The Council [Soviet] of Workers’ Deputies, the Central Committee of the Peasants’ Congress, the Organizing Committee of the Social Democratic Labor Party,† and the Central Committee of the Party of Social Revolutionaries have published a “manifesto” in which the following is declared, after preliminary criticism of the government and the economic situation: Neither redemption payments‡ nor other state taxes will be paid; that by agreement only gold will be accepted for purchases and payment of wages, while for payments of less than five roubles only hard cash will be accepted; that deposits at the savings banks and at the Imperial Bank will be withdrawn, and these will be demanded in gold; and finally, that payments for loans that were concluded during the period in which the government found itself in a state of open war with the people are declared invalid.
The workers who have demonstrated their power and their decisiveness are now being courted by the middle classes. The English papers report: Workers’ and peasants’ associations are preparing to start a common parliament in January. The Union of Unions is attempting to gather the socialists around it and has drummed up support by also having passed a resolution approving of an armed uprising.
The progressive papers are continuing to argue for an alliance between all leftist parties, to which are counted the Constitutional Democrats, Radicals, Social Democrats and Social Revolutionaries; an alliance with the anarchists (of which there are only one or two dozen in Russia—The editor.§) remains however out of the question, as this would even be rejected by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Until now, the socialists have reacted to the moderate parties’ accommodating gestures with extreme contempt.
The Daily Telegraph reports: The latest telegram of the commander in chief of the Manchurian Army, General Linevich, to the Ministry of War in Petersburg, runs as follows: “I cannot combat the growth and spread of revolutionary propaganda in the army. Over half the army is mutinying at present. The reservists are demanding to be conveyed home immediately and don’t want to accept any paper money. Request telegraphic instructions. Urgently.” A response was wired from Petersburg via Europe and Vladivostok, with unknown contents.
The charge sheet against Ship’s Lieutenant Schmidt, who led the mutiny in the Black Sea Fleet, includes charges punishable with the death penalty. The charge sheet includes the following daily briefing, which is said to have been issued by Lieutenant Schmidt on November 28.
To the Mayor of Sevastopol! Today I issued the following telegram to His Majesty the Emperor: the glorious fleet of the Black Sea, which remains deeply loyal to the nation, entreats you, sir, to convene an assembly to grant us a constitution without delay; and, in so doing, the fleet ceases to obey your ministers.
(Signed) Fleet Commander Schmidt.
(Please see our supplement today about the Sevastopol uprising—The editor.)*
Petersburg, December 16. According to reports from Rostov-on-Don, large disturbances have broken out there. The town garrison, loyal to the tsar, used their weapons to deal with the disturbers of the peace. In so doing, 300 persons were either killed or injured. Ship workers in Rostov have sunk some ships carrying weapons, and burned others. This caused heavy losses for the merchants. The banks have refused to pay out deposits, while the better-off residents are fleeing from the municipality.
THE “PACIFICATION” OF THE PEASANTS
A correspondent of the very moderate Petersburg paper Nasha Zhizn [Our Life] describes in his paper how the insurgent peasants are being “pacified” in the district of Borisoglebsk in Tambov Province. A number of excerpts from his interesting letter deserve to be reprinted here: A telephone system has been introduced throughout the district of Borrisoglebsk, states our author, possessing the idiosyncrasy that when one user talks, his conversation can be listened to by all other users. Thanks to this, all police secrets are now known in the district. This is how it became known that a supervisory official told Polonsky, the state captain, that, “We’ll take much more grain off the peasants than even they were able to take from the estate owners.”
Cavalry Master Ilyushkin, who commands a battalion of Cossacks, gives his subordinate, F. Shcherbinin, who is on his way to the Votochy Oleshky, the following order (via telephone): Be conscious of the fact of what has to be done. Do not drive into the village, otherwise you’ll be cut off. If it should prove necessary for the peasants to come out of the village, then set fire to the village from the edge. Demand that the grain be handed over. In case of refusal, give the order to fire—first into the air, then at the peasants. You generally must make an effort to scare the living daylights out of them; set fire to dung so that there’s flames and sparks, then spread out through the whole village and smash in the window panes.
Lieutenant Shcherbinin then phoned his wife to communicate the impressions the “pacification” had made on him: “Blood is flowing everywhere, everything’s up in flames and we’re beating, stabbing and shooting.”
“EDUCATED” SPIES
A group of agents from the infamous “Protective Division,” tasked with spying on and sniffing out everything, have sent our sister paper in Petersburg, Novaya Zhizn [New Life], a letter, demonstrating that even the political spies have caught the “plague of revolution.” At first the editors of Novaya Zhizn doubted the correctness of these statements, but some fact-checking ascertained that there really are “educated” elements among the agents. The interesting letter reads as follows:
We, the educated agents, despise you (i.e., the government) and communicate to you our outrage, because the full weight of your criminal deeds oppress us educated agents. It is our vocation to protect humanity(!) from terrorism(!), but not to act as terrorists ourselves. It must surely suffice for you that while you conceal yourselves behind our backs, you force us to follow society’s every step. But no, you who have made the most of our hunger and the hunger of our families to get us into your hands, you force us to terrorize society on top of that. It is not society but rather you who calls up terror.
You, tyrannizers of humanity, even though you hired us to protect humanity, now you’ve forced us to carry out your demonic plans, you monsters, who know that when a person falls into your hands they are lost. Be that as it may, and even if society looks down on us as thugs, you nevertheless have been unable to kill our souls. We all belong to the whole and together we will fight for human freedom. You know that if we leave your ranks that there’s not a single place that will take us on. We are forced to wander lost like Judas. May our blood and suffering therefore rest upon your shoulders and the shoulders of your descendants. Yet we, too, are proletarians, and we will die fighting in the ranks of the proletariat against you, you monsters.
The letter is written in a very ungrammatical fashion, but it is exactly that which testifies to its authenticity.
Visitors to Moscow’s stock exchange have decided not to pay any taxes if the government continues to take action against the striking post and telegraph civil servants.