# Red and White Terror

RED AND WHITE TERROR
By N. KRYLENKO
Our "Labour" politicians and their Continental friends protested against the execution of White Guards by the Soviet Government. Here are facts showing that "a fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind."
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Communist Party of Great Britain 16 King Street, London, W.C.2
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RED AND WHITE TERROR
By N. Krylenko
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Published February, 1928
Printed by The Dorrit Press (T.U. throughout) 68–70 Lant Street, Borough, London, S.E.1
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RED AND WHITE TERROR
IN an official communication dated June 10th the Government of the Soviets made known to the workers of the Soviet Union and of all the world that by a decision of the O.G.P.U. (the organ for ensuring the safety of the Workers' and Peasants' Soviet State from its class enemies) 20 counter-revolutionaries, white-guard spies, who had penetrated into the territory of the U.S.S.R. for the purpose of preparing terrorist attempts on responsible leaders of the proletarian revolution, and organising explosions and espionage activities on behalf of British imperialism, had been shot.
In accordance with this decision there were shot:
Paul Dmitrievitch Dolgorukov, former prince, and very large landowner, a leader of the bourgeois Liberal Cadet Party, who had been with the remnants of Wrangel's army in Constantinople, then went to Paris, there organising a White Guard national committee, and afterwards, in 1926, made his way into the Ukraine Republic for the purpose of organising a counter-revolutionary monarchistic espionage group.
George Eugenievitch Elvengren, a former staff captain of the Kirasirsky regiment of the guards, a director of the Karelian rising of 1918–1919, a participant in the counter-revolutionary Tagantsevsky organisation in Leningrad in 1921, a participant in the Kronstadt revolt, one of the assistants in the Savinkov white-guard "Union for Defence of Country and Freedom," one of the assistants of the said Savinkov in the organisation, jointly with the officer of the British secret service and aviation—George Sidney Riley, of terrorist attempts on leaders of the Soviet Republics, the organiser of the assassina​tion of comrade Vorovsky, organiser of preparations for an attempt on the life of comrade Chicherin in France, and who penetrated illegally into the territory of the Union in 1926 for the purpose of the extensive organisation of counter-revolutionary and terrorist groups.
These executions—carried out by the O.G.P.U. after the British bourgeoisie had put through the break-up of the Soviet Trade Representation in London, and had broken off all diplomatic and trade relations with the Soviet Union; after, on the territory of Warsaw, the plenipotentiary representative of the U.S.S.R., comrade Voikov, had been assassinated by the white-guard Kaverda; after a terrorist act against teachers gathered in the Leningrad Communist Club, one-third of whom were non-party, when two bombs were thrown and about thirty persons were wounded; after the discovery of attempts already prepared on the life of comrades Bukharin, Stalin, Rykov, Pietrovsky and a number of other responsible comrades; after an explosion in a house at the side of the O.G.P.U. headquarters in Lubianka had only been averted at the last minute—these executions were nothing but an act of self-defence on the part of the proletarian State of the toiling masses against open and declared enemies, who not only did not conceal their activities but in their statements openly and frankly confessed that the purpose of their stay in the U.S.S.R. was terrorist struggle against the U.S.S.R., espionage activities on behalf of foreign capital, and the causing of the greatest injury possible to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Under such conditions these executions were, as we have already said, only an act of self-defence, and they cannot be otherwise regarded by any worker or peasant of any country who has not lost the ability to judge and call things by their right names. Any worker and any toiler, even any citizen who is honest with himself, cannot but admit that under such conditions the Soviet Government could not act otherwise, a proletarian authority could not act otherwise.
Workers Welcome Government's Action
In face of the threat of war, and the existence of continual open and secret councils of the directors of ​the capitalist world, it was not possible to act otherwise. It was not without reason that the workers and peasants of all the Union, and not only of Moscow and Leningrad, welcomed the Government's strong action in regard to spies and counter-revolutionaries. And none the less, for this very reason, because of this shooting of white-guards, the bourgeois press of the whole world (and not only the bourgeois, but even the press of people who still have the impudence to call themselves socialists), raised a hypocritical howl of indignation, accusing the Soviet Government of resorting to terror again, of shooting for the sake of shooting, reproaching it with harshness, with sentence without trial, and so on.
The same howl of hypocritical indignation and perturbation is raised in regard to the U.S.S.R. by the Russian Mensheviks, the leaders of the Second International, who accordingly organised protests and petitions among the Liberal social publicists of Europe, with the demand addressed to the U.S.S.R. that these shootings stop and also that the persecution of political parties carrying on treasonable activities for the preparation of the overthrow of the Soviet Government inside the U.S.S.R. should cease.
