straightaway FOREWORD TO G. ZINOVIEV'S ARTICLE. September 21. 1919.
straightaway ON THE KRONSTADT REVOLT. March 15, 1921.
straightaway TO A. S. KISELYOV. September 15, 1921.
straightaway ON THE QUESTION OF STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR. February 4, 1922.
straightaway ADDITION TO THE LETTER OF DECEMBER 24, 1922. January 3, 1923.
straightaway News from Galiciana: APRIL-SEPTEMBER 1923.
1. MORE ZEAL THAN SENSE.
(Written before Old Style November 26, 1912. First published in 1954)
Everyone has his own worries: the proletariat sees the need for peace, and the capitalists look to the "patriotic" examples provided by the Balkan War. To each his own. The workers insist that a Balkan revolution would have cost a hundred times less in terms of human life than the Balkan War and would have produced a democratic outcome a thousand times broader and more stable.
The capitalists (from the "Rights" and the liberals all the way up to our Progressists and Cadets) are straining to prove that whereas the banded capitalists in the Balkans have pocketed so much, an entente of banded capitalists from Britain, France and Russia could have made off with a lot more.
An American "patriot" (patriot of the money-bag) found out that some vessels of the Greek Navy were built by Greek millionaire magnates at their own expense [photograph of the Georgios Averoff to the left].1
This American Guchkov or Maklakov hastened to advertise and play up the grand patriotic example in every way.2
He wrote,
Now if only our country's shores and all our overseas trade were protected by giant dreadnoughts called Morgan, Astor, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller! With such an example before them, the people would grumble less about the concentration of capital in the hands of billionaires and about the unequal distribution of wealth!
Patriotic but impractical, say the American workers laughing. Gentlemen, go ahead with your splendid scheme, we're all for it. Until now the Rockefellers, Morgans, etc., over here in America were hiring private detachments of armed men to protect their property and confront strikers.3 Let the billionaires now show the people clearly that the "external" defence of the "state" is defence of the monopolies and profits of trust owners! Let's see what lesson American workers would learn contemplating these super-dreadnoughts named Morgan, Rockefeller, etc. Would they respond with patriotic emotion or socialist convictions? Would they become more servile to the capitalists or would they demand more resolutely that all trusts (manufacturers' associations) with their properties devolve to the workers, to society as a whole?
The American "patriot" has overdone it...
1some ships of the Greek Navy were built by Greek millionaire magnates at their own expense - For example the armoured cruiser Georgios Averof named after the Greek magnate and philanthropist, George Averoff (1815–1899). The photograph of the warship accompanying this article comes from this webpage.
2This American Guchkov or Maklakov - Guchkov (1862–1936) was the Chairman of the Third Duma and the Minister of War in the Provisional Government. Maklakov (1869–1957) was a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Cadets).
3were hiring private detachments of armed men to protect their property and confront strikers - Germane clip of the 1978 American movie, F.I.S.T.
November of last year (1912) marked twenty-five years since the death of Eugene Pottier the French worker-poet and author of the famous proletarian song, the Internationale [French language, Pottier's lyrics].
This song ("Arise ye starvelings from your slumbers," etc.) has been translated into all European and other languages. In whatever country a class-conscious worker finds himself, wherever fate may have cast him, however much he may feel like a stranger for not knowing the language, without friends, far from his homeland, he can find comrades and friends with the familiar strains of the Internationale [North Korea, instrumental]. The workers of the world adopted the song of their foremost fighter, the proletarian poet, and made it the universal song of the proletariat. This is how they honour the memory of Eugene Pottier today.
Pottier was born in Paris on October 4, 1816. He was born into a poor family and stayed poor all his life, a proletarian earning his bread first as a packer, then tracing patterns on fabrics. His wife and daughter are still alive and living in poverty as did the author of the Internationale [Russian language] all his life.
He was fourteen years old when he composed his first song, Long Live Liberty! From 1840 onward he reacted to all great events in the life of France with the writing of militant songs, awakening the consciousness of the backward, calling on workers to unite, castigating the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois governments of France.
In 1848 he was a fighter on the barricades in the workers' great battle against the bourgeoisie.
During the days of the great Paris Commune (1871) Pottier was elected councillor with 3,352 out of 3,600 votes cast. He took part in all the activities of the Commune, that first proletarian government. The fall of the Commune forced him to flee to England and then to America.
His famous song, the Internationale [China, instrumental], was written in July 1871 (you might say the "day after" the bloody defeat of May). The Commune was crushed but Pottier's Internationale [Spanish language] spread its ideas throughout the world and it is now more alive than ever before.
During his American exile Pottier wrote in 1876 a poem entitled, The Workingmen of America to the Workingmen of France, in which he described the life of workers beneath the yoke of capitalism, their poverty, back-breaking toil, exploitation, yet their firm confidence in the approaching victory of their cause.
