As a result of the telegraph strikes very little news is reaching us from Russia. The scanty bit that we do have arrives much delayed after many detours.
MR. WITTE DROPS HIS MASK
A delegation of the striking post and telegraph civil servants presented themselves on December 1 to Count Witte, but were not permitted entry. Witte communicated that the strike of the post and telegraph civil servants would not be tolerated in any civilized country and recommended that the delegation appeal to “their immediate superiors.”
The “liberal” mediating role of the prime minister is all played out. Faced with strong revolutionary action, he is through with the softly-softly approach.
THE TSAR’S EMPIRE IS CUT OFF
Copenhagen, December 2 (Wolff’s Telegraph Office).† As communicated by the telegraph office in the city, the telegraphic connection with Russia has been completely down since 4 p.m. this afternoon.
THE DYING SOUNDS OF THE BATTLE OF SEVASTOPOL
Petersburg, December 2 (report by the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). A telegram has been received from Lieutenant General Möller-Sakomelsky dated December 1 concerning the events at Sevastopol, which states the military mutiny is over; the new troops are behaving impeccably; more than 2,000 of the insurgents have been taken prisoner. The attitude of the inhabitants, particularly the Jews and the revolutionaries, is disturbing; they are mocking and upsetting the officers.
Vienna, December 2. In contradiction to the semi-official reports, private reports from Moscow that have reached us here maintain that skirmishes are still continuing in Sevastopol. A heavy mood of panic dominates Odessa, where pogroms against the Jews are feared. The regiment of sappers stationed in that city has mutinied. General Kaulbars has threatened the Moscow papers with taking the toughest measures against them if they continue to publish “misleading reports.” The academic senate has communicated to the city’s captain of armed forces that if the closure of the university is not retracted within twenty-four hours then it will be reopened with use of force.
THE BLACK HUNDREDS SET TO WORK
Kiev, December 2. New disturbances have broken out here. The mob in Podol looted shops and the military had to intervene. The rabble threatened to attack the intelligentsia and the consulates, leading the governor to take strict precautionary measures. The streets are occupied by the military.
THE MILITARY AND THE DEBTS OF TSARISM
The Daily Mail, normally very unreliable, reports that the central strike committee has passed a motion intending to paralyze the government by stopping loans reaching the Russian empire. The committee stated that bonds that the government had taken out abroad would be declared void if the present government were toppled. Moreover, the committee is working on a plan that would use force to bring all the government’s gold into its own possession(!).
The last statement sounds adventurous. However, the fact that a future revolutionary government would not dream of* paying off absolutism’s debts to the gentlemen bankers in Western Europe is so obvious that it can be taken as read, and does not particularly need to be “decided upon.”
A HOAX
The Hirsch Office is spreading the following news: Petersburg, December 2. In the first issue of the new Social Democratic paper published yesterday, the socialist leader Plekhanov warns against continuing the revolution, the long duration of which carries with it a threat for our culture—a claim that Struve agrees with. The article created a lot of attention and was discussed in a sympathetic manner in the liberal papers.
This is of course a hoax. We do not know which “new Social Democratic paper” is meant in this case. Nachalo [The Beginning] was published on November 26 already and doesn’t contain a single article by Plekhanov. In any case, it is impossible that Comrade Plekhanov can have made the statements attributed to him above. At the very most, it is perhaps possible—if there’s any substance whatsoever to the rumors—that Plekhanov has warned against overstretching the general strike as a method. But even this seems extremely implausible.
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION IN THE EYES OF THE ENGLISH
London, November 29. The English press and particularly the monthly periodicals like to display their generosity in the face of important occasions and events. Generous, that is, from a liberal point of view. Yet the traditions of English liberalism came into being in momentous times. This is why its followers are capable of interpreting historical happenings in an historical way. Nowhere is this clearer than in their judgment of Social Democracy. It wouldn’t be in the least bit an exaggeration to say that Russian Social Democracy’s recent achievements have cast a light on the socialist movement here of a kind never seen before. The English are always impressed by the art of organization—voluntary organization of political and social movements and parties. And our Russian comrades are the sole organized force in the Russian turmoil. We cannot, however, deny the fact that England is now sliding into a mood similar to that which broke out in England soon after the French Revolution had begun. [Edmund] Burke’s* spirit is awaking.
The article “Europe and the Russian Revolution” in the December issue of the Fortnightly [Review]† is written in this spirit and uses all that Burke is capable of. But it still contains some thoughts that might be of interest for us. They concern the political mass strike, which the writer simply calls the general strike. After examining Russia’s economic development over the last fifteen years, and describing the formation of industries and the proletariat, the author comments:
This was the situation brought to a head by the methods of the New Revolution. The general strike preached for years by German socialists as the ultimo ratio of the proletariat seemed an idea so abstract, a contingency so remote, that it excited the satire rather than the apprehensions of constituted authority and its defenders. In the last days of October it appeared in Russia in practical application as the most portentous and terrible instrument ever employed by political agitation. Up to that moment [Edward] Gibbon’s famous argument that a hundred thousand disciplined men ready to strike toward any point can hold down a hundred million of more-or-less disconnected subjects seemed to have lost little of its validity. Railways, telegraphs, and telephones in Russia as in India seemed only to have increased the ability of a central authority to concentrate toward any point and to crush opposition with the greater rapidity. In Russia, a comparatively small minority has proved its ability to dislocate at a blow the machinery upon which modern government depends in all its operations. The towns in Russia are but dots upon the map. Yet they are the points of junction—the screws and rivets that keep the whole apparatus of the state together. Without them the fabric of bureaucracy itself falls asunder. Militarism cannot mobilize. It becomes a question whether its army corps can be fed. The pressure upon the strikers themselves is extreme and exhausting. When their funds are exhausted, they must resume work or starve. But the intense power of their tactics extorts concession from a government not supported by an active and dominant public opinion … The general strike in practical operation is obviously by far the most important phenomenon of politics since the French Revolution. *
The article is written under the pseudonym of Perseus.† Judging by his style, he used to write in the same monthly journal using the pseudonym Calchas, and has an important position in the Foreign Office.