Today is election day in St. Petersburg. Elections in the Second Curia. The fight is between two camps: the Social-Democrats and the Cadets. The voters must decide to whom they are going to entrust the fate of the country.
What do the Social-Democrats want?
What do the Cadets want?
The Social-Democrats, as the representatives of the working class, are striving to liberate mankind from all exploitation.
The Cadets, however, as the representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie, build their future on the exploitation of man by man, an embellished exploitation, it is true, but exploitation for all that.
The Social-Democrats are of the opinion that the question of renovating the country has remained unsettled, that it must be settled, and settled by the efforts of the country itself.
The Cadets, however, believe that it is superfluous to talk about renovation because, “thank God we have a Constitution.” . . .
The Social-Democrats are of the opinion that on the road to the renovation of the country Russia has split up into two Russias: old, official Russia, and the new, future Russia.
The Cadets, however, believe that after “the granting of a Constitution” “this contrasting” of the two Russias is “no longer possible” because “Russia is now one.” The only deduction to be drawn is: the constitutional ideal of the Cadets has already been achieved. The framework of the June the Third regime is not irksome to them.
For example, the following is what Milyukov said at a banquet in London in 1909, at which he “represented” Russia in conjunction with the Octobrist Guchkov and the “moderate” Black-Hundred Bobrinsky: “You have before you men of very diverse shades of political opinion, but these differences, supplementing each other, represent our great ideal of a constitutional Russia” (see I. Yefremov’s book, Russia’s People’s Representatives, etc., p. 81). Thus, the Black-Hundred Bobrinsky, “supplementing” the Cadet Milyukov in the interests of . . . “popular freedom”—such, it appears, is the “great ideal” of the Cadets.
Not a single representative of the workers, not a single representative of the peasants was present at the London banquet, but, it appears, the “great ideals” of the Cadets can do without workers, can do without peasants. . . .
A Constitution of the Bobrinskys, Guchkovs and Milyukovs without representatives of the workers, without representatives of the peasants—such are the “ideals” of the Cadets!
Is it surprising, after this, that the Cadets in the Third Duma voted for 1) the anti-popular budget, 2) indirect taxes, 3) grants for the maintenance of prisons, etc.? Is it surprising, after this, that the Cadets oppose the demands of the workers, of the peasants and of the entire democracy?
Is it surprising, after this, that the Cadets, through the mouth of Maklakov, demanded “more vigour, sternness and severity” towards the student movement, and in Rech contemptuously described the peaceful strike of the Lena workers as a “spontaneous riot”?
No, this is not a party of “popular freedom,” but a party of betrayers of “popular freedom.”
Such people are only capable of striking a bargain with the bureaucracy behind the backs of the people. The “negotiations” with Witte, Stolypin and Trepov, and now with Sazonov, are by no means accidental. Such people are only capable of entering into an alliance with the Black Hundreds to defeat the Social-Democrats in the elections in Kharkov, Kostroma, Yekaterinodar and Riga.
To entrust the fate of the country to such people would be tantamount to surrendering the country to the derision of the enemies.
We express the conviction that self-respecting voters will not link their honour with the fate of the Cadets. Let the Cadets today bear well-merited punishment for the heinous sins they have committed against the Russian people!
Worker voters! Vote for those who represent your interests, for the Social-Democrats!
Shop assistant voters! Don’t vote for the Cadets, who ignored your interests as regards leisure time— vote for the Social-Democrats, the only consistent champions of your interests! Polish voters! You are striving for the right to free national development—remember that freedom for nationalities is inconceivable without general freedom, and the Cadets are betraying freedom!
Jewish voters! You are striving for equal rights for the Jews, but remember that the Milyukovs who hobnob with the Bobrinskys, and the Cadets who enter into a bloc with the Rights, will not strive for equal rights! For the betrayers of the popular freedom, or for its champions; for the Cadets or for the Social-Democrats! Choose, citizens!
Pravda, No. 152,
Reprinted from the newspaper
October 25, 1912
Signed: K. St.
TO ALL THE WORKING MEN
AND WORKING WOMEN OF RUSSIA!118
January 9
Comrades!
