23.07.1998

The Russian Revolution must live!

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, July 25 1918

The Russian Socialist Republic of Workers and Peasants is in danger! Let there be no mistake about it. This is not a quarrel between two or more sections of the labour and socialist movement in Russia. If the Soviet is overthrown, a military dictatorship will take its place, gradually evolving into the restoration of the monarchy. The tragedy of the Commune of Paris will be repeated and reaction all over the world will receive a new lease of life ...

After decades of struggle, after untold sacrifices, after all the tortures and deaths suffered willingly and cheerfully for the sake of their ideals, the Russian workers and peasants have at last thrown off the yoke not only of Tsardom, but also of capitalism and landlordism. They have assumed control both of the political and economic machinery. They have established a socialist republic.

Agriculture is being organised on a cooperative basis by the peasants themselves, and it is significant that the coming harvest is expected to be one of the best for the last 20 years. The railways are managed under the supervision and on behalf of the Republic of the Soviets by commissions of railwaymen themselves, organised through their unions. Similarly, the great works, the mines, the factories are managed by the workers and are gradually being socialised in the interests of the whole community.

If there is still chaos, and there is, it is due to the heritage of the old regime and to the impossibility of international trade and exchange owing to the continuance of the world war and against the hostility of the capitalist countries of both camps ...

And now our rulers, who are supposed to be fighting Prussian militarism, must needs follow Prussia in their Russian policy, as in so many other things. They must needs egg on Japan and do their utmost to encourage the United States to invade Siberia and cut off the food supplies from Russia. They must needs make common cause with the Russian capitalists and landlords to crush the Soviet of the Workers and Peasants ...

Will the British workers permit their brothers in Russia to be stabbed in the back? No, a thousand times no! British labour can and must prevent this shame. But time is pressing and the matter is urgent. Meetings must be organised everywhere. Trades councils, trade union branches and lodges must pass resolutions of protest and send them to the government, to their MPs and to their executives, and insist that the Labour Party and the Trade Union Congress take action.

The Russian workers and peasants can save their Revolution if they are only left alone. The least that they have a right to demand from British labour is to prevent the British ruling classes lending aid to the Russian counterrevolution. The duty of British labour is clear.

Long live the Socialist Republic of Russia!