It really does seem as if a new epoch in the revolutionary movement in Russia is dawning. If the bureaucratic and courtly camarilla had hoped that the mass of the Russian people would sink back into a lethargy after the cessation of the curse-worthy damnable war in the Far East—the flippant instigation of which the revolution more than answered—then it will be bitterly disappointed. Tsarism’s ingenious breakdown in the Far East has achieved the opposite, feeding the people’s bitterness and fanning the flames of their revolutionary vigor into energetic action. The appalling bloodletting that the tsarist soldiers have carried out on the people has simply sown new seeds of hate and loathing. And the movement has certainly profited greatly in terms of coherence, organization and political insight, thanks to tireless political education work, disseminated through the medium of socialist agitation—a major transformation for a movement that had previously often flared up sporadically, without coherence, and without clear political understanding. Not only is the industrial working masses’ energy for battle still undiminished, it has rather been steeled by all the battles fought and the great number of sacrifices made in them. This remains, despite the toughness of what they have had to suffer during the countless strikes, lockouts, and massacres. If we can read the signs correctly, the Russian proletariat is rearming itself for battles more decisive than any previously fought. A universal strike threatens to rock the whole state organism—cracking already as it is along every fault line imaginable—to its very foundations. And this time the pioneers of struggle are the railroad employees, who have already gone out on a general strike at many locations, including the most important localities in the empire. The thing to cheer the most in this battle is what appears to be the great measure of political clarity and energy with which the struggle to gain political freedoms is carried out.
Before the railroad workers took this most extreme step of striking against the transport network, they approached Transport Minister Count [Mikhail] Khilkov and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Mr. [Sergei] Witte one last time, in order to proclaim their demands and press for their fulfillment.† Although Mr. Witte played all the tricks in the diplomatic book, he could not avoid showing his true face when faced with the workers’ concrete demands. Just in the last few days, Mr. Witte had convinced an English reporter to blow Witte’s trumpet for him, by portraying himself as a progressive man with the purest intentions who would use all his influence on the tsar to push through the broadest possible freedom for the people. Despite all his slick phrases, Witte had to explain to the railroad workers’ deputation that there was no prospect of their demand for general and equal suffrage being fulfilled. That sufficed to answer the question of the masses of whether they should engage in battle. The massive expansion of the strike was the response to Witte’s tactics of appeasement. And the other groups of workers are making common cause with the striking railroaders!
Regarding the negotiations with the ministers, the semi-official Russian telegraph agency reports the following: Petersburg, October 24 (report by the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). A Congress of Railroad Employee Delegates held here in the city [St. Petersburg] passed a motion to send two delegations without delay to the Transport Minister and to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers; the delegations shall communicate the following demand:
The delegates are the true representatives of the demands of the railroad employees and workers, and also represent everyone working on the railroads. The times in which decisions of vital significance could be decided through administrative procedures are over, and all the working class’s demands must be regulated through laws, in accordance with the will of the people, and sanctioned by the whole of Russia. There is just one single solution—an immediate proclamation of political guarantees and freedoms, and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, elected on universal and direct suffrage. The country should not be pushed into armed revolution, and new spilling of blood must not be permitted. The people have sacrificed enough blood, first in Manchuria and now in all towns, villages and localities of Russia. If the delegation’s right to call itself the representative of all railroad personnel should be questioned, the delegation reserves the right to teach its contracting authority [i.e. the railroad companies and Transport Minister] about methods to fight for a better future.
An assembly of railroad employees held at the university and attended by 8,000 individuals passed a motion for a general strike from the twenty-fifth of this month and on all rail lines that lead to Petersburg.
Petersburg, October 25: The Meeting of the Congress of Railroad Employee Delegates opened with the reading of a memorandum that listed the employees’ professional needs and demands. The minute-taker emphasized the necessity of sending a copy of the memorandum to Count Witte, as it contained serious questions like the creation of a Constituent Assembly:
The congress decided to send delegations, each of five people, with a copy of the memorandum to Witte and to the Transport Minister Count Khilkov and to await their reply. The delegation sent to Khilkov didn’t carry this out, as it had already traveled to Peterhof to report about the incidents in Moscow. The memorandum was therefore deposited at the minister’s offices, with the request to grant a personal meeting after the delegation had returned from Peterhof. Railroad workers awaited the return of the delegation sent to Witte with great anticipation. One member of the delegation reported that Witte had immediately received them in his cabinet rooms. He opened by saying that their discussion had to be of a thoroughly private nature, because the Chairman of the Council of Ministers did not have the right to accept such a memorandum. He had, however, no objections to the contents of the discussion being published. Witte remarked that the pamphlet contained numerous demands, which no other land would be able to meet either, but many of which were nonetheless worthy of attention. Firstly, he positioned himself against a Constituent Assembly, as this is impossible at present. He repeated this several times, arguing that universal suffrage would give the richer classes an advantage through the option of buying votes, and was therefore not without its faults. The idea of universal suffrage could therefore evidently not be said to proceed from the railroad workers’ essential needs.