We are again about to commemorate January 9 —the day that was sealed with the blood of hundreds of our fellow-workers who, on January 9, 1905, were shot down by tsar Nicholas Romanov because they had come to him, peaceful and unarmed, to petition for better conditions of life. Eight years have elapsed since then. Eight long years, during which, except for a brief flash of freedom, our country has been harrowed and tortured by the tsar and the landlords!
And today, as in the past, workers in Russia are being shot down for peacefully going on strike—as was the case on the Lena. And today, as in the past, millions and millions of peasants are being reduced to starvation—as was the case in 1911. And today, as in the past, the finest sons of the people are being tortured and tormented in the tsar’s prisons and being driven to wholesale suicide— as was the case recently in Kutomar, Algachi,119 and elsewhere. And today, as in the past, the tsar’s courtsmartial sentence sailors and soldiers to be shot for demanding land for the peasants and freedom for all the people—as was the case recently with the seventeen sailors of the Black Sea Fleet.120 That is the way Nicholas Romanov, Autocrat of All the Russias by the grace of the landlords, is exercising the power bestowed on him “by God” and blessed by the surpliced villains of the Synod and by the Black Hundreds—the Purishkeviches and Khvostovs.
Russia is still being strangled by the Romanov monarchy, which is preparing this year to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its bloody rule over our country. But Russia is no longer the downtrodden and submissive Russia which suffered in silence under the yoke of the Romanovs for so many years. And above all, our Russian working class, now marching at the head of all the fighters for freedom, is not what it was. We shall commemorate January 9, 1913, not as crushed and downtrodden slaves, but with heads erect—a united army of fighters, who feel, who know, that the people’s Russia is waking up again, that the ice of the counter-revolution has been broken, that the river of the people’s movement has begun to flow again, and that “behind us fresh warriors march in serried ranks.” . . . Eight years! How little lived, how much endured. . . . In this period we have seen three State Dumas. The first two, in which the liberals had the majority, but in which the voices of the workers and peasants were loudly heard, the tsar dispersed in obedience to the will of the Black-Hundred landlords. The Third Duma was a Black-Hundred Duma, and for five years it co-operated with the tsarist gang in still further enslaving and oppressing the peasants, the workers—the whole of people’s Russia. During these years of dark counter-revolution it was
TO ALL THE WORKING MEN AND WORKING WOMEN OF RUSSIA!
the working class that had to drain the bitterest cup. Since 1907, when the forces of the old order succeeded in temporarily crushing the revolutionary mass movement, the workers have been groaning under a double yoke. On them above all the tsarist gang took ruthless vengeance. And it is against them that the onslaught of the capitalist offensive was directed. Taking advantage of the political reaction, the factory and mill owners step by step robbed the workers of all the gains they had won with so much effort and sacrifice. By means of lockouts, and protected by the gendarmerie and the police, the employers lengthened the working day, cut wages and restored the old system in the factories and mills.
Clenching their teeth, the workers remained silent. In 1908 and 1909 the Black Hundreds’ intoxication with their triumph reached its peak and the labour movement reached its lowest ebb. But already in the summer of 1910 a revival of workers’ strikes began, and the end of 1911 brought with it the active protest of tens of thousands of workers against the retention in penal servitude of the Social-Democratic deputies of the Second Duma, who had been sentenced on false charges.121
The mass movement of the workers ended with the strike of November 22, 1907, against the sentences of penal servitude on the Social-Democratic deputies of the Second Duma; and the mass movement of the workers revived at the end of 1911, again in connection with the fate of the Social-Democratic deputies of the Second Duma, those front-rank fighters, those working-class heroes, whose work is now being continued by the workers’ deputies in the Fourth Duma.