We do not doubt that the workers and toilers will recognise the right of the proletarian Government of the U.S.S.R. to apply these acts of self-defence and measures of repression against open white-guards, spies and traitors, such as the executed enemies of the Soviet Union we have already mentioned. But inasmuch as the traitors and renegades of the social-revolution—the Social-Democrats, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries—desire to make political capital for themselves from this, endeavouring to organise the social opinion of the labouring masses of Europe against the U.S.S.R. on this issue, in order to wrest the traitors and renegades held by the Soviet State authority out of its hands, and on this ground to win for themselves the right and the possibility of further unhindered activity on the territory of the U.S.S.R. for the overthrow of the Soviet Government, we consider it necessary to deal specially with the arguments of these gentlemen.
It is to those very arguments that we regard it as indispensable to give particular consideration, opposing facts by facts, in order to lay bare all the lying ​hypocrisy of the shouts and howls of the Social-Democrats and to expose directly before the eyes of all the workers the true features of these traitors.
What do the howls, the indignation, the complaints and the demands of the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and other publicists of the Second International in regard to the U.S.S.R. amount to on this question of the measures which the Soviet power applies against them, when they work against the Soviet power on the territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
The Menshevik Accusations
They accuse us of applying terror; they say that the Soviet Union applies red terror against its enemies similar to the white terror applied by the bourgeoisie; they accuse us of resolutely, ruthlessly struggling not only with counter-revolutionaries similar to the type of which we have spoken above, but with them also, with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, keeping them in prisons, sending them into exile, not allowing them "freely" and openly to propagate their views and opinions.
They quote, for example, a bourgeois government which gives an amnesty to Communists, while we do not give them, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, any amnesty. More than that, in their hypocrisy and impudence they go so far as to be indignant when we propose to exchange Communists who are carrying on revolutionary work for the overthrow of the capitalist system in Western Europe, and consequently find their way into capitalist prisons, for those gentlemen confined in our prisons, proposing in exchange for imprisoned Communists to send these gentlemen abroad, to grant them complete freedom to do all they wish abroad, only not within the U.S.S.R.
Their indignation when they dare to demand freedom for themselves within the Union to carry on propaganda for the overthrow of the Soviet power, because from bourgeois governments we demand freedom of propaganda for Communists propagating the overthrow of the capitalist system in Western Europe, is the height of impudence.
And simultaneously these gentlemen declare in their justification:
(1) That they have never endeavoured to organise risings against the Soviet power in the past and are not endeavouring to do so now;
(2) That more than that, they have even assisted the Soviet power to struggle against the intervention of foreign States and the white-guard armies of Denikin and Wrangel;
(4) That despite all this, they are still held in prison, because we are afraid of the legal propaganda of their ideas.
Finally, they protest against being held in prison and being sent into exile "without trial" and against what they call "being made sport of" and "tortured" in our prisons.
Moreover, they declare that (i) they have never been in touch with the British Conservative Government, (ii) they have never availed themselves of the support of French imperialists, and (iii) they do not maintain any kind of contact with the Polish general staff of Pilsudsky. All this they call senseless and an abominable slander of their party, and they demand public evidence for such assertions.
Let us see where the truth lies and who is lying to the workers and toilers of Western Europe, who is consciously deceiving them by inaccurate assertions, who is hiding the real truth from them, and in the name of what political ends they desire to deceive the workers and peasants.
The Red Terror
Yes, we admit the fact of "terror." We recognise that in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat the working class building up Communist society finds it necessary and expedient to deal harshly and ruthlessly with all who endeavour to break down and destroy that Communist structure. So long as we are surrounded with bourgeois States, armed from head to foot, endeavouring at all costs to exterminate us, to smash the Soviet State—so long shall we consider that such a method of action is an inalienable element of the dictatorship of the working class. More than that, we consider that this is the sole method of holding the former exploiters, landowners and capitalists in submission, of instilling fear in the bourgeoisie, so ​that they will not dare to interfere with us; and consequently the abandonment of this method would be a crime against the working class and the peasantry.
So long as the West European working class does not revolt, so long as one bourgeois government armed from head to foot continues to exist, so long as we are menaced from without by the danger of armed intervention, and from within by the danger of armed revolts, organised with the foreign moneys of imperialist governments, so as to afford an excuse for armed intervention against the "violator-Bolsheviks"—so long must we and will we apply the method of "terror."
And finally, we consider that this is the one inevitable method of action and the one inevitable road of the proletariat of any country, when it comes to set up and consolidate its own government and to organise its own socialist production.
That is our first answer to the Mensheviks.
What Do They Want?