Witte went on to articulate his recognition of freedoms of assembly and of the press, both of which would be permitted very soon. He was surprised to discover that martial law was still in force on the railroads. This was due to a misunderstanding, and would be withdrawn in the next few days. Witte declared himself, moreover, to be an opponent of the use of force and bloodletting, and a defender of freedom in the broadest sense, yet he could not predict how the strike would be stopped. He planned to confer with Chilkov, and do everything in his power. In his opinion, the strike would first have to be cancelled before peaceful conditions could then be worked on. A delegate reported that Witte recognized the congress, and had expressed the wish that it become a permanent institution.
In response to a delegate’s remark, that the demand for universal suffrage was not based on a momentary whim but rather on an essential need, and that the book trade was downright flooded with texts about universal suffrage that was a component of the demands being made throughout almost the whole of Russia, Witte replied that there wasn’t a single scholarly expert in the whole world who advocated universal suffrage. A delegation member remarked that one shouldn’t be surprised about Witte’s answer here, as he’d spoken like a real civil servant, who always skirts around a subject rather than saying anything of substance. But in order to demonstrate character, so that demands could be pushed through, it would be necessary to postpone the next steps until October 25, when the meeting with Count Khilkov should take place. (Applause.) As the bureaucratic machine will not give the railroad employees anything, we have to go out and take it. And we should take that which we need. (Applause.) Another delegation member stated, “We have done our duty by compiling the demands of all employees and presenting them to the authorities. In that moment in which the leading circles submit to the necessity of fulfilling these demands, responsibility will swing back to those who do not fulfil them. I table the motion to take a final decision after the meeting with Khilkov.”
Although there were no doubts in the opinion of the assembly in relation to Witte’s readiness and the extent to which they could trust his words, it decided nonetheless to wait for the results of the discussion with Khilkov, and then made its way as one body to the meeting at the university.
Even from this semi-official and doctored report, it is clear enough that the congress didn’t let themselves be duped by Witte’s diplomatic intrigues and his lectures about international law. This congress could correctly filter out the core among all these phrases from the tsar’s darling, which is that the “broadest freedoms for the people” should still be embodied in the ridiculous monstrosity of the Duma and that universal, equal suffrage shall not be granted under any circumstances! No Constituent Assembly should be entrusted with creating a people’s constitution, but, instead, the ridiculous representatives of higher-level bureaucracy and the corrupt moneybags shall continue to back the tsarist terror regiment and all its people-lashing, people’s-soul-destroying practices, under the flimsy cover of an “advisory” body! The people certainly have seen through this perfidious plan, and refuse to take the bait placed by cooing rhetoric. They have taken up the fight with tremendous energy.
The railroad workers have immediately reacted by declaring war.
Petersburg, October 25. Fifteen-thousand persons took part in the assembly of railroad employees that was held at the university, including workers, students and many women. The assembly lasted until midnight; terroristic and rabble-rousing speeches were given, which were met with storms of applause.
The following semi-official reports shed light on the expansion of the railroad workers’ strike, even though they tend more toward whitewashing rather than exaggerating events:
Moscow, October 24 (report by the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). The railroad workers’ strike is gaining ever more ground in all directions, with the following cities now affected: Ulyanovsk, Yekaterinoslav, Kiev, Smolensk, Voronezh, Saratov, Kharkiv, Simferopol, Yaroslavl, and Nizhny Novgorod. This afternoon a crowd of 500 persons approached the goods station for the Moscow–Kursk line. The officer commanding the unit of troops occupying the station threatened to fire at the crowd, causing the throng of people to disperse. On the Moscow–Ventspils–Rybinsk line, the evening express train only got as far as Podmoskovnye Station, from where passengers had to proceed on foot to Moscow. On the Moscow–Kazan line, 2,000 people were waiting for trains to depart, the majority of them poor. They are receiving daily compensation toward living costs from the line’s management. Second-class passengers are getting one rouble a day while they wait. Last night, a special train conveying the Minister of Public Works arrived on the Moscow–Petersburg line, but otherwise no trains are arriving. Today, a number of strikers attempted to stop business at the central post office, but were driven back by the troops.
Petersburg, October 25. Transport has been stopped on a large number of Polish railroads, as has rail traffic on the Petersburg–Vilnius–Virbalis line and on the Petersburg–Vilnius–Warsaw line. The German Red Cross convoy, which wanted to leave for the journey back to Germany this afternoon, has not been able to depart. Strikers have also interrupted the post service. Simple letters should be sent from Germany via the Stockholm–Turku route; the postal authorities are refusing letters and parcels sent by registered mail. A report in from Kiev states that the southwest railroads have also stopped running. A report in from the Baltic railroads Petersburg–Riga, Petersburg–Tallinn, and Jelgava–Ventspils states that railroad transport has been stopped there too.
Petersburg, October 25. Strikers have interrupted telegraphic communication between Petersburg and Kharkiv.
