The year 1905, as it comes to its close, is being immortalized with fiery letters in the history of the world. A year of revolution, a year of struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat from the yoke of barbaric despotism, for the emancipation of all humanity.
From the bloody day of January 22 in Petersburg, through the bloody days in Warsaw, Łódź, Odessa, and Kharkiv, we have now lived up to the bloody week just past in Moscow.
Tsarist rule has celebrated many victories; the revolution has suffered many defeats. The blood of the workers wet the streets, strikes were starved out by hunger and put down with bullet and bayonet, and the mass of the workers were overpowered. Tsarism kept prevailing over the revolution. And the result? Tsarism capitulated in the face of the revolution, essentially admitting its lawlessness. The absolute monarch has surrendered part of his lawmaking power to a parliament. At the same time that it capitulated, tsarism still wanted to deceive the people. Just two months after its capitulation, we see that the very foundations of tsarist rule are shaking. In Moscow, there is the fire of armed insurrection, as well as armed encounters and preparations for battle in many other cities. The army is in part revolutionized. Peasant revolts have spread over huge stretches of Russia. The Urals are engulfed by armed uprisings. In Livonia, [more] battles and confrontations. In Poland, a general strike in spite of martial law, in spite of tsarism’s insane efforts to suppress the strike with the force of the bayonet.
The revolution has been “put down” ten times over during this year, and yet on New Year’s Eve, the hot breath of the revolution is still filling the air of the tsarist empire. Ten times the revolution has been defeated, and yet here it stands unvanquished, threatening and powerful, triumphant and conquering, at the end of this year of glory.
The revolutionary working class has made countless sacrifices, paying dearly for every advance toward freedom. And yet, in this struggle, among all the sacrifices, it has not been exhausted but has acquired gigantic strength.
How many of us were there under the banner of revolution at the beginning of this year? And how many of us are there today? We were only a small troop, a mere handful, and today we are legions. Every forward thrust brought us new forces; every clash with tsarism increased our ranks tenfold. In a hailstorm of fire and blood the spirit of the proletariat was hardened. During a century of bondage under the terrible weight of the tsarist yoke their souls groaned and their chests were choked in the ominous stifling silence. And there were moments when more than one of them lost heart—their spirits fell.
Because it seemed as though the voices of those who tried to awaken the proletariat from lethargy had disappeared without leaving an echo behind, the torches in the watchtowers of the revolution were burning out in the darkness. However, from these flickering sparks there burst forth a flame of boundless enthusiasm—the spirit of sacrifice and heroism blazed up in the hearts of tens and hundreds of thousands. Then, the rattle of gunfire dispersed the fog, and here we stand, arm in arm, the great and powerful army of the revolutionary proletariat. That is what this year has given us.
Strong in our belief, confident in our strength and the sanctity of our cause, we march on to a renewed struggle and to new battles.
A year of struggle is behind us; years of struggle lie ahead.
Our accomplishments have been great, because we have won millions of new fighters for the revolution. We forced tsarism to lay bare its weakness, to acknowledge constitutional rights in principle; absolutism collapsed irretrievably under the blows of the working class. We have wrested from tsarism the promise of freedom of association and assembly and the right to strike; we have torn down the prison walls in which we were confined. We have broken free from our chains.
But the enemy is not yet overthrown, we have not yet struck the weapons from his hands, and the fighters for freedom may not yet dream of a respite, because the enemy is making a renewed effort to gather up his remaining strength. Immediately after October 30* the promise-breaking tsar and his ministers began trying to lie their way out of the situation; one decree followed another! Each was more retrograde than the one before, full of falsehood and deceit. With this swindling they wanted to stupefy the masses.
The press decree was one swindle, and the decree [limiting] the right to organize and strike was another. Meanwhile, a bloody offensive against any and all freedoms was being prepared. The trusted representatives of the proletariat were imprisoned.†
The railroad worker comrades were threatened with jail and hard labor. And, finally, things reached the point of brutal provocation, with martial law being imposed on almost the entire territory of the tsarist empire.
This is an attempt to turn back to the rule of the bayonet and bullet. The bloodstained tsar and his bandit government dreamed of suddenly catching the revolutionary proletariat by surprise—a proletariat worn down by the struggle and weakened by hunger—dreamed that it would not offer resistance. These assassins of the people dreamed that they could succeed even if they had renounced absolute power, dreamed that they could offer crumbs to the working people, deceive them, and even put shackles on them.
They were mistaken. In a single moment, the revolutionary proletariat burst forth to fend off the blow, to thwart the plan of counterrevolution.
And now a new battle is underway all over again, a battle in which we must bring all our forces to bear into action because it is not just a question of holding on to what we have already won, but of winning new gains for the cause of freedom.
This onslaught of the counterrevolution should convince every one of us that there is not and cannot be any question of reconciliation between the revolution and the tsarist regime, that only on the ruins of despotism can we begin to build, that not one stone of this fortress can be left lying on top of another, that the serpent of absolutism must be stomped underfoot once and for all.
The year that already lies behind us was [one of] the mobilization of forces of the proletariat, preparing the way for armed revolution. The year that lies before us will lead to the victory of armed revolution.
In the midst of battle, we begin the New Year.
We do not celebrate the New Year with toasts, nor with the veils [szale] of light-minded wishful thinking. We greet it with the cries of battle.
To arms!
Forward into battle!
Long Live the revolution! Death to Tsarism!