At the same time we ask a second question. What is it they wish, what are they struggling for, in the name of what are the Russian Social-Democrats, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, and other activists of the Second International working, when they hypocritically wax indignant because we will not allow them "freely" to propagate their ideas in the Soviet Union, "freely" to act to the detriment of the Soviet State, and for such action hold them in prison and in exile?
Not so very long ago "Vorwaerts," the central organ of the German Social-Democratic Party (with which we presume not one Social-Democrat, Russian or foreign, will deny ideological and organisational relationship), published an article by the admitted leader of German social-democracy, a former revolutionary but now a traitor and renegade of the social revolution, a man who has completely lost all sense of shame and conscience—Karl Kautsky, on the question of the rupture of relations between the British Government of hard-faces and the Soviets. In this article, dealing with the theme of "The Russo-British Conflict and the Liberation of the Caucasus," Kautsky first informs us that the Anglo-Russian rupture has aroused a strong agitation and lively discus​sion as to whether the position resulting should be exploited, and if so, in what form, among "the ranks of the Caucasians" (i.e., among the Caucasian Mensheviks). "Armenian revolutionaries" have asked Kautsky "what was his opinion as to the participation of the Caucasian revolutionaries and the possible advance of Britain on Bolshevik Russia?" Certain of them, says Kautsky, set great hopes on such participation.
What is the point at issue here? For those who can read it is absolutely clear what is behind it all; behind it is the question of organising an armed attack in the rear of the Soviet Government at the moment of a possible conflict between it and Britain, i.e., it is a question of a joint organised and concerted attack of the so-called "socialists" of the Caucasus, of the Mensheviks against the Soviet Union, together with the extreme Conservative British Government of hard-faces. It is a question of an armed attack in alliance with the imperialists—and nothing but that.
Kautsky's Advice
And what is the counsel given by Kautsky on this question?
He writes:
"In contradistinction from many of my party friends, I consider it quite probable that this dictatorship [the Bolshevik], like all more or less dictatorial regimes that have hitherto existed in history, can be set aside only by way of insurrection. I consider it incorrect and dangerous to prejudge any such insurrection as counter-revolutionary, and to appeal to social-democracy against such attempts and in favour of the defence of Bolshevism."
That is Kautsky's first answer. And this answer cannot be understood in any other way than as agree-ment to the organisation of insurrection under definite conditions and even, moreover, as an indication that insurrection is the sole way by which, in Kautsky's opinion, it will be possible to liquidate the Bolshevik power. It is true that to the second question asked him by the "Armenian revolutionaries"—whether it is permissible to raise insurrection in alliance with the British Conservative Government—Kautsky gives an ​answer in the negative, but none the less not in the least because he considers such an alliance impossible on principle; he simply regards it as disadvantageous for the present.
"Before our eyes at the present time," says Kautsky, "we see a strongly reactionary government 'wearing out,' and a proletarian democracy growing strong. To-morrow even it may come to power in Britain. Consequently to associate oneself in an alliance with a government shortly about to fall, such as the Baldwin Government, would mean to commit an openly senseless act."
Thus Kautsky's counsel is as follows: "Wait until Baldwin’s Government falls, as it may do to-morrow; wait until a less 'worn-out' government comes to power."
Therefore Kautsky concludes: "We should leave open all roads to this end which are compatible with our principles," and he repeats once more: "It would be premature to prejudge insurrection."
So wrote Kautsky.
Do They Favour Insurrection?
There is nothing for us to add to these words. What after this is left of the assertions of the Social-Democrats that the Mensheviks never set as their task, and never attempted, never even raised among themselves the question of organising armed insurrection? Whether they never have asked themselves this question in the past is a matter with which we shall deal later; but here we are discussing the fact that they are even now raising this issue, for everyone knows definitely what role the Mensheviks are playing in the Caucasus, and in particular in Georgia, the role which is being played among the West European emigration by Jordania, Ramishvilli, Gegechkori, Tseretelli and other leaders of Menshevism, whose close association with Kautsky can only be denied by a dishonest liar or an absolute ignoramus. Meantime Kautsky says that it was even now, in these very days, during the last few months, that the "Caucasians" turned to him for counsel, and that it was in particular reference to the present moment that he gave them this answer.
We may be told that Kautsky is perhaps alone in his opinion, that other Social-Democrats, including the ​Russian Mensheviks, think otherwise, and that this is Kautsky's individual opinion. Is that so?
"Vorwaerts" provides this article of Kautsky's with the following editorial comment: "In indicating his differences with many members of the Social-Democratic Party in his estimate of the Russian problem Kautsky evidently has in mind the position of 'Vorwaerts.' To avoid misunderstanding we must declare our agreement with the tendency of Kautsky's article, which amounts to warning the Caucasian revolutionaries against an attempt at insurrection. As for the question of the methods of replacing the system prevailing in Russia by a democratic regime, it is sufficient for us to understand the circumstance that for the immediate future insurrection is not the order of the day."