Pottier returned to France nine years after the Commune and at once joined the Workers' Party.
The first volume of his verse was published in 1884. The second volume, Revolutionary Songs, came out in 1887. A number of other songs by the worker-poet were published after his death.
On November 8, 1887, Parisian workers carried the remains of Eugene Pottier to the Père Lachaise Cemetery where the executed Communards are buried. The police set on the crowd savagely in an effort to snatch the red banner. A vast crowd attended the civic funeral. There were shouts of "Long live Pottier!"on all sides.
Pottier died in poverty. But he left a memorial which is truly more enduring than the handiwork of man. He was one of the greatest propagandist songwriters. When he was composing his first song, the number of socialist workers ran to tens at most. Today Eugene Pottier's historic song is known to tens of millions of proletarians.1
1 The image of Eugene Pottier accompanying this article comes from this webpage and the photograph of his tomb from this one.
Entre nous: if they do me in, I ask you to publish my notebook: "Marxism on the State" (it got left behind in Stockholm).1
It's bound in a blue cover. It contains a collection of all the quotations from Marx and Engels, likewise from Kautsky against Pannekoek. There are a number of remarks, notes and formulations. I think it could be published after a week's work. I believe it to be important because not only Plekhanov but also Kautsky have bungled things.
The condition: all this is absolutely entre nous!
1 Lenin's work, Marxism on the State, was written in Zurich in January-February 1917. It contains all the principal statements by Marx and Engels on the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat, extracts from books and articles by Kautsky, Pannekoek and Bernstein, with remarks, additions, generalizations and conclusions by Lenin. When setting out from Switzerland to Russia in April 1917, Lenin left it along with other stuff for safekeeping abroad. While Lenin was in hiding at Razliv Station after the events of July 1917, he asked for his notes and used them to prepare his book, The State and Revolution.
4. SPEECHES AT A MEETING OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE.
(Old Style November 29, 1917. First published in 1929)
MINUTES
[...]
Under discussion an application by A. I. Rykov, L. B. Kamenev, V. P. Milyutin and V. P. Nogin for readmission to the Central Committee.
Comrade Lenin reads a rough draft of his reply to this application,1,2 pointing out that the statement of the four shows clearly their complete disagreement with us since they consider that the Central Committee has made concessions. Lenin makes the concrete proposal that the four should be required to state in writing where they want their letter to go, i.e., whether they want it printed in the press. For our part we do not intend to send it to the press but reply to them in writing that we are not taking them back.
1 A reference to the treacherous behaviour of Kamenev, Rykov, Milyutin and Nogin who abandoned their leading posts at the most crucial period of the revolution, the emergence of the Soviet power. By violating Party discipline they thwarted the will and decisions of the Second Congress of Soviets, subverting the newly gained dictatorship of the proletariat and the poor peasants.
On October 29 (November 11), 1917, the Socialist-Revolutionary/Menshevik All-Russia Executive Committee of the Railwaymen's Union, a centre of anti-Soviet activity, passed a resolution on the need of forming a government from all "socialist" parties, and negotiations were started on the question between it and the Bolshevik Central Committee that same day. In its resolution the Central Committee pointed out that the conciliator parties conducted negotiations with the aim of subverting the Soviet government and that in view of this the Central Committee permitted the Bolsheviks' delegates to take part in the talks for the sole purpose of showing up the unsolvency of the policy of setting up a coalition government, and thus putting an end to the talks, but Kamenev and Sokolnikov behaved treacherously, accepted the demand for a "socialist" government formed of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks alongside the Bolsheviks. This conciliatory policy was supported by Nogin, Milyutin and Rykov.
On November 2 (15) the Bolshevik Central Committee adopted Lenin's resolution on the question of the opposition within the Central Committee, urging all sceptics and waverers to cast off their hesitation and support the Soviet Government. On November 3 (16), on Lenin's initiative, the Central Committee majority presented the minority with an ultimatum demanding that they submit completely to Central Committee decisions and policy and halt their subversive and dismantling activity. It stated that any attempt to force the Party to give up the power granted by millions of workers, soldiers and peasants at the All-Russia Congress of Soviets constituted a betrayal of the proletarian cause. The minority retaliated by presenting their resignation from their responsible posts.
On November 4 (17) Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and Milyutin announced their resignation from the Central Committee.
There is no record of their applying for a return to the Central Committee or of Lenin's draft reply. The Central Committee adopted Lenin's reply and assigned a three-man committee of Central Committee members [probably Sokolnikov, Stalin and Trotsky] to redact and publish it in the event that the four men demanded the publication of their letter.
2 The Socialist-Revolutionary/Menshevik All-Russia Executive Committee of the Railwaymen's Union had organized a country-wide railway strike between September 24-26, 1917. Employees demanded pay increases, an 8-hour workday and better food supplies. On September 27 Stalin extolled the strike and the Union in Rabochy Put, 21, with these glowing words,
The grandly conceived and magnificently organized railway strike is apparently coming to an end. The victory is with the railwaymen because it is self-evident that the puny coalition of the Kornilov-defencist camp is incapable of withstanding the mighty onslaught of the entire democracy of the country.
(J. V. Stalin. Works, 3, in The Railway Strike and the Democratic Bankrupts, p. 336)
One month later the victorious Bolsheviks styled the Railwaymen's Union "a centre of anti-Soviet activity" and of course repressed it.
5. TELEGRAM TO THE PENZA GUBERNIA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
(August 12, 1918. First published in 1924)
August 12, 1918
Bosch, Gubernia Executive Committee, Penza
Telegram received. Extremely surprised at the absence of information on the course and outcome of the suppression of the kulak uprising in the five volosts.
I do not want to think that you displayed tardiness or weakness in crushing it or in the model confiscation of the entire property of the rebel kulaks, particularly their grain.
6. RADIOGRAM FROM MOSCOW TO ONE AND ALL.
(Written on November 10, 1918. First published in 1927)
To all frontier Soviets
According to the latest information German soldiers have arrested a delegation of German generals on their way to negotiate an armistice. The German soldiers entered into direct negotiations with French soldiers.
Kaiser Wilhelm has abdicated. Chancellor Prince of Baden has resigned. The new Chancellor is to be Ebert the governmental Social-Democrat.
A general strike has swept all the major cities of Southern Germany. The whole German Navy sides with the revolution. All German ports in the North Sea and the Baltic are in the hands of the revolutionary Navy.
We have received from the Kiel Council of Soldiers' Deputies a radio message addressed to the international proletariat stating that the German Navy is flying the red flag and that funeral services are to be held today for those who fell fighting for liberty.1
All this will very probably be concealed from German soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front or in the Ukraine.
Bring these facts to the knowledge of German soldiers by all the means at your disposal.
Chicherin People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Lenin Chairman, Council of People's Commissars
Moscow By radio
1 The photograph of the German Navy revolt at Kiel comes from this webpage.
7. TELEGRAM TO THE KURSK EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.
(January 6, 1919. Published on January 11, 1919, in the Kurchan newspaper Volna)
Kursk Cheka
Immediately arrest Kogan, a member of the Kursk Central Purchasing Board, for refusing to help a hundred and twenty starving workers from Moscow and sending them away empty-handed.
This is to be published in the newspapers and by leaflet so that all employees of the central purchasing boards and food organizations learn that formal and bureaucratic attitudes to work and an incapacity to help starving workers will earn severe reprisals, up to and including shooting.
8. TO E. M. SKLYANSKY.
(Written on April 24, 1919. First published in 1925)
A fierce telegram must be sent off today, over your signature and mine, both to the General Staff and to the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front binding them to develop the maximum energy and speed in capturing Vilnius.1
1 Ephraim Markovich Sklyansky (1892–1925) was a founder of the Red Army, associate of Leon Trotsky and a major contributor to the Communist victory in the Russian Civil War. His death by drowning during a visit to the U.S.A. triggered enduring speculation that he may have been murdered. Full Wikipedia biography here.
9. TELEGRAM TO L. B. KAMENEV.
(Written on May 7, 1919. First published in 1925)
Rakovsky, Chairman, Council of People's Commissars
Kiev, for Kamenev
Absolutely essential that you personally, taking Joffe along to help you if necessary, should not only verify and expedite but personally bring up the reinforcements to Lugansk and the Donets Basin generally. Otherwise the disaster will undoubtedly be tremendous and hardly remediable.
If you need a mandate, take one from the Kiev Council of Defence.
We shall undoubtedly perish unless we clear the Donets Basin completely in a short time.
Provisionally we must be diplomatic with Makhno's troops by sending Antonov there in person and making him personally responsible for Makhno's troops until Rostov has been taken.1,2
Telegraph detailed reply.
Lenin
1 "Provisionally" is the key word of the paragraph.
2 L. B. Kamenev was then the representative of the Council of Defence in the Southern Front. Lenin sent the telegram in connection with the news that Lugansk had been taken by the whiteguards on May 4, 1919.
10. TO V. A. AVANESOV.
(Written on May 20, 1919. First published in 1956)
Avanesov (at the State Control Commission) to arrest the official who replied thus.1
Lenin
May 20
1 A note written by Lenin in connection with the following fact. The Office of the Executive Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars had received complaints from peasants F. Romanov (Yaroslavl Gubernia) and I. Kalinin (Moscow Gubernia) stating that the local authorities had wrongfully confiscated horses. The complaints
were sent to a special commission dealing with such cases and returned to the Council of People's Commissars with the remark, "Too busy to deal with such trifles," which so outraged Lenin.
