "Social-Democrats", so besmirched and degraded by them, and return to the old Marxist name of Communists? Kautsky once threatened to do so when the opportunist Bernsteinians came close to heading the German party. What was an idle threat from his lips will perhaps become a done deed for others.
2 Plekhanov—see Chapter 2, Item 6.
5. UNDERTOW.
Paris: Reports that Germany has ordained a domestic state of war and that Russia is mobilizing quicky has sparked enormous excitement here. It is thought the conflict will be very hard to stave off since even if Austria and Serbia were to drop their respective demands it will be almost impossible to get Germany and Russia to cede what they consider to be their rights.
Berlin: It is said here that Grand Duke Hesse has gone to Russia on a special mission from the Kaiser to beseech the Czar not to meddle in the conflict between Serbia and Austria and to refrain from attacking the latter.
Madrid: At 11:30 AM the Presidency of the Spanish Government received a telegram from the Spanish Ambassor to Russia stating that Germany had delivered its official declaration of war to the Government of the Czar.
St. Petersburg: At 9:30 PM yesterday the Russian Government informed the general public about Germany's declaration of war. The Russian public reacted with great enthusiasm extolling Russia and France. Demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital waving national flags with a portrait of the Czar. Many women and children took part. As the Czar passed by the Cathedral he received enormous applause from a "very numerous" multitude that watched the parade and sang the national anthem.
Germany declares war on Belgium for refusing to side with Germany in its war with France.
In the first hours of Sunday morning Madrid received a dispatch from London stating that hostilities had broken out between Germany and Russia on the outskirts of the town of Rostken near the Russian border.
Berlin: The Czar's mother was arrested in Berlin. The German governor gave her permission to return to her port of departure, London or Copenhaguen.
St. Petersburg: The Russian Duma sat in extraordinary session. The presidents of the Duma and Council of Ministers pronounced enthused speeches after an Imperial Message had been read out. The deputies acclaimed the ambassadors of England, France and Belgium present on the platform.
St. Petersburg: The Emperor of Russia received the members of the Imperial Council of the Duma in a private audience. Grand Duke Nicholas and the entire Government attended. The Monarch informed them that Germany first, then Austria, had declared war on Russia; and he added,
A sentiment of patriotism, of love and loyalty to the Sovereign, swept like a hurricane from one end of Russia to the other, this being a full guarantee that Russia will win the contest which God marshalled her to.
I, like you and like all Russian citizens, contemplate the future with calm and resolve.
Not only do we in this fight defend our dignity and love of country but also our brothers of blood and religion, our Slav brothers. The bond between Slavs and Russians is far too strong for anyone to dissolve.
The Czar's words were received with fervid hurrahs.
The President of the Duma of St. Petersburg has sent the President of the French Chamber of Deputies the following telegram,
In the name of the Duma and in my own I am sending fraternal greetings to the French deputies and manifesting the belief that the French and Russian armies, seconded by the British, will not tarry in smashing the perturbers of the European peace and in setting the peoples on the road of peace and civilization once more.
Deschanel answered as follows,
Convey to the Duma the expression of the most profound gratitude of the French Chamber, which is equally persuaded that the victory shall go to the peoples who have taken the side of civilization and right.
St. Petersburg: The Czar was acclaimed by the Polish people to whom he promised the integral restoration of the Kingdom of Poland.
Berlin: Large-scale socialist disorders have broken out in Russia. Thousands of workers went out on the streets of Moscow, Kiev and Odessa clamouring for the social revolution.
The book published in Germany to explain the motives for the current war contains, among other documents, the following dispatches and letters exchanged between Emperor Wilhem of Germany and Czar Nicholas of Russia.
On July 28 the Kaiser telegraphed the Czar,
I have observed with great unease the alarming effects that the action adopted by Austria-Hungary against Serbia has produced in your Empire. The unscrupulous agitation which for years has stirred Serbia triggered the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The same spirit which moved the Serbians to murder their king and queen holds sway in Serbia still. Doubtless you will concur with me that both of us, you and I, and with us the rest of sovereigns, share a common interest that all those found responsible for such a horrible crime be duly punished.—Your devoted friend and cousin, Wilhem.
The Czar replied the next day (July 29),
I am glad to learn that you have returned to Germany at this time. I earnestly beseech you to help me. An ignominious war has been declared on a feeble state. The indignation in Russia is enormous and I fear that very soon I will not be able to withstand the pressure placed on me much longer, forcing me to adopt measures that would lead to war. To forestall a grave conflict in Europe I implore, in the name of our long-standing friendship, that you do your utmost to restrain your ally from going too far.—Nicholas.
