The post and telegraph civil servants’ general strike is continuing in outstanding fashion! Accordingly, we have access to hardly any telegraphic reports from Russia. Private letters are the only way in which sparse news is emerging from the country, prompting the Vossische Zeitung† [Voß’s Newspaper] to publish the following letter from Riga, dated December 3: The post and telegraph civil servants’ strike action continues. Tensions have escalated more than they have been defused. The civil servants are in a state of excitement about Count Witte’s refusal to receive a delegation of their association, directing them instead to their immediate superiors. Strong processes are also in flow among the railroad workers. They are not satisfied with the directive concerning a salary rise to up to 15,000,000 roubles, and continue to present political demands. They have reportedly sent a telegram to Count Witte, written in a very particular tone, demanding the convening of a Constituent Assembly. The railroad is at present maintaining private post communication using delivery staff, but these workers are personally under threat. The departing delivery workers are being observed at stations by whole throngs of postal civil servants. Persons carrying bundles of letters are stopped by the postal civil servants and are stopped from entering the stations by use of threat. Some letters are, however, still being smuggled through.
How sensitive the tsar’s empire is to the effects of the post and telegraph strike can be seen in this private letter to the Local Advertiser in Petersburg, from December 3: The state is suffering huge losses because of this strike. The total number of letters, money and registered items, transfers, packets, and paper slips that the postal offices of this city have to process daily stands at 530,000 items; if the loss for telegrams is also included in the calculation, measured at c. 13,000 daily, then just the Petersburg post service alone is losing at least half-a-million roubles daily because of the strike. The striking post and telegraph civil servants held an assembly on Saturday to discuss their situation, with 2,000 members participating. It was decided to stay strong, to continue the strike and to force the government into concessions. The next goal is to achieve the release of detained delegates. The strikers are being supported by a strike committee and may well soon be able to celebrate the strike’s twentieth day, just like their Moscow colleagues. This assembly was attended by the president of the Council [Soviet] of Workers’ Deputies, representatives of various political parties, and a delegation from the Moscow Post and Telegraph Congress, who Count Witte had refused to receive. The assembly went on to pass the motion not to attend the handing over of pay packets scheduled for today, Sunday. The total number of strikers in Petersburg alone is now 6,000.
Meanwhile, the railroad strike continues, gradually, to spread. This is underlined by two telegraphic reports: Kiev, December 5. Telegraphic communication began again yesterday, a service supplied by two retired civil servants and two girls. Railroad transport on the southwestern railroads has, on the contrary, been stopped entirely, including the Kiev, Odessa, and Sevastopol lines.
Haparanda, December 4. The Svenska Telegrambyrå has received a report from Tornio that a new railroad worker strike has broken out in Finland, triggered by the convention of the senate. At present the strike is stretching as far as Hämeenlinna, but will probably spread over the entire railroad network.
THE REVOLUTION IN THE ARMED FORCES
The rebellion inside the military is now spreading so violently that reports of “mutinies” or individual regiments, of arrests and of bloody battles follow hot on the heels of each other. That being said, we can trace out the following logical link in the development of the movement; the whole thing was started by crews of marines. The land troops used against them were enthused by the revolutionary flame, in the very process of suppressing their comrades in the fleet. While the troops more-or-less allowed themselves to be used as the tsar’s slaves against the workers’ demonstrations, things started to seriously breakdown when they were sent against the marines. And now the land troops are rebelling themselves, and the government has to deploy Cossacks to pacify them. This means, however, that the same whole game will be replayed. The Cossacks, who have always proven their worth as bloodthirsty beasts against the people, start to go to pieces when they are deployed systematically against soldiers.
And so, consequentially, the revolutionary fire puts down roots from social class to social class, from one pillar of absolutism to the next. The apparently insoluble tasks of the revolution appear to solve themselves through the revolution’s own progression. Of course, the seeds of enlightenment, sown by Social Democracy through tough and tireless work, are starting to mature everywhere amid this. But it is primarily the inner, iron laws of revolution that have suddenly made whole new classes receptive and fertile for these seeds, classes that until yesterday appeared to us as thankless and stony ground.
At present, the south Russian city of Kiev* is the center of a violent military revolt. As our readers learned from yesterday’s issue, a state of emergency will be declared tomorrow. Again, the reason for this is a movement among the troops. The Russian Correspondence newspaper received the following description of events in Kiev: On December 1, at 7 a.m. a company of engineers began the strike in Kiev. As the whole Russian people are also doing, they demanded absolute freedom, not just on paper, but also in real life. Spreading from the barracks, they drew more and more soldiers into the strike. Several brigades kept their distance and didn’t unite with them. At 4 p.m., the soldiers moved toward the Kehivanek smelting works, whose workers are organized in a Social Democratic way, to hold a general meeting. The Asor Brigade then shot at our comrades, killing thirty and wounding many. Cossacks wanted to fight against the striking soldiers the next morning, but when the strike leader stated that several soldiers were wounded, the Cossacks withdrew. General Draque directed some words toward the striking soldiers, who read aloud the strike demands comprising thirty-five points in reply. Principally they demanded exemption from service duties in the reserves, reduction of service period, decent treatment, improvements in food and clothing, and a political Constituent Assembly. After which, they sang the Marseillaise. There was a shortage of food supplies in the barracks during the two days on which the meetings took place. The soldiers moved through the streets playing music. The population gave them food supplies during the night, for which many were arrested. On December 2, all newspapers were confiscated apart from the Kiev organ of the Black Hundreds. The revolutionary committee declared the general strike, in protest against the slaughter. Workers and soldiers organized meetings at the Polytechnic Institute in daily anticipation of significant events. The solemn burial of the dead soldiers took place on the 3rd, the crowd being dispersed by the Asor Brigade. The city is extremely unsettled. A state of siege will be declared tomorrow. The Polytechnic Institute is closed and surrounded by soldiers. The newspapers are not being published.