11. FOREWORD TO G. ZINOVIEV'S ARTICLE "ON THE NUMERICAL COMPOSITION OF OUR PARTY."
(September 21, 1919. Pravda, 210)
Comrade Zinoviev has sent me this article with the request that I send it on to the Moscow press.
I fulfil his request with great pleasure. The article deserves, in my opinion, to be reprinted in all the newspapers. All Party comrades ought to read it and start purging the Party of "hangers-on" everywhere, following the example of Petrograd, and at the same time inducting all the best elements from the mass of workers and peasants into the Party.1,2
N. Lenin
1 This is how L. D. Trotsky described the duo Zinoviev-Kamenev,
Zinoviev and Kamenev were two profoundly different types. Zinoviev was an agitator, Kamenev a propagandist. Zinoviev was guided mainly by subtle political instinct whereas Kamenev reasoned and analyzed. Zinoviev was always prone to fly off at some tangent, Kamenev erred on the side of caution. Zinoviev was entirely absorbed by politics without other interests or appetites, Kamenev had a sybarite and an aesthete within. Zinoviev was vindictive, Kamenev bonhomie personified. I ignore what their relationship abroad was like. In 1917 they were brought close together by their opposition to the October Revolution. In the first few years after the victory, Kamenev's attitude toward Zinoviev was rather ironical. They were subsequently drawn together by their opposition to me and later to Stalin. They marched side by side in the final thirteen years of their lives and their names were always mentioned together.
Beyond personality differences and a common schooling abroad under Lenin's guidance, they were endowed with a nearly identical range of intellect and will. Kamenev's analytical capacity served to complement Zinoviev's instinct; they would craft a joint outlook together. The warier Kamenev would sometimes let Zinoviev tow him past his caution, but in the long run they ended up side by side on the same line of retreat. They were peers in the stature of their personality and complemented one another. Both were deeply and unreservedly devoted to the cause of socialism. Such is the explanation for their tragic union.
They Lacked Sufficient Character
No reason impels me to assume any political or moral responsibility for Zinoviev and Kamenev. They were always my bitter adversaries except for a brief lull from 1926 to 1927. Personally I did not much trust them. Both were Stalin's intellectual superiors, certainly, but they lacked sufficient character. Lenin had this trait precisely in mind when he wrote in his "Testament" that it was "no accident" that Zinoviev and Kamenev had opposed the insurrection in the autumn of 1917; they had caved in to bourgeois public opinion. When profound social changes combined with the creation of a privileged bureaucracy began to crystalize in the Soviet Union, it was "no accident" that Zinoviev and Kamenev let themselves be carried away into the Thermidor camp (1922-1926).
They far surpassed their erstwhile allies in the theoretical understanding of current events, hence their attempt to break with the bureaucracy and to oppose it. At the Plenum of the Central Committee of July 1926 Zinoviev declared that "Trotsky was right on the question of apparatus-bureaucratic repression, we were not." He also acknowledged that his opposition to me had been an even "more dangerous" mistake than his mistake of 1917! But the pressure brought to bear knew no bounds and it was "no accident" that Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated to Stalin at the end of 1927, taking the younger and less learned comrades with them. Thereafter they spent no small effort in blackening the Opposition.
In 1930-1932 the country was convulsed by the frightful consequences of forced and unbridled collectivization. Zinoviev and Kamenev lifted their heads anxiously like so many other capitulators and began to debate in whispers the dangers of the new State policy. They were caught reading a critical document of the Right Opposition. For this terrible crime they were expelled from the Party—no other charge was laid against them!—and to top it off they were exiled.
In 1933 Zinoviev and Kamenev recanted once more and prostrated themselves before Stalin. No slander was too vile for them to cast at the Opposition and especially at me. Their surrender left them completely helpless, the bureaucracy could now demand any confession whatsoever from them. Their subsequent fate was a result of these progressive capitulations and self-abasements.
They Succumbed to Unprecedented Pressure
Yes, they lacked sufficient character. These words, however, should not be taken in their simplest sense. The mechanical resistance of a material is measured by the force required to deform it. I have heard smug petty bourgeoisie tell me in the days between the start of my trial and my internment: "It's impossible to understand Zinoviev ... He is so lacking in character!" And I would reply: "Have you yourselves experienced the full weight of the pressure he has been subjected to for a number of years?"
(Leon Trotsky, 1937: "Zinoviev and Kamenev". Leon Trotsky Internet Archive [www.marxists.org] 2008)
2 The photograph of G. E. Zinoviev (left) and L. B. Kamenev (right) in 1925 comes from this webpage and was colorized wih Lunapic.
12. ON THE KRONSTADT REVOLT.
(March 15, 1921. The New York Herald Tribune, 197)
SUMMARY OF A TALK WITH A CORRESPONDENT of THE NEW YORK HERALD
I believe that there are only two kinds of government possible for Russia, a Government of the Soviets or a Government headed by a tsar.
Some fools or traitors in Kronstadt talked about a Constituent Assembly, but does any man in his senses believe for a moment that a Constituent Assembly at this critical abnormal stage would be anything but a bear garden?
This Kronstadt affair is in itself a very petty incident. It no more threatens to break up the Soviet state than the Irish disorders are threatening to break up the British Empire.
Some people in America have come to think of the Bolsheviks as a small clique of evil men tyrannizing over a vast number of highly intelligent people who would establish an admirable Government the moment the Bolshevik regime were overthrown. This is a mistake for there is nobody to take our place save butcher Generals and helpless bureaucrats who have already displayed their total incapacity to rule.
If people abroad exaggerate the importance of the Kronstadt revolt and lend it their support it's because the world has split in two camps: capitalism abroad and Communist Russia.1
1 The photograph of Krondstat sailors during the revolt of 1921 comes from this webpage.
13. TO A. S. KISELYOV.1
(Written on September 15, 1921. First published in 1928)
Comrade Kiselyov, Chairman of the Narrow Council Copies to Comrades Bogdanov, Unshlikht, Avanesov and Kursky
I draw your attention to the note by Mikhels in Izvestia, No. 203, of September 13.1
The author writes that 2.5 million poods of most valuable metal shipments have been stored away since 1918 in what is almost a swamp, unregistered and unguarded, and are being pilfered and ruined.
I ask you to check urgently whether that is true.
If it is, take all the necessary steps immediately to register, preserve, etc., this property and to bring those responsible most strictly to book.
Give me a detailed written report pointing out the names and posts of the persons guilty of this scandal, and communicate it to the Council of Labour and Defence.
I ask you to do all this with the utmost urgency.
V. Ulyanov (Lenin) Chairman, Council of People's Commissars
1V. A. Mikhels — a journalist who wrote the item pointing to the crying disorder at the warehouses of Lizino Station on the Moscow-Kazan Railway, where 2.5 million poods of metal, costly machines, equipment and tools had not been inventoried and were left lying outdoors. P. A. Bogdanov the Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council sent Lenin (in reply to his letter of September 15) a report from I. K. Yezhov the chief of the State Warehouse Administration who complained about a shortage of warehouse space, multiplicity of authority and a tussle for warehouse space among various departments.
14. ON THE QUESTION OF STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR.
(February 4, 1922. First published in 1929)
TO COMRADES BUKHARIN, ZINOVIEV AND MOLOTOV (FOR MEMBERS OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU)
On the subject of yesterday's report from Hanover stating that the International Federation of Metalworkers raised the question of a struggle against war and adopted a resolution to respond to war with a strike,1 I suggest the following:
1. That a number of articles be printed in Pravda and Izvestia reminding readers about the fate of the Basle Manifesto and giving a detailed explanation of all the childishness or all the social-treachery presently being reproduced by the metalworkers.
2. That at the next enlarged meeting of the Executive Committee of the Comintern there the question of a struggle against war be put on the agenda and circumstantial resolutions be passed explaining that only a ready and experienced revolutionary party with an efficient illegal machinery can wage a struggle against war successfully and that the means of struggle is not a strike but the nestling in the warring armies of revolutionary groups that can carry out a revolution.
February 4, 1922
Lenin
1has adopted a resolution to respond to war with a strike - Lenin wrote this note in response to the following telegram published in Pravda and Izvestia, February 3, 1922,
Hanover, January 31 (Radio). The International Metalworkers' Federation has proposed to the commission for the convocation of an International Workers' Congress due to open in Rome on April 21st that a general strike of unionized workers should be called in the event of an outbreak of war. The Metalworkers' Federation has designated a special commission for the vigorous propaganda of this proposal.
The International Metalworkers' Federation was affiliated with the reformist Amsterdam International of Trade Unions (1919-1945).
15. ADDITION TO THE LETTER OF DECEMBER 24, 1922.
(January 4, 1923. First published in 1945)
Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.
This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it's not a detail or it's a detail that can assume decisive importance.
Lenin
Taken down by L. F.1 January 4, 1923
1Taken down by L. F. - Lydia Fotieva (1881-1975), Lenin's senior secretary.
Left: Nochlezhka.
Right: From left to right: Sen. Burton K. Wheeler (Montana), Sen. Edwin F. Ladd (North Dakota), Budyonny, Sen. Kenneth D. McKellar (Tennessee), Kalinin. Two others (behind and rightmost) unidentified.
Source: Project "History of Russia in Photographs" webpage. Both photographs were colorized with Lunapic
Sunday April 1, 1923. Progreso, diario independiente (Pontevedra), page 3.