At 6:30 PM that same day the Kaiser replied,
I have received your dispatch. I share your desire to maintain the peace, but I can not dub ignominious the war that Austria-Hungary has launched; for this nation knows from experience that Serbia's written promises are worthless. In my opinion the action of Austria-Hungary has for objective ensuring that Serbia's promises be for once kept. I have the assurances of the Austro-Hungarian cabinet that the conquest of Serbian territory is not their aim. I believe that this enables Russia to be a bystander in this war without setting off in Europe the most terrible conflagration ever seen. I believe that direct intelligence between your Government and Vienna's is possible and desirable, an intelligence which my Government would support with the utmost force. Naturally Russian military measures which could pose a threat to Austria-Hungary could also cause the disaster we want to avert, making vain the mission of go-between you entrust me with when you appeal to my frienship and solicit my assistance.—Wilhem.
The next day (July 30) the Kaiser telegraphed again at 1:00 PM,
My ambassador is the one who will show your government the perils and grave consequences of mobilization. As I said yesterday in my last telegram Austria-Hungary has mobilized part of its army solely against Serbia. If Russia now mobilizes against Austria-Hungary the mission you entrusted me with becomes very problematic, if not impossible, cramped with the difficulty of making decisions. The responsibility for whatever happens rests now on you: you will be responsible for the war or the peace.—Wilhem.
This dispatch crossed en route with this other one sent from St. Petersburg by the Czar at 1:20 PM,
I thank you cordially for your quick reply. Tonight I will send "Natschev" (?) with instructions. The current military measures were decided upon five days ago to offset Austrian deployments. I hope wholeheartedly that our measures will not impair your mission of mediation. We need you to exert pressure on Austria so Austria will talk to us.—Nicholas.
Shortly afterward the Czar sent this other message,
Once more I thank you for your mediation which makes me hope for a peaceful solution. It is technically impossible to halt our military preparations, the consequence of Austrian mobilization. My troops will not adopt a hostile attitude while negotiations with Vienna continue. I give you my solemn word. I trust in the grace of God and expect success from your mediation in Vienna for our good, for the good of our countrymen and for the European peace. Cordially and devotedly yours.—Nicholas.
The Kaiser replied swiftly,
While my mediation between your government and Vienna's proceeded, in deference to your desire, your troops mobilized against Austria-Hungary. This has made my intervention almost a mirage. You are still mobilizing. Presently I receive reliable news about belligerent preparations on my frontier. Responsibility for the security of my empire compels me to take defensive measures. I have reached the utmost limit of possibilities in my efforts to preserve the peace. Is is not I who bears responsibility for the misfortune menacing the civilized world. Even now you can still exorcize the danger. No one threatens the honour or the might of Russia, she should have waited for the result of my dealings. The oath of friendship toward you and toward your country that I swore on my grandfather's deathbed was always sacred to me and I was always faithful to Russia even in the most difficult circumstances, as in the last war. Presently only you can save the European peace by calling off the military preparations that threaten Germany and Austria-Hungary.—Wilhem.
El Correo de Galicia reproduces the August 16 report of La Correpondencia Gallega and adds that the Kaiser's last telegram above was transmitted at midnight on July 30. The Czar's reply was unsatisfactory. Then followed France's covert mobilization, the German ultimatum to the Governments of St. Petersburg and Paris and finally the declaration of war.
St. Petersburg: The Czar has resolved to rename the capital of Russia "Petrograd" effective today.
Petrograd: Czar Nicholas II will convene the Duma shortly to seek the backing of all political forces.
Petrograd: The Duma passed a bill forwarded by the Army's head of staff to create nine units and reorganize the field Artillery. The Duma approved an increase of three Corps and forty batteries of artillery for the European army. This year's War budget exceeds last year's by 240 million rubles.
Vienna: An American diplomat said that the behaviour of England and Japan against Germany has dropped like a bomb on the American people and has triggered a strong reaction of protest against England inciting the yellow race against the German Empire, ushering in the yellow peril. Washington will pry the appropriate consequences. The Wiener Fremden-Blatt says that with Japan's ultimatum to Germany, England has strongly braced Japan's position in the Far East, harming her own future interests, only to indulge her feelings of hatred and vengeance toward Germany. Out of this will arise serious complications in the future.
