The situation in the revolutionary empire is very serious. The side of the reaction is readying itself for one last violent blow, by violently interrupting the peaceful and deadly serious creative work of revolution, attempting to draw the proletariat into battle, before it can choose the timeliest moment for itself. The working class, and all the social classes who are gathered around its struggle—the military, the marine crews, the lower government officials, and so-called liberal professions—are all plunged passionately into the task of organization. Labor organizations and political organizations germinate and shoot from the old tundra of the tsarist empire, now thawing in the heat of revolutionary fire. Political education and organization—those are the two tasks, or better said, single task, which has swallowed up all revolutionary energies in the last few weeks. To await the fruits of this most noble cultural labor, to first allow the working people to be granted the indestructible defenses of organization, is precisely that which the cabal of courtiers gathered round the tsar’s sinking throne wish to prevent. And now the counterrevolution is pushing for a bloodbath and for military dictatorship as its last refuge, because the crusade across the country of the Black Hundreds, the lumpenproletariat, has finally failed, because revolutionary thoughts and revolutionary organization—even in the armed forces—have emerged victorious out of the confusion and anarchy that absolutism had set in motion.
It is important, in this moment full of responsibility, to listen to that party standing on the crest of events in Russia, the leadership of developments in its hands. Nachalo [The Beginning], one of the official Petersburg party organs of our Russian twin party, has published the following leading article on the situation in Russia:†
The reaction mobilizes her forces. She descends from her luxurious, glittering palaces into the dark cellars to search among the mud and the dirt that capitalist society had produced, for allies in her defense of “holy” rights—exploitation and despotism without barriers. The reaction disarms that ever-growing part of the army whose heart starts to beat in time with the masses. The reaction floods the major cities with that other part of the military, to which the hot life-breath of revolutionary storm has not yet seeped through thick barrack walls. She expresses thanks to the Cossacks for “loyal service,” who, after enduring a humiliating fiasco in their looting raids in Manchuria, now wish to indemnify themselves through looting raids in their own fatherland. She, the reaction, blesses with holy water and images of the saints her “new troops,” who are willingly up in arms against youthful freedom, in order to reinstate ancient slavery. She poses the tricolor of absolutism as a question, and writers her own answer upon it—military dictatorship!
And the frightful spectere of military dictatorship is haunting the whole empire, making the “citizens” tremble, i.e., those classes of civil society who value their immediate, material privileges above all else, and who therefore hate the revolution and the reaction’s reign of violence in equal measure.
Yet though the reaction may stand threateningly tall, may mobilize her beloved troops, may dare to play violent and insolent tricks like arresting the leaders of the labor movement, the proletariat can coolly claim: I’m not afraid of either reaction or military dictatorship, not in the least!
The facts are clear—the reaction can no longer succeed. And if this cabal of courtiers, these officers of the guard, these heroic heroes in the fight against defenseless people should succeed in moving the government into taking the crazy decision of imposing a military dictatorship over Russia, then this government’s remaining days in rule would be counted in days, and no longer in weeks.
The reaction can no longer succeed. She is no longer capable of staging a bloodbath in Petersburg or in Moscow, as she was still able to do just a while ago in the provinces. Certainly, individuals like [generals] Neidhardt or Kaulbars are still to be found in Petersburg or Moscow, just waiting for their chance to dip their hands into the blood of the defenseless people. But the government can no longer find a sufficient number of stooges among the populations of Petersburg and Moscow to carry out their criminal plans. The whole fiasco of the Black Hundreds’ “patriotic demonstrations,” organized in Petersburg and in Moscow under the egis of the metropolitan elite themselves, were fewer than 1,500 people; [that so few] wanted to gather under its banner has proven clear enough this lack of resources. Only one last option is open to the government—a direct and brutal slaying of the defenseless population by the soldateska,* which would only work on condition that the military in Petersburg and Moscow still has sufficient persons of such character. But such butchery would certainly spell the last day of the absolutist regime today already, a day in which government representatives would be gambling with their own heads and would lose them.
Yes, the reaction can stage a bloodbath. But she cannot succeed, as she no longer has the strength to do so. The proletariat opposes her, having got a hold on its own interests, having recognized its goal, a goal that is welded together through the powerful bonds of class solidarity and organization. The peasants oppose her, with their demands for a radical solution to the land question, a solution that is unthinkable without the revolution winning. All those parts of democracy oppose her, in whose hands all the threads are concentrated, which determine the function and coherence of the mechanism of the state. Railroads, post, telegraph and telephone networks will refuse to offer absolutism their services, in that moment in which it composes itself before the celebrations, after temporary victory of a St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre* variety. An ever-increasing section of the army is opposed to her, leading to the ever-more frequent occurrence that the reaction’s hired hands so refuse to do their “duty” that even those whose vocation it is to fight the revolution—yes, even the police and police spies—refuse this fight. And, finally, international capital also opposes her, with its profit and greed, and which, exclusively concerned with its percentage returns, is literally panting for “law and order.” International capital, of course, mistrusts the revolution, but mistrusts the reaction all the more, a reaction who has already shown herself powerless in her efforts to restore “order” and in her efforts to guarantee those returns with which Russia is burdened through the thieving economy of absolutism, to the advantage of international finance.
Capitalism has pulled together the most remote and manifold parts of the Russian empire with tight ropes. The class movement of the proletariat has poured these material and economic relationships, this molten steel, into the lively form of a united political struggle of the working class. The proletariat’s leading role in the struggle for Russian freedom has brought unity, certainty of purpose, and organization into the emancipatory waves that are washing through the empire.
A bloodbath in Petersburg would send a signal today already for a general uprising in the provinces. And a triumph for the soldateska in Petersburg would spell their ultimate defeat in the provinces. The international stock exchange would reward a “victory” for absolutism in Petersburg by striking the absolutist government off the list of institutions with the best credit ratings, the list of those best able to meet debt payments. This government, still kept alive by the international exchange, would die in the very moment in which its suckling mother withdrew her trust.
That is why we don’t need to worry about the revolution’s fate. That is why we don’t need to worry—on the condition, of course, that the absolutist government has not gone completely mad, and decides to throw itself into the abyss of a military dictatorship and a bloodbath.
The government can land, at the most, in its impotent rage, a few isolated blows on the head of the emancipatory movement of the proletariat, and she can bet on it, that the working class will hesitate before answering these—not wanting to be disturbed from its great task of self-organization and preparation for the day to come of open battle right down the line. Nevertheless, the government will not and cannot dare to put those bloody plans into practice born of the criminal fantasy of that cabal of courtiers.
And if they do dare, nonetheless … well, then they’ll see that not the revolution but rather absolutism will choke in the blood that is shed.
That is why the proletariat need not fear the reaction and their assaults. And that is why we can call out to all fearful souls: Do not be scared! Hurry instead with all your strength to help the proletariat then win we shall, come what may!