Bern, 31: According to news of Polish origin, the Soviets have commuted to ten years in prison the death sentence imposed on Mons. Cieplak the Catholic Archbishop of Petrograd, but the death penalty imposed on Bishop Mons. Bukiewitz seems final.
Thursday April 5, 1923. Galicia, diario de Vigo, page 6.
London: The British Naval Secretary, upon learning that a British sailor is in custody aboard a Russian gunboat, has disposed that a cruiser of the Royal Fleet sail to Russia with the mission of protecting the life of the British subject.
Thursday April 5, 1923. El Diario de Pontevedra, page 1.
IN RED RUSSIA TERROR'S DEBACLE
Lenin is no longer the referee of Russia's destiny; for some time his acolytes have not veiled the fact that the Red tyrant would shortly depart the political scene due to his infirmities. The Council of People's Commissars has just made the chairman's resignation public with an official communiqué that simultaneously appoints Mr. Kamenev (whose real name is Rosenfeld) president of that council.
According to a telegram from Moscow the supreme authority of Soviet Russia now rests with a triumvirate made up of Kamenev, Rykov and Stalin. In one of our previous letters we recounted the character traits of the three. Kamenev and Rykov represent Lenin's moderate leaning whereas the Georgian represents the left wing, he is a friend of Bukharin and Dzerzhinsky the head of the Cheka, i.e., a fanatic adherent of implacable dictatorship and terror.
Will these three men be of one accord for long?
The fact that Kamenev, the most moderate of the Red dictators, has been given the supreme post of the Soviet Republic is very interesting. Trotsky and Zinoviev, the most oustanding figures of Bolshevism after Lenin, have been eclipsed. In the first place because of the antipathy their unrestrained despotism stirred in many of their admirers, and in second place, for belonging to the faction that learned nothing from the communist experiments and persist in absolute obduracy. As Lenin once remarked, they remind one of parrots which after learning to say, "What fine weather!" keep repeating the phrase even when it's raining cats and dogs.
Lenin understands, like Kamenev and Rykov, that the Red dictatorship foundered in a lamentable fashion. The grandiose reforms which the Communsts pretended to amaze the world with yielded absolute ruin, plunged the country in a state of misery unbeknown to History.
Lenin himself acknowledged this publicly in recent articles when making a balance of the work done. Despite having inflicted cruel terror the Bolsheviks were not able with their doctrines to attract the peasant masses, among whom the hostility toward the communist regime rises day by day. In a country where peasants make up 85% of the population that attitude portends a death verdict for communist ideas. The working class, in whose name the destruction was wrought, is also unhappy. Starving, recast as slaves without rights, the workers curse communism and dream only of a return of former owners to the factories. As regards intellectuals, reduced in a great proportion to begging, they are genuine pariahs cruelly persecuted by the Red dictators.
Production is completely ruined. A huge number of factories had to shut down and the ones still functioning produce only 7% of their pre-war output. Famine still wreaks havoc in the population. Epidemics become more frequent by the day and the lack of doctors and medicines is almost total. The health of state revenues is wretched. One million rubles are currently worth less than one pre-war ruble. Schools lie vacant due to the dearth of teachers, textbooks, paper, etc.
Such is the balance of the communist experiment: absolute ruin. Lenin frankly acknowledged in the last days of his political career the incapacity of his party to work constructively. To salvage the situation he proclaimed the need of steering the State flagship onto another course of action, and the so-called "new economic policy" was launched. This one consists in the complete renunciation of the communist creed. The nationalization of land and estates, the workers' inspection in factories, the election of Army commanders by soldiers, and all other reforms of a similar nature, were annulled and a new era proclaimed: state capitalism, a front for the return to capitalism pure and simple. Doors were thrown wide open to former capitalists and parvenus. A new bourgeoisie arose, far more rapacious, covetous and cynical than the old one.
Meanwhile the Bukharins and Trotskys keep stammering the communist ABC, not from conviction but from fear of losing their high rank if the new trends are given free rein. They understand that capitalism and economic development are not compatible with Red despotism.
The appointment of Kamenev as Lenin's successor evinces the victory of the more reasonable and moderate elements. Bolshevism is evolving and gradually forswears itself until only its name survives. The bourgeoisie settle in Russia on a sure footing, and on some morrow, perhaps not distant, will be the true lord of the country and with a kick demolish all the figurines and charlatans of the bankrupt and thousandfold baleful system of government by cannonade.
N. Tasin.1
1 Wordplay. Lenin sometimes signed, N. Lenin. Here the author signs, N. Tasin, derived from the Argentinian Araujia sericifera plant known as "Tasi". Presumably the Spanish columnist assumed that Ulyanov's pseudonym was derived from the Lena River.
Friday April 6, 1923. El Correo Gallego, decano de la prensa provincial (Ferrol), page 1.