The chancellor of the Empire has delivered the following communiqué with the authorization and in the name of the Emperor to the representatives of the Offices of United Press and Associated Press:
General Headquarters, September 1914
I ignore what the American public thinks about this war, but I suppose that in the interim they will have received the news about the telegrams exchanged among H. M. the Emperor, the Czar and the King of England, which verify incontrovertibly before History that Wilhem II has done whatever was within his reach to preserve the peace until the last moment. All the efforts spent in this regard necessarily had to turn out sterile because Russia was determined to wage war and because England, which for over ten years had nourished anti-German nationalism in Russia and in France, let slip, to no avail, the magnificent opportunity she was offered of demonstrating her vaunted love of peace and thus avert war among Germany, England and France at least.
When the archives are opened the world will know how often Germany extended a hand of friendship to England.
It turned out, however, that England did not want Germany's friendship. Jealous of Germany's material progress and conscious that German activity and diligence were leaving her trailing in some branches of human knowledge, she pursued no other goal than to annihilate Germany by brute force as she had done with Spain, Holland and France back in the day. Believing that moment had arrived, she did not hesitate to take part in the current conflict on the pretext that German troops had invaded Belgian territory. Germany had to do this to forestall the French advance which was all Belgium awaited to link her Army with France's.
The following fact adduces that for England it was a mere pretext: on the afternoon of August 2, i.e., before the German violation of Belgium's neutrality, Sir Edward Grey promised England's unconditional assistance to the French ambassador if the German fleet were to attack the French coast. But since British policy has no moral scruples, the British people who pride themselves in being the bearers of liberty and right did not wait a moment to ally themselves with Russia the representative of the most terrible despotism, the country that knows not spiritual or religious freedom and tramps the liberty of peoples and individuals.
England is already starting to realize her error; Germany can vanquish her foes. For this reason she resorts to vile means to harm the Empire, at least in its trade and colonies, and without pondering the consequences her actions may have on the cultural unity of the white race, she eggs Japan on to storm the German colony of Kiautschou, incites the Negroes of Africa against the German possessions and unleashes a campaign of lies after jamming the Empire's information and news service everywhere. Doubtlessly she will have told her countrymen that German troops burned down Belgian hamlets and cities, but she will not have mentioned that many Belgians popped out the eyes of the wounded lying defenceless on the battlefield and that some Belgian bureucrats invited our officers to dine only to assassinate them at the moment of serving the meal.
Contravening the rights of peoples, the Belgian people were encouraged to harbour our troops with a show of sympathy and to gun them down at the opportune moment. Belgian women beheaded our soldiers boarding in their houses as they lay down to sleep.
Nor will England have mentioned the dumdum bullets British and French soldiers fire in contravention of all the Conventions and sentiments both countries brag about. You can see here the dumdum proyectiles in the original pouches seized from French and British prisoners of war.
His majesty the Emperor has authorized me to state all this and to declare that he harbours full confidence in the sentiment of justice of the American people who will not let themselves be duped by the campaign of untruths unleashed by our adversaries. Whoever has lived in Germany since the conflict broke out will have witnessed the great moral rise of the Germans who, besieged on all sides, remove to the battlefield happily in order to defend their right of existence, and the same witness would certify that this is a people unfit for the unwarranted cruelty or acts of vandalism it is impugned with. We will triumph thanks to the moral valour our just cause imbues the troops with, and not even the biggest fabrications will eclipse at length our victories and our right.
A Russian Duma deputy, recently back from Galicia, declares that Muscovite troops captured important heights four or five miles away from Przemyśl. The Austrians tried in vain to recover them.
Petrograd (Madrid, 2): The Russian Government ordered all its consuls to leave Turkey immediately. Italy will guarantee the protection of Russian residents.
Petrograd: Several Russian deputies of the Duma were thrown in jail. They are socialists and stand accused of high treason for having spoken publicly against the State.
Petrograd: The Russian people understood from the beginning of the war the necessity of defending the dignity and inviolability of their homeland and unanimously backed the authorities in the fulfillment of their duties. Some members of the socialist party adopted a particular attitude striving to rouse the army and agitating against the war, circulating illegal pamphlets and voicing active propaganda from the Rostrum.
The Government learned in October that a secret meeting of socialist deputies was being planned with the object of taking steps toward the disappearance of the Russian State and the success of their revolutionary schemes.
On November 17 the police raided a house on Wiborg Road twelve miles distant from Petrograd and discovered twelve individuals, among them Petrovsky, Badayev, Muranov, Samoilov and Shagov.1 Since there was no doubt they were there to conspire against the Government they were arrested except for the members of the Duma.
