19.03.1998

A double anniversary

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, March 14 1918

Once again March 17 is with us and our thoughts turn to that historic incident in Paris in 1871, which will ever live in the annals of the struggle of the world’s workers for emancipation.

For the first time in history the working people made a conscious effort to gain power for themselves. That is the great significance of the Paris Commune ... When the workers in Paris in 1871 raised the standard of revolt it was to rally the workers to the last fight against oppression and exploitation. It was a struggle not for a class, but to abolish classes, a struggle for social and economic equality. It was the first uprising of the proletariat for the overthrow of capitalism and for the establishment of socialism ...

But the day is for us also one of sad memories ... The bloody butcher Gallifet, of cursed memory, murdered in cold blood over 100,000 men, women and children before the vengeance of the bourgeoisie was appeased. Have you forgotten this, Messieurs Thomas, Guesde and Renaudel [French anti-Bolshevik socialist leaders], since you denounce our Russian comrades?

... This week we celebrate a double anniversary. Twelve months ago the Russian workers, peasants and soldiers overthrew the bloody and treacherous tsarism and established the rule of the workers. The same ideas that inspired our comrades in Paris in March 1871 inspired also our comrades in Petrograd in March 1917. But the Russian Revolution is on a much larger scale. Its effect is immeasurably greater. It has shaken the capitalist order to its very foundations.

Whatever happens in the immediate future, the revolution has profoundly modified the course of future development of the working class movement in all lands. Furthermore the revolution has completely mastered the whole of Russia. For the first time in history the triumph of the workers has been complete. The Russian Revolution can only be crushed from without.

... Remembering the savagery of the bourgeoisie in 1871, the mind shivers with horror at the fate of our heroic comrades of Russia if the wild dogs of international capitalism get them in their grip. In 1871 German workers were very weak. Liebknecht and Bebel could do no more than protest. But today the German workers can save Russia and emancipate themselves. Their duty lies before them.

And the workers of the other countries? On them too rests the responsibility to foil the plans of the imperialists. The triumph of reaction in Russia will give a new lease of life to decrepit capitalism. The great work commenced in Paris in 1871, continued in Russia in 1917, must be completed by the workers in all countries, and set the world free forever.