WHILING AWAY THE TIME LETTER TO A RUSSIAN SOVIET SUPPORTER (EXCERPT)
Verily I don't know what you want or where you are heading. You have starved a portion of your country to death, and shot the other. You must therefore be having a roomier and more comfortable lifestyle. Your funds are allocated to two main tasks: provisioning the Red Army and the dissemination of propaganda abroad. As regards the latter the last case known—it's not germane to discuss underground work and agitation—is the shipment of 8,000 tonnes of cereals to the Ruhr despite having admitted that there are more than five million starving people in one region of Russia alone.
On the other hand I don't understand your policy of blind slaughter. Right now you are prosecuting several prelates and priests, you sentence almost all to death, you shoot a Bishop for appetizer, and you are set to shoot the others. Meanwhile the Pope unstintingly begins and with his sublime spirit of charity leads a collection of funds to assist Russian children dying of hunger, subrogating your ineludible duties of assisting whom you have directly or indirectly made orphans—indubitably shoes too big for you to fill.
Tell me, my friend, what you propose to do for I don't understand. The communist essay foundered tragically. Your propaganda abroad merely serves to feed freeloaders and adventurers. Where are you heading to, then? I know not and I suspect neither do you, although you may pretend to tell me otherwise.
Wednesday April 11, 1923. El Diario de Pontevedra, decano de la prensa de esta capital, page 1.
The religious persecution has intensified terribly in all of Russia.
The Soviet of "Niecolaievak" (?) has decreed that Monday will henceforth be the weekly day of rest instead of Sunday, and the priests will not be allowed to officiate in the churches on the Sunday.
Young Communists [Komsomol] set fire to a church in the commune of "Vagovaulensk" (?).
Numerous anti-religious rallies are held in the district of Moscow.
The convents of Alatyr were confiscated. Nuns and anchoresses must return to civilian life.
The Communists of the Don Cossacks Region send the church bells to foundries.
According to reports from Constantinople the Communists of Odessa created a committee for liquidating churches following orders from the Soviet Central Committee.
Friday April 13, 1923. La Zarpa, diario de los agrarios gallegos (Ourense), page 2.
Berlin: The number of persons executed in Petrograd during the past months of January and February totals two hundred and twelve. This is the official datum of the political department of the Russian capital.
Saturday April 21, 1923. La Zarpa, page 2.
The Revolutionary Tribunal of Petrograd sentenced five officers of the General Staff of the Red Army to death on a charge of espionage. The accused were executed on Tuesday.
Tuesday April 24, 1923. La Integridad, diario católico (Tuy), page 2.
Paris: The Soviet Government has broadened the persecution of Catholics to Georgia. Many were imprisoned. The government has also barred the delegate of the Holy See from entering that territory.
Wednesday April 25, 1923. El Compostelano, diario independiente (Santiago de Compostela), page 3.
The Council of People's Commissars has approved a credit of 150 million gold rubles to the Ministry of War for the acquisition abroad of reconnaissance and combat aircraft.
Friday April 27, 1923. El Ideal Gallego, diario católico, regionalista e independiente (A Coruña), page 5.
Berlin: Five German physicians are currently in Russia trying to save Lenin's life. Each one earns 1,000 Sterling Pounds daily. [In the column entitled, "Honorarios de los médicos"].
Tuesday May 8, 1923. La Integridad, diario católico (Tuy), page 2.
Moscow: Five million starving inhabitants of the Volga Region have provoked serious disturbances. In order to crush the unrest, not to alleviate the hunger, the Government dispatched numerous troops with very severe instructions to subdue the disorders.
Tuesday May 15, 1923. La Zarpa, diario de los agrarios gallegos (Ourense), page 2.
Moscow: The Committee of Foreign Trade will today sign a business concession and submit it to the Council of People's Commissars for approval and ratification. The contract is between the Shell Oil Company and the Soviet Government and calls for the creation of a mixed company whose Directory will be in London and from where the international sale of Russian oil and derivatives will be negotiated. It is estimated that the volume of sales during the first year of the contract will not slip below 100,000 tonnes and that this figure will steadily climb over the following years. The duration of the contract is ten years.
Wednesday May 23, 1923. Galicia Nueva, primer diario de Villagarcía, page 4.
According to official data of the Soviet Government there are currently registered in Russia 250,000 unemployed persons. This number includes destituted former bureaucrats. It should not be forgotten, however, that only the workers, the Communists, the former bureaucrats and the veterans of the Civil War are entitled to register. Intellectuals are banned in unemployment lists. Therefore it may be assumed that the total number of unemployed is actually much higher than the official statistic. The Government is said to have the intention of initiating vast public works to benefit the unemployed; but once again intellectuals will be excluded.
Sunday July 8, 1923. Progreso, diario independiente (Pontevedra), page 1.
The most interesting financial section is still that of foreign currencies. Bankers put the exchange rate of a million German Marks at 40-50 Pesetas. The mass of marks in circulation in Germany reaches ten billion [i.e., ten "trillion" American] and augments daily by 10,000 million. The situation has become so extreme that very soon printing a banknote will cost more than its face value. Perhaps at that juncture the Russian system will be adopted: every year Russia circulates a new ruble worth 100,000 times the value of the preceding year's...and by year's end the new ruble is just as depreciated as the previous ruble was. [In the column entitled, "Vida económica y financiera"].
Friday August 10, 1923. Galicia Nueva, primer diario de Villagarcía, page 3.
Moscow, 9: Chicherin the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs has offered his condolences over the death of Harding to the American "parliamentarians" recently arrived in Russia.
Tuesday August 14, 1923. El Compostelano, diario independiente (Santiago de Compostela), page 1.
WHAT RUSSIAN PEOPLE SOLICIT
A group of Muscovite socialist workers has surreptitiously published a pamphlet entitled, "Down with the Red tyranny!"
The authors start by saying that they have very little sympathy for the fallen tsarist regime; on the contrary, they suffered long-term persecution precisely for having struggled against that regime. Presently, having dwelled in the Bolshevik "paradise" for what will soon be a term of six years, the authors openly declare that the working class, the peasants and the Russian people in general would deem themselves happy if the Lenins and Trotskys were replaced by any former Tsar.
"Anything is better than the unbearable tyranny of the Red despots!" say the signers. And to attest their harangue they articulate the modest wishes of the Russian people as follows,
1. Since the absolute abolition of the death penalty seems unacceptable to the Government it would be desirable to have only those sentenced to death by the Tribunals shot and to forbid the Red Guards, Cheka agents, etc., to kill people on their own initiative, without a motive, frequently simply to steal the watch or boots of the victim.
2. Let the more shameless commissars who pull off robbery, pillage, etc., in too scandalous a degree be removed from handling state business even if they are the relatives or the favourites of big names.
3. Since it seems impossible for the countless commissars, Red Guards, spies, informants and other goons to forgo completely causing the ruin of the peasants systematically, it would be desirable to set up a Control Commission composed not of Government agents but of independent citizens with guaranteed inviolability to moderate in some degree the appetites of the aforementioned.
4. The export of wheat to fetch gold for the Government must not be authorized while some five million peasants face death by starvation and another fifteen million continue to lack sufficient wheat for seeding.
5. Let factories and industrial enterprises be privatized and returned to the previous owners because otherwise the industrial ruin, hastened by the incompetence and embezzlements of commissars, will lead the country to a catastrophe of unknown proportions.
6. Let even a very narrow freedom of the Press be granted since the people are tired of the mendacious reports in the official Press, the only one in Russia today. We are not soliciting the freedom of the Press offered in bourgeois countries; we dream no further than the freedom which tsarism granted.
7. Let not the people be shot, jailed or deported to Siberia or be in other ways persecuted for their political or religious views, and let the numerous socialists rotting in Soviet prisons be set free.
8. Let no worker be jailed or shot for the simple act of declaring a strike to obtain some slight improvement in the unbearable working conditions or to protest against the tyranny of the commissars.
The Berlin correspondent of the Madrid-based newspaper, El Imparcial, writes this comment about the Muscovite workers' manifesto,
It wasn't worth it, shedding so much blood and sacrificing thousands of victims to arrive at a state of slavery such as reigns in Russia today. The subjects of Lenin and Trotsky dream only of a very limited liberty: not being shot without previous formalities; no impunity for the commissars' crimes; no snatching away the last slice of bread from the starving, etc.
Definitely it's not asking too much; above all, for a country which bears the high-sounding title of first socialist Republic.
Communists abroad do not tire of singing the praises of this first socialist Republic, thus bearing an enormous moral responsibility for the inexpressible sufferings of the Russian people. Lenin's faithful in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, England, dare to portray that regime, i.e., tyranny and misery, as an ideal worthy of admiration and emulation.
Whereas with grandiloquent phrases they protest against the bourgeois Governments (which do not let Communists kill people on the streets) they pass over in silence the horrors that take place every day in Red Russia (the number of executions nears three million already) and whereas they demand absolute liberty for themselves they suffer to have the Moscow Government rob the people of even liberty's shadow.
Tuesday September 25, 1923. El Compostelano, page 2.
THE COLLAPSE OF RUBLES AND MARKS
The reports published these days that the Russian Soviets will at year's end nullify all paper rubles printed until 1922 and will create a new currency called the chervonet backed up by serious guarantees will have made a painful impression, if not shock, on the many Spaniards who devoted themselves recklessly to the hazardous game of purchasing devalued currencies in recent years.
What has occurred in Russia is being duplicated in Germany. There life with the current monetary unit is becoming impossible.