The Examining Magistrate for special cases began the investigations immediately. After reviewing the writings and documents seized, the magistrate decided to prosecute everyone found in the house for offences listed in article 102 of the Penal Code and ordered their detention and imprisonment (originally Gaceta de Constanza).
Petrograd: The Duma has initiated a new session. Sazonov the Foreign Minister delivered a speech on the international situation. He reminded his audience that Russia had to defend her right in the face of German aggression. He lauded the boundless valour of Allied troops resolutely marching to final victory. He deplored the falsehoods circulated by Germany regarding the origins of the war and her attempts to sow enmity between Russia and her neighbours and between Russia and the whole world. He congratulated himself on Germany's failure to divide the Allies, who pursue no other objective in this war than to smash German military power so Europe can enjoy a lasting peace. He minded Greco-Russian relations and added that Russo-Romanian ones are very cordial as demonstrated by the Russophile demonstrations of Bucharest ... He concluded praising the services rendered by the Governments of Spain, Italy and Sweden in the protection of Russian subjects.
Sazonov's speech was repeatedly applauded and crowned with a thunderous ovation at the end. The deputies stood up and cheered the Czar of Russia and the Allied nations.
The Swedish press is contrary to the Congress apparently being planned by individuals from the Russian Duma and the Swedish Chamber.
Petrograd: The Octobrist group in the Duma tabled a bill proposing to militarize all private factories immediately so as to expedite the delivery of military equipment.
Petrograd: On the first anniversary of the outbreak of war the Czar issued the order of the day for the Army and the Navy stating that despite their heroism in combat and the glory attained by Muscovite flags the enemy has not yet been defeated. "We must not lose hope that our armies will restore Russia's lost tranquility with their valour."
Petrograd: It is known that grave irregularities have been uncovered in the Russian Administration. Ten governors were sacked and several others transferred. A section of the members of the Duma directs serious crtiticism at General Sukhomlinov the former Minister of War. Revolutionary agitation is observed in some locations of the Empire.
Petrograd: The president of the Duma has declared that the deputies do not wish for peace. Russia has twelve million soldiers, he said, to fight to the finish.
Petrograd: The Duma has commissioned its president to remove to the war front and express the Chamber's loyalty to the Czar.
Petrograd: The members of the Duma have held a great assembly in Moscow. Moscow's mayor solicited a resumption of Duma business and the substitution of the National Cabinet by a Central Committee. The monarchist party issued a public manifesto stating that it considers continuing the war as was done in 1914 to be impossible. The situation is being conducted treacherously by the governors.
Petrograd: The metalworkers' strike which menaced a very serious conflict has been stood off due to the great military precautions adopted in the capital.
Petrograd: In the Imperial Duma's debate on income tax Skobelev the deputy attacked the Government for having disrupted the country during the war.
The Government lacks credit at home and abroad, he said. The whole science of the Ministry of Revenue is the printing of banknotes; such a policy discredits the currency. Reforms were introduced for Poland after the enemy had fully occupied the ancient Kingdom; Poland's independence was proclaimed after only Polish members of the Duma and of the Imperial Council, out of the entire Polish population, remained subject to the skeptical Czar's orders. The Jews obtained freedom of movement only after large masses had fled the country.
In the course of his speech Skobelev spoke of saboteurs, thieves and traitors. Finally he was deprived of the right to speak.
Petrograd: Kerensky the member of the Russian Imperial Duma has raised an interpellation to the Government concerning the numerous arrests of Polish nationals who crowd prisons in their hundreds. The majority are children fourteen to seventeen years old. The authorities do not specify the charges laid against them and the prisoners have not made a declaration since the month of April.
The deputy Rodichev (liberal) said the following:
Now that the unity and harmony of all Russian branches is needed to obtain victory, the Government does precisely the opposite, persists in its policy of violence, declares the independence of Poland but at the same time directs the Polish secret police to carry out arrests of hundreds of Polish children. We need a Government whose actions do not contradict its words.
(Originally Politiken).
Petrograd: The newspaper Rech 1 paints the situation in the capital of Russia (where hunger rules) in the following terms:
An anguished murmur is conspicuous on the streets; not shouting or rowdy complaints; more portentous, stifled murmuring. The fate of the bills in the Duma of Moscow is no longer discussed nor is it a matter of concern whether or when the Duma will sit again nor what measures will be adopted in the event; all this is secondary.
The news rush headlong with such violence that whatever holds interest today is forgotten tomorrow, having been surmounted by graver news. Life dashes on with the speed of a lightning bolt and people can not keep pace with events.