What is the purport of this evasive, entirely hypocritical declaration? "Vorwaerts" is in agreement with Kautsky's tendency to "warn against attempts," but says nothing as to whether it agrees or disagrees in principle with raising the question of the permissibility of insurrection. To this latter question it answers no less evasively: the question does not interest them, since for the immediate future insurrection is not the order of the day. Well, but if it becomes an immediate issue? "Vorwaerts" is silent on that point.
But not only "Vorwaerts" keeps sidence on that point. The foreign delegation of the Russian Social-Democratic Party is also silent. Let them after this declare as much as they wish that the Menshevik party never stood for armed struggle with the U.S.S.R., let them assert, beating their breasts, that "out of considerations of principle and tactics" they "refuse to decide the dispute between socialism and Communism in Russia by means of armed struggle"—for us the statements of the Mensheviks that the fundamental aim of their political work is the annihilation of the Bolshevik power are sufficient for us not to believe any of their assurances, to say that they are not worth a brass farthing, and before all else to look at the facts. And the facts speak for themselves.
Who Organised Past Risings?
What happened in Georgia in the autumn of 1924? An armed rising. Who organised that rising? The ​Mensheviks. Who were at the head of the parallel committee which directed the rising? Mensheviks. Who before the rising took place distributed letters of instructions as to its organisation? Jordania, the leader of the Mensheviks. And who at the moment of the rising and afterwards haunted the thresholds of the West-European governments, including the bourgeois government of France, with reports on the unhappy position of Georgia, demanding intervention? These same Mensheviks.
Homeriki, a member of the Central Committee of the Georgian Social-Democrats, Valiko Dzugelli, a member of the Central Committee of the Georgian Social-Democrats, Benoit Chikvishvilli, a member of the Central Committee of the Georgian Social-Democrats—these are the persons who worked at the organisation of the Georgian rising, and after they had been shot the central organ of the Russian Mensheviks, the "Socialisticheskoe Viestnik" ("Socialist Courier"), in its number for September, 1924, printed within black borders an article concerning these persons, entitled "Ye, Victims, Fell …," in which a protest was made against the shooting of those who had raised the revolt, who had provoked the shedding of blood, who by way of revolt had endeavoured to overthrow the Soviet power.
"These workers' leaders," writes the "Socialisticheskoe Viestnik," "will pass into the history of their country as national heroes. But the workers of all Russia also respectfully bend the knee before their unknown brotherly grave, for in it fighters for the workers' task have found their last repose, men who knew how to give themselves over entirely to the service of the great ideal of liberated humanity."
That is how the Menshevik central organ characterises the activity of the organisers of the rising, and after that they say that they never set themselves that task, were always against insurrection, and never organised it.
The Appeal for Intervention
But when the rising proved to be a failure the same Jordania, the president of the Georgian Government overthrown in 1921, who had hidden himself ​abroad, addressed himself to a session of the League of Nations meeting in Berlin, and in particular to MacDonald, who at that time was head of the British Government, and to Herriot, then head of the French Government, with a petition "to propose to the Moscow Government that they should stop the bloodshed and settle the Russo-Georgian conflict by way of an international arbitration court."
To the League of Nations, to an organ set up by international capital for consolidating the capitalist order, for the organisation of a universal bourgeois anti-Soviet front, to the alliance of bourgeois States, did Jordania then address himself with a request for intervention and the transference of the dispute between the Soviet Government and the insurgents to their arbitral examination. As if it were not possible to say in advance what decision an arbitration court of bourgeois States would make on the question of who was right: those who want to overthrow the Soviet power, or those who want to strengthen it. And then they say that they have not haunted the thresholds of West European governments, that they have never been in association with the bourgeois capitalist leaders.
After these facts—facts universally known, facts which no one will challenge—after these facts who can believe the Menshevik leader, Abramovitch?
What They Intend
On the question of the revolt the same Jordania and Ramishvilli, leaders of the Georgian Mensheviks, and the closest associates of Abramovitch and Company, wrote on the tasks they now set themselves in a letter about April, 1927, to one of their fellows in Georgia, sent there for illegal work: "A change in the political system in Russia [read "the overthrow of the Bolshevik power"—N.K.]" writes Jordania, "may take place along these lines, either along each alone or along all three jointly. Those lines are: (i) The internal-political, (ii) the internal-national and (iii) the external-war line."
In the event of a revolution in Russia owing to internal causes, "the Social-Democratic Party of Georgia," writes Jordania, "is obliged to support the forces opposed to Moscow and its Bonapartism, and to endeavour to carry this movement to its logical con​clusion—the separation of Georgia and all the Caