THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION
The situation is escalating at this very moment in Russia and particularly in Petersburg to such a degree that we can expect that a state of siege will also be imposed on the capital on the Neva any day now. The bandits of tsarism evidently want to make a desperate attempt to stop, with violence, the revolution that is storming forward. But that is the very characteristic thing that a revolution does. Without waiting for the government’s decisions and the “legal” pen strokes of lawyers’ chambers, political freedom in all areas of public life has won through so strongly, that, amid the Sturm und Drang,† a way back can no longer exist.
A specific press law has not been issued; formally speaking, censorship exists in all its old rigor. A new law is due to be published soon, providing a substantial easing of the regulations surrounding the founding of newspapers. For Russian papers an announcement will now only have to be made fourteen days before the first issue; for non-Russian papers the stipulated period will be three months. In fact, a level of freedom prevails in the press in Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw, which in the Prussian-German Rechsstaat “state-of-rights”‡ can still only be dreamt of. No paper even bothers about the censor anymore, as they simply ignore it. Editorial teams respond to strong warnings by the board-of-censors by stating that censorship contradicts the tsarist constitutional manifesto, and is therefore illegal. This leaves an oppositional press dominated by political criticism voiced in the sharpest of tones; political caricature and political wit are cleaning their guns without the least inhibition. In this atmosphere of fresh air, the differentiation of the press along party lines becomes more lucid by the day. A whole series of radical workers’ papers have already been published in Petersburg, including: Golos Naroda [People’s Voice], Rabochaya Gazeta [Workers’ Gazette]; and Russkaya Gazeta [Russian Gazette]. We have already spoken about the founding of two unambiguously Social Democratic party papers in Petersburg.* The way in which the reading public has received the Social Democratic papers is significant in determining Social Democracy’s political and intellectual position of power in the current revolution. When Novaya Zhyzn [New Life]—that was founded with decidedly modest financial means—was published for the first time, the whole print run of 100,000 copies was sold out in Petersburg alone within only a couple of hours, meaning that a new edition had to be printed at night for the provinces. The public surged into the offices of the new paper in such numbers to register for a subscription, that there was a thronging queue of people outside all day, as if it were a theatere box office. The first issue included the official party program of Russian Social Democracy as a supplement to a publication that included an artistically splendid satirical sketch by [Evgeny Nikolayevich] Chirikov, The Eagle and The Hen†—symbolizing the proletariat and the liberals. The issue was of course “sequestered’” in proper fashion, which did not stop it being disseminated. The second party newspaper, due to appear shortly, will surely receive a similar reception. The demand for the living, printed word of the leading revolutionary party of the proletariat has become so enormous that several party newspapers could exist healthily beside each other, as polemical arguments between them are unthinkable in the present environment. Regarding the circumstances in which the press currently, it is revealing that the organ Slovo (The Word)—previously progressive but in recent times an ultra-reactionary rag of agitation—has been forced to close. The reason for this utterly involuntary farewell is that Petersburg typesetters refused to put together these filthy sheets. The Post and other papers of this caliber should count themselves lucky that they don’t publish in Petersburg.
NEW STRUGGLES IN PETERSBURG
Petersburg, November 15. The authorities are preparing for heavy street battles. Whole batteries of machine guns are being moved into position. Civil society is fleeing. All ships currently bound for abroad are full of refugees, mostly full of women and children. They are sailing at high speed toward German ports. The workers have threatened that an armed gathering of half-a-million people will take place on Thursday afternoon. Ninety-nine thousand people stopped working on Wednesday. Strong troop divisions prevent assemblies, but numerous gatherings take place anyway, which formulate unanimous motions in favor of the armed struggle.
Petersburg, November 16. A number of former Minister of the Interior civil servants from Plehve’s period of office* are heading the workers’ movement that has broken out again—civil servants, who have since become socialists. They are of great service to the workers because of their comprehensive knowledge of the various branches of the administrative apparatus. We estimate the total number of strikers at 700,000. Darkness cloaked half of Petersburg’s streets from yesterday evening onwards because of the gas workers’ strike.
A PROCLAMATION FROM WITTE
Petersburg, November 16 (report by the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). Count Witte directed a telegram with the following content to the workers at all factories and other works:
Brothers, workers! Take up your work again and stop taking part in disturbances! Have compassion with your women and children and desist from listening to advice from the evil-minded! The emperor has commanded us to address ourselves to the question of the workers with exceptional interest, and for this purpose we have created a trade and industry ministry that will bring about fair relations between the companies and the workers. Give us time. I will do everything I can for you, in the realm of what is possible. Listen to the word of a man who loves you and who wishes you well.
Count Witte
The Petersburg workers will prefer to do themselves what they consider necessary, instead of relying on this windbag Witte!
LYNCH-MOB JUSTICE AND PEASANT REVOLTS
Laffan News Agency reports from Petersburg:
A summary execution was carried out early on Thursday on a civil servant of the legal chambers who was accused of inciting to participation in a pogrom against the Jews. A number of workers surrounded him on the street, commenced a formal interrogation with him, and subsequently sentenced him to death. Workers shot him on the spot with a revolver before dispersing. Terrible atrocities have been committed in Burgade and Danutzery in Bessarabia against the Jews, with girls and women dragged naked through the streets and abused in the vilest possible way.
The mob poured petrol over the Chief Rabbi of Chișinău and burned him alive. In the provinces of Saratov, Yekaterinoslav, Tambov and other regions the peasants are revolting in their thousands, plundering the estates and murdering the estate owners. The tsar has sent special legally authorized representatives to “pacify” the peasants.
Land mines have been found buried beneath the tracks on the Warsaw–Vienna line.
The minister of the admiralty, Admiral [Alexei Alexeyevich] Birilev, has been advised to execute as few participants from the Kronstadt mutinies as possible. The sailors have announced that they would kill one officer for every executed mutineer, and would start that process with Admiral Birilev. The officers are threatening to desert, in case the authorities pronounce mass death sentences against the mutineers.
TSARIST EXPRESSION OF TRUST IN THE ODESSA THUGS
London, November 15 (Laffan’s News Agency). General [Alexander Vassiliyevich] Kaulbars, Odessa’s military governor, authorized the Standard’s correspondent in that city—by way of his adjutant, Colonel von Rever—that not only were reports about the general’s imminent resignation without foundation, but that the tsar had even sent him a telegram worded in an especially gracious manner, in which the general’s actions during the most recent disturbances in Odessa were appreciated and acknowledged.
The Standard’s correspondent noted that in light of the damning judgment that has been cast upon General Kaulbar from all sides, he, the correspondent, would refrain from commenting on the tsar’s telegram.
THE INSURRECTION IN VLADIVOSTOK
London, November 16 (Laffan’s News Agency). According to reports arriving via Shanghai, around 800 persons have been killed or wounded during the disturbances in Vladivostok. Insurrectionists burned the whole of the business district to the ground. It is impossible at present to estimate the cost of the damage.