We have received, in addition, the following reports:
Kraków, December 5. According to reports from Warsaw, the 46th Infantry Regiment is refusing to carry out further police services.
Warsaw, December 5. A mutiny has broken out among the garrison in Osovze. In Grodno, numerous mutineers of that town’s artillery regiment have been arrested. The infantry are mutinying in Kharkiv. Recruits are refusing to swear the oath of allegiance.
THE MILITARY UPRISING IN VORONEZH
Den [The Day] newspaper prints the following telegraphic report: Voronezh, December 2. The penal battalion’s local and military prison in the suburb of Pridacha was set on fire yesterday by military prisoners and mutinying soldiers from the penal battalion. The fire spread to a row of shops. The mutineers marched toward the state prison to release the prisoners in line, led by their band, but were held up by regular troops at the bridge that leads from the town toward the state prison, which was by now in flames. Volleys fired out the windows by prisoners prevented the fire brigade from extinguishing the flames … The prison was surrounded by troops. After the exchange of fire, some of the mutineers from the penal battalions were taken prisoner. Another group of these mutineers is now fleeing; another has been surrounded.
This description is, of course, colored in the way these semi-official Russian reports are. What is certain is that the disturbances among those in Voronezh have, as everywhere, a decidedly political character.
A DAFT HOAX
The Daily Telegraph has published the following nonsense, filed by its Petersburg correspondent: The German Social Democrats have urgently advised their Russian kindred spirits against nihilistic actions, yet the Russians, more urgently in need of money than good advice, have decisively rejected this warning.
Not one single word in the whole report is true, of course.
FINAL NEWS AND DISPATCHES ON THE REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
Petersburg, December 5. The following news has at last arrived via Chernyshevskoye, supposedly from “private parties,” but in reality probably spread in semi-official fashion by the Russian government. They must be considered with caution. General Möller-Sakomelski, Commanding Officer of the 7th Army Corps, as reported by Rus’, has stated that four sailors and three revolutionaries have been killed during the closure of the Sevastopol barracks. Two thousand men have surrendered, including 1,600 sailors and 400 others mostly comprised of agitators in civilian dress, with the rest made up of infantrymen. Even though these 400 men also had access to weapons, a large deficit of organization was evident in their actions. The city is now quiet again. A large group of portal workers is prepared to start work again and unrest on the streets is not expected. Despite their large number and excellent arms, the mutineers didn’t display excessive energy but merely some clumsiness. This was why loss of life was much lower than during any other clashes with badly armed or unarmed groups of folk. (This contradicts newer reports according to which 1,800 sailors have fallen!) The investigative commission has begun its work. Sailors and sappers were the main groups in the mutiny, alongside private persons, principally Jews. One soldier from the Brechen regiment fell and two men are wounded. On the revolutionaries’ side, three men are dead and four sailors wounded, however a rumor doing the rounds suggests that the number that the inhabitants succeeded in wounding is substantially higher.
The Petersburg garrison has had major reinforcements in the last few days. In case unrest occurs, the city has been divided into four sections, whose command has been assigned to the generals Osserov, Lubensky, Schirm, and Trotsky. As of December 3, these four sections were manned by forty-two battalions, fifteen squadrons, sixteen sotnia* of Cossacks and twelve machine guns. A strong military presence has been deployed in the post and telegraph offices, and in the factories.
An assembly of post and telegraph civil servants was stopped that same evening by mounted soldiers and Cossacks hitting out with nagaika. The Chairman of Workers Deputies appealed to the post and telegraph civil servants in the pages of Rus’, relaying a statement made by the city’s chief of police, in which he explained that he was following orders from above. A single stone thrown, or one shot, he said, and the crowd will be dispersed forcibly using machine-gun fire. The appeal ended with the call not to slacken in the struggle until total victory has been achieved.
The military district court sentenced the persons who participated in the plot against General Trepov to four to ten years forced labor.†
Petersburg, December 5 (received via Chernyshevskoye from the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). According to figures gathered in an inspection of the factories, the number of unemployed factory workers in Petersburg currently stands at 28,000. As reported in the papers, preparations are being made for the reopening of the eleven sections of the workers’ associations organized by Priest Gapon, closed after the disturbances in January. The return of the sequestrated sums of money should also occur in the near future. The Socialist Revolutionary Party has already begun their campaign against the workers’ associations and Gapon. The Socialist Revolutionary Party passed a resolution stating that the measures proposed by Struve and Gapon could only lead to ruin for the workers.‡
The Paper for Trade and Industry has been informed by a reliable source that the government supports the project of universal suffrage. (Presumably to raise the slumping exchange rate of the “Russians” again by making promises!§) The situation in Petersburg is unchanged. Martial law has been declared in the city and municipal region of Kiev, because disturbances have broken out there.
According to the Rus’, the Imperial Duma should convene by January 28 at the latest.