Strolling the streets of the capital one gets the impression that a momentous shift has occurred recently. Since when were street meetings allowed in St. Petersburg [sic] before? It was not the custom, but today they happen daily. Even on Nevsky Prospect the groups of the discontented mill about.
Last week there were still squads of fugitives standing out displeasingly on onetime peaceful Nevsky Prospect. Today the squads of fugitives are gone from the main streets of St. Petersburg, but other types and figures have taken over, who before were seen everywhere except there, and they hold meetings.
These new masses of people who invade the capital today, to its very heart, are composed of men and women, seniors, adolescents and children. They are all impelled by hunger, suffer the expensive cost of a meal and wait for a chance to visit the shops where a pound of sugar, tea or other victuals are sold.
The scarcer that foodstuffs become in St. Petersburg and the direr the spectre of hunger that stalks street corners becomes, the more terrible will be the stifled indignation that commands immediate relief: the delivery of food.
These absorbed men who hour after hour huddle together in rings, doing nothing, engross themselves with their precarious fate. Their attitude becomes progressively ominous, and therein lies the danger for the State.
Unfortunately the remedy is far, very far from arriving. The terrible crisis of nourishment that reigns in many towns and in the capital is the consequence of an unbelievable lack of organization. For four straight months we heard much counsel on procuring ammunitions for the war and foodstuffs for the people. The people wait with baited breath for the "new regime" that will release them from their ills.
Only in regard to the supply of ammunitions has there been some improvement, but with respect to all the other problems the same path is treaded, the indispensable conditions for a normal life do not appear and everything remains as it was four months ago.
Nay, the situation worsens steadily and the sights one sees on Nevsky Prospect are the harbingers of a revolutionary storm, for which one must stand at the ready.
A Russian socialist publishes the following article in the newspaper Stormklockan the organ of the Swedish socialists:
The socialist deputy Chkheidze, speaking in the name of his faction during the first session of the Duma after the war's outbreak, said for the record that the Russian working class had since the start of the war been manhandled by the terror like never before.
Thousands of workers were jailed and sent to Siberia during the first months of the war.
On the anniversary of the Lena Massacre in April a great strike took place under the menacing slogan, "Civil war is the battle cry of the socialist revolutionaries at this historical juncture." The result was the detention of four hundred workers.
On May First thirty-five thousand workers went on strike in Petersburg [sic] shouting, "Down with the war! Down with the autocracy! Long live the Russian Revolution!" On this occasion three hundred workers were detained.
In June there was a new strike involving fifteen thousand metalworkers who resorted to large-scale sabotage. Four hundred were arrested, of whom a hundred and fifty were jailed and exiled to Siberia and another fifty were sent to the front by force.
Meanwhile strikes were also occurring in several capitals of the interior. There were bloody clashes in Moscow, twenty workers succumbed. The clashes in Kostroma the center of the textile industry were even worse, sixty workers perished; that strike had been called solely for economic reasons.
Toward the end of July a hundred workers died in another strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. A strike was organized in Petersburg [sic] to protest the vicious deportment of the police, fifty thousand workers took part.
These transgressions by the police triggered a monster demonstration of a hundred and fifty thousand workers in Petersburg. The operators of Putilov Works the most important manufacturer of ammunitions marched singing revolutionary anthems and waving red flags. The police did not dare to intervene. Martial law was declared, and the workers were threatened with the application of military sanctions if they did not return to work promptly. In response the workers opted to down tools one more day and when Moscow workers got wind of that monster strike they decided to do common cause with their comrades of Petersburg.
During three days there were no trams running or newspapers printed in Moscow. The Governor and the prefect of Police were summoned to Petersburg for instructions. They returned with the directive to not tolerate any alteration of the public order. Consequently the strike continued in perfect orderliness.
The strike spread from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod where twenty-five thousand workers ceased work for one full day, and from there it moved on to Kharkov.
New strikes are expected shortly in the interior of the Empire.
All those strike movements demonstrate that the working class is getting ready for the decisive revolutionary one which can not tarry much longer.
Revolution is the idea that focuses the sentiment of Russian socialists. They do not care if German armies defeat Russia because they know from experience that czarism is their biggest enemy, and this enemy will be easier to topple the more blows the Czarist regime receives from German troops.
Petrograd (30): The Interior Minister denied that other Russian ministers had made statements with pacifist tendencies. "There is no motive at all for Russia to seek peace independently of her allies," he said. "Both the Government and the Czar are determined to continue the war until final victory."
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