Warsaw, October 25. Rebels have brought transport to a halt today on the Warsaw–Petersburg railroad line, meaning no traffic is running on any of Poland’s railroads with the exception of the Warsaw–Vienna line.
Warsaw, October 25. The workers of the Warsaw–Vienna railroad company have now joined the railroad workers’ general strike. All traffic is coming to a halt this evening.
Yet it is not just railroad transport that has already stopped on the most important lines; concurrently, workers from other trades are preparing for mass participation in a general strike. This is reported as follows:
Warsaw, October 24. Workers in Łódź and Pabianice from a number of large factories have gone out on strike, with roughly 40,000 celebrating being on strike until now, and further work stoppages are expected. We also assume that the authorities will announce a state of siege in the Piotrków Governorate, where a railroad worker strike is threatening to break out.
Poltawa, October 25 (report from Petersburg Telegraph Agency). Here a general strike is carrying the day. High school* lessons have also been stopped. The newspapers will not appear tomorrow.
Moscow, October 25 (report from Petersburg Telegraph Agency). A congress held by the Association of Engineers has decided that all engineers, in all companies, works, factories, building construction offices, etc., are obliged to go out on strike. This component of the strike will commence today.
Moscow, October 25. The situation is getting worse by the hour. Municipal employees and workers have set the city administration a second ultimatum, wherein they threaten a general strike if their demands are not respected. Were this to happen, the situation would become even more dangerous, as then the municipal waterworks could no longer operate.
Yekaterinoslav, October 24. Following on from Cossacks disbanding a meeting of school students using whips, a thousand-strong crowd gathered in front of the city hall. When troops appeared, the crowd started erecting barricades. The troops discharged their guns. A number of persons were killed or wounded. Concurrently, troops at the other end of the city in front of the Pushkin Memorial shot at striking railroad workers, killing three of them. Nine further railroad workers were wounded.
This concluding report demonstrates that the tsarist government is again working with the whip, gunpowder and lead [bullets]! We can predict that this bloodbath will not be the last one. Even Mr. Witte himself, the freedom enthusiast, has hinted that he cannot give any guarantees!
Yet despite all these sanctified means [that are part of] the divine right of kings, they shall not finish off the revolution. Through the baptism in blood that they have received, the people have been educated in revolutionary ways. Even if the movement should break down again this time, apparently without success, the workers will lead a new charge, time after time. Whether absolutism can bear these continually renewing and increasingly violent catastrophes in the long-term, is, however, a different question. The nerve of this Duma babble who have also snubbed lower-income groups inside the educated population—as they have the petit bourgeois and the peasantry—must be considered, but also the way in which they have managed to violently bind these groups to the working-class revolutionary struggle. Large parts of the intelligentsia are also taking an active part in the conflicts. The masses of the peasantry remain difficult to mobilize, but at least appear to refuse to be used as a buffer against the industrial proletarians. The last conferences of the municipal zemstvos pay testimony to this.
A particularly radical resolution was adopted by the Staritzk Zemstvo in the Tver Governorate, worded as follows:
The law concerning the “State Duma” (Gosudarstvennaja Duma) from August 6 in no way satisfies the clearly articulated wishes of Russian public opinion, and will not alter Russia’s “police-bureaucratic” ordering of society. On top of that, Russian society does not possess the most elementary human and civil rights, e.g., freedom of speech and of the press, etc. A body representing the people will not be in a position to exist properly under these conditions, and will in fact be a mere shadow of a real body of this type. That is why the zemstvo assembly is protesting against the law of August 6.
Delegates sent to the Imperial Duma should follow one goal only: to transform the Duma itself on the basis of direct, equal and secret suffrage, applied irrespective of sex, nationality and denomination, resulting in the Duma being granted law-making powers and control over activities of government organs.
It is not superfluous to note that the local district zemstvos are less progressive than the governorate zemstvos.
This results in a situation in which Russia is now offering us the cheering stage drama of a heroic fight for freedom, after the tragedy in the Far East!* We can only hope that Western European friends of the lash will not blithely disregard this major historical lesson!
EXPANSION OF THE STRIKE MOVEMENT
Petersburg, October 25. The strike movement has again expanded. The situation is growing graver and graver still. Moscow and Petersburg are cut off entirely. The English envoy wanted to depart today, but has had to put off his departure and will leave with the first steamer sailing from Russia. His trip is connected with the Anglo-Russian Agreement. The envoy will remain in London for a considerable period in order to consult with his government about the details of the agreement. The Russian envoy in London is returning to Russia for a while for the same purpose.
Petersburg, October 25. Striking railroad workers are starting to encourage workers on lines on which traffic is still running to also stop work. A large number of medical trains, coming from theaters of war, have been halted. Yekaterinoslav is in the grips of an open revolt. The inhabitants erected barricades that the Cossacks then stormed. Many people were killed and injured by the Cossacks’ volleys of bullets, although the number of victims is not yet known.
Warsaw, October 25. The revolutionary party is agitating for bringing work to an immediate halt at many factories in Warsaw and Łódź. The Polish National Democrats are warning that violent clashes could follow.