The revival of the political struggle is accompanied by the revival of the workers’ economic struggle. The political strike fosters the economic strike and vice versa. Wave follows wave, and the workers’ movement is surging forward in a mighty flood against the strongholds of the tsarist monarchy and of the autocracy of capital. More and more sections of the workers are awakening to new life. Larger and larger masses are being drawn into the new struggle. The strikes in connection with the Lena shooting, the May Day strikes, the strikes in protest against the disfranchisement of the workers, and the protest strike against the execution of the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet involved about a million participants. Those were revolutionary strikes, strikes which inscribed on their banners the slogan: “Down with the Romanov monarchy, down with the whole of the old and decaying landlord regime which is strangling Russia!” The workers’ revolutionary movement is expanding and growing. The working class is beginning to rouse other sections of the population for the new struggle. All honest men and women, all those who are pressing forward towards a better life, are beginning to protest against the violence of the hounds of tsarism. Even the bourgeoisie is grumbling, even it is displeased with the complete and undivided rule of the Purishkeviches. The June the Third regime has pacified nobody. All the years of counter-revolution have shown that there can be no free life in Russia so long as the Romanov monarchy and landlord rule remain intact. A new revolution is maturing, in which the working class will again play the honourable role of leader of the entire army of emancipation.
TO ALL THE WORKING MEN AND WORKING WOMEN OF RUSSIA!
On the banner of the working class are still inscribed the three old demands for which so much sacrifice has been made and so much blood has been shed. An eight-hour day—for the workers!
All the landlords’, tsar’s and monasterial lands with out compensation—for the peasants!
A democratic republic—for the whole people! It is around these demands that the fight in Russia has raged and is raging today. They were advanced by the workers during the recent Lena strikes. They will be advanced also by the working class on January 9. In 1912, the workers in St. Petersburg, Riga and Nikolayev tried to commemorate January 9 by strikes and demonstrations. In 1913, we shall commemorate January 9 in this way everywhere—all over Russia. On January 9, 1905, the first Russian revolution was born in the blood of the workers. Let the beginning of 1913 serve as the threshold of the second revolution in Russia. The house of Romanov, in preparing to celebrate its 300th anniversary in 1913, contemplates remaining on the back of Russia for a long time to come. Let us, then, on January 9, 1913, say to this gang:
Enough! Down with the Romanov monarchy! Long live the democratic republic!
Comrades! Let not January 9, 1913, pass unobserved anywhere where Russian workers are living and fighting. With meetings, resolutions, mass rallies and where possible with
a one-day strike and
demonstrations
let us everywhere commemorate this day.
Let us on this day remember the heroes who fell in the struggle! We shall pay the highest tribute to their memory if, on that day, our old demands ring out all over Russia:
A Democratic Republic!
Confiscation of the Landlords’ Land!
An Eight-Hour Working Day!
The Central Committee of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party
Comrades!
Prepare to protest on January 9.
Published in leaflet form
Reprinted from the leaflet
at the end of December 1912
and beginning of January 1913
Сегодня выборы в Петербурге. Выборы по второй курии. Борются два лагеря:
социал-демократы и кадеты. Избиратели должны решить, кому они вверяют судьбу
страны.
Чего хотят социал-демократы?
Чего хотят кадеты?
Социал-демократы, как представители рабочего класса, стремятся к освобождению
человечества от всякой эксплуатации.
Кадеты же, как представители либеральной буржуазии) строят свое будущее на
эксплуатации человека человеком, эксплуатации – правда – подчищенной, но
все-таки эксплуатации.
Социал-демократы думают, что вопрос об Обновлении страны остался неразрешенным,
что его нужно разрешить, – разрешить усилиями самой же страны.
Кадеты же полагают, что разговоры об обновлении излишни, так как “у нас, слава
богу, есть конституция”…
Социал-демократы думают, что на пути к обновлению страны Россия разделилась на
две России: старую, официальную, и новую, грядущую.
Кадеты же полагают, что после “дарования конституции” “такое противоположение”
двух Россий “более невозможно”, ибо “Россия – одна”.
Вывод один: конституционный идеал кадетов уже осуществлен. Рамки третьеиюньского
положения для них нестеснительны.
Вот, например, что говорил Милюков на банкете в Лондоне в 1909 году, где вместе
с ним “представляли” Россию октябрист Гучков и “умеренный” черносотенец
Бобринский:
“Вы видите перед собой людей весьма различных оттенков политических убеждений,
но эти различия, дополняя друг друга, представляют наш великий идеал
конституционной России” (см. книгу И.Ефремова “Русские народные представители” и
пр., стр. 81).
