01.05.1997

The Russian Revolution

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, April 19 1917

At the unanimous request of the delegates of the recent BSP conference at Manchester, we gladly publish the following letter, addressed to the conference by comrade Georg Chicherin on behalf of the committee of delegates of the Russian socialist groups in London:

A whole year has elapsed since the British Socialist Party at its last conference, with a clear conception of its revolutionary class aims, parted with those who by their policy, a policy contrary to the proletarian class consciousness, hampered the prosecution of its socialist action, and since then the BSP, true to the proletarian banner, firmly defends the class interest of the workers ...

We feel it as our duty however to extend the usual limits of formal greetings and, as an integral part of the socialist parties of Russia, as soldiers of the revolutionary Russia, to ask you to consider carefully the international situation created by the Russian Revolution, and to act accordingly without delay.

You are well aware of the fact that the driving force of the Russian Revolution, its creative spirit, were the class conscious proletarians of Russia. Despite the advice of the bourgeois liberal elements they took their fate into their own hands and won the first magnificent battle by gaining over the soldiers, the majority of whom belong to the peasantry, to the cause of the people.

With the fall of the old regime the moderate bourgeois elements stepped into the vacant place and constituted themselves the new government. But the lessons of past revolutions were not lost altogether. The workers and soldiers of Petrograd, rightly suspicious of the ‘democratic’ ardour of the Duma government, formed the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates - a body, not purely proletarian, which, without claiming the executive power of the official government, exercises a very great influence over its internal and external policy ...

Every socialist must realise that if the Russian Revolution fails to settle the war speedily on the basis of a people’s peace, it would mean only a half-victory for the working class of Russia and abroad ... There is no more urgent duty for the proletariat today than to rise against their rulers and by common international action impose the peace the peoples want. The Russian Revolution gave the lead. It may be the opening for humanity of a new era, in which the oppressed classes will no longer submit tamely to the will of their oppressors. The first step has been taken. The others must follow ...

The success of the Russian Revolution is now in the hands not only of our Russian comrades, but also of the workers of other countries. It would be the greatest tragedy of international socialism if the Russian internationalists were to be defeated as a consequence of their brothers in other countries having failed them ...

The British government grasped at once the international issue involved in the Russian Revolution. And forth goes a deputation, headed by Will Thorne, in order to bring to the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates at Petrograd the war message of the capitalist and jingo British, disguised as “fraternal greetings of British labour”. Will the class conscious workers of Britain let pass unchallenged this slashing insult?

The democratic Russian peasantry, the deciding factor in the situation, finds itself today before a crossway. It has to choose between the policy of the socialist proletariat and the policy of the imperialist capitalists. The issue is between a speedy peace, embodying the demands of the working class and achieved by its international action on one hand, and patriotic war passions, leading to permanent hatred and increased enslavement of the workers on the other.

... The Allied governments and their valets are flying to give help to Russian capital. Will not internationalist labour in all countries throw itself into battle hand in hand with the internationalists of Russia?

Its support is needed, and at once.