Следовательно, черносотенец Бобринский, “дополняющий” кадета Милюкова в
интересах... “народной свободы”, – таков, оказывается, “великий идеал” кадетов.
На лондонском банкете не было ни одного представителя рабочих, ни одного
представителя крестьян, но “великие идеалы кадетов, оказывается, обходятся без
рабочих, без крестьян...
Конституция Бобринских, Гучковых и Милюковых без представителей рабочих, без
представителей крестьян – вот они, “идеалы” кадетов!
Следует ли удивляться после этого, что кадеты голосовали в третьей Думе за: 1)
антинародный бюджет, 2) за косвенные налоги, 3) за ассигновки на тюрьмы и т. д.?
Следует ли удивляться после этого, что кадеты высказываются против требований
рабочих, крестьян и всей демократии?
Следует ли удивляться после этого, что кадеты, устами Маклакова, требовали по
отношению к студенческому движению “больше энергии, строгости и жестокости”, а
мирную забастовку ленских рабочих третировали в “Речи” “стихийным бунтом”?
Нет, это не партия “народной свободы”, а партия изменников “народной свободе”.
Такие люди только и способны торговаться с бюрократией за спиной народа.
“Переговоры” с Витте, Столыпиным и Треповым, а теперь с Сазоновым отнюдь не
случайность.
Такие люди только и способны проваливать социал-демократов в союзе с черными на
выборах в Харькове, Костроме, Екатеринодаре, Риге.
Вверить судьбу страны таким людям – все равно, что отдать страну врагам на посмешище.
Мы выражаем свою уверенность, что уважающие себя избиратели не свяжут своей чести с судьбой кадетов.
Пусть понесут сегодня кадеты достойную кару за их тяжкие грехи против русского народа!
Избиратели-рабочие! Голосуйте за представителей ваших интересов, за социал-демократов!
Избиратели-приказчики! Не голосуйте за кадетов, пренебрегших интересами вашего
отдыха, – голосуйте за социал-демократов, единственных последовательных
защитников ваших интересов!
Избиратели-поляки! Вы добиваетесь права свободного национального развития, –
помните, что свобода национальностей немыслима без общей свободы, а кадеты
изменяют свободе!
Избиратели-евреи! Вы добиваетесь равноправия евреев, но помните, что
лобызающиеся с Бобринскими Милюковы и блокирующиеся с правыми кадеты не будут
добиваться равноправия!
За предателей народной свободы или за защитников ее, за кадетов или за
социал-демократов – выбирайте, граждане!
Газета “Правда” № 152,
25 октября 1912 г.
Подпись: К. Ст.
Печатается по тексту газеты
Hoy son las elecciones en Petersburgo. Las elecciones de la segunda curia. Luchan dos campos: los socialdemócratas y los demócratas constitucionalistas. Los electores deben decidir a quién confían la suerte del país. ¿Qué quieren los socialdemócratas? ¿Qué quieren los demócratas constitucionalistas? Los socialdemócratas, como representantes de la clase obrera, aspiran a liberar a la humanidad de toda explotación. Los demócratas constitucionalistas, como representantes de la burguesía liberal, edifican su porvenir sobre la explotación del hombre por el hombre, una explotación pulida -cierto-, pero que no por eso deja de ser explotación. Los socialdemócratas consideran que el problema de la renovación del país ha quedado sin resolver, que hay que resolverlo, y resolverlo con los esfuerzos del propio país. En cambio, los demócratas constitucionalistas opinan que huelga hablar de renovación, ya que, “gracias a Dios, tenemos una Constitución”... Los socialdemócratas consideran que, en el camino de su renovación, Rusia se ha dividido en dos: la Rusia vieja, la Rusia oficial, y la Rusia nueva, la Rusia del futuro. En cambio, los demócratas constitucionalistas opinan que, después de haber sido “otorgada la Constitución”, “tal contraposición” de las dos Rusias “ya no es posible”, pues “Rusia es una”. Conclusión única: su ideal constitucionalista ya se ha realizado. No se sienten estrechos en el marco del decreto del 3 de junio. He aquí, por ejemplo, lo que decía Miliukov en un banquete celebrado en Londres en 1909, en el cual “representaban” con él a Rusia el octubrista Guchkov y el cien-negrista “moderado” Bóbrinski: “Tenéis ante vosotros a hombres de convicciones políticas de muy diversos matices, pero estas diferencias, complementándose unas con otras, representan nuestro gran ideal de la Rusia constitucional” (v. el libro de I. Efrémov “Los representantes del pueblo ruso” etc., pág. 81). Por consiguiente, el cien-negrista Bóbrinski, “complementa” al demócrata constitucionalista Miliukov en interés... de la “libertad popular”: tal es, a lo que se ve, el “gran ideal” de los demócratas constitucionalistas. En el banquete de Londres no hubo ni un solo representante de los obreros, ni un solo representante de los campesinos, pero los “grandes ideales” de los demócratas constitucionalistas pueden prescindir, a lo que se ve, de los obreros y de los campesinos... La Constitución de los Bóbrinski, de los Guchkov y de los Miliukov, sin representantes de los obreros, sin representantes de los campesinos: ¡ahí tenéis los “ideales” de los demócratas constitucionalistas! ¿Puede extrañar, después de eso, que los demócratas constitucionalistas hayan votado en la tercera Duma: 1) por un presupuesto antipopular, 2) por los impuestos indirectos, 3) por las asignaciones para cárceles, etc.? ¿Puede extrañar, después de eso, que los demócratas constitucionalistas se pronuncien contra las reivindicaciones de los obreros, de los campesinos y de toda la democracia? ¿Puede extrañar, después de eso, que los demócratas constitucionalistas, por boca de Maklakov, hayan exigido que se reprima el movimiento estudiantil con “más energía, severidad y dureza” y hayan calificado en “Riech” de “motín espontáneo” la huelga pacífica de los obreros del Lena? No, ése no es el partido de la “libertad popular”, sino el partido de los traidores a la “libertad popular”. Esa gente sólo es capaz de chalanear con la burocracia a espaldas del pueblo. Las “negociaciones” con Witte, Stolypin y Trépov, y ahora con Sazónov, no son, en manera alguna, fruto del azar. Esa gente sólo es capaz, en alianza con la ultrarreacci6n, de hacer fracasar a los socialdemócratas en las elecciones en Járkov, Kostromá, Ekaterinodar y Riga. Confiar la suerte del país a esa gente es lo mismo que entregarlo al escarnio de los enemigos. Expresamos nuestra seguridad de que los electores que se estimen a sí mismos no ligarán su honor a la suerte de los demócratas constitucionalistas. ¡Que sufran hoy los demócratas constitucionalistas el castigo que merecen por sus graves pecados contra el pueblo ruso! ¡Electores obreros! ¡Votad por los representantes de vuestros intereses, por los socialdemócratas! ¡Electores empleados de comercio! ¡No votéis por los demócratas constitucionalistas, que no han hecho caso de la cuestión de vuestro descanso; votad por los socialdemócratas, los únicos defensores consecuentes de vuestros intereses! ¡Electores polacos! ¡Tratáis de obtener el derecho
al libre desarrollo nacional; recordad que la libertad de las nacionalidades es inconcebible sin la libertad general, y los demócratas constitucionalistas traicionan la libertad! ¡Electores judíos! ¡Queréis conseguir la igualdad de derechos para los judíos, pero recordad que los Miliukov, que se entienden con los Bóbrinski, y los demócratas constitucionalistas, que forman bloques con las derechas, no harán nada por la igualdad de derechos! Por los traidores a la libertad popular o por los defensores de ella, por los demócratas constitucionalistas o por los socialdemócratas: ¡elegid, ciudadanos!
Publicado con la firma de K. St. el 25 de octubre de 1912 en el núm. 152 del periódico “Pravda”. Se publica de acuerdo con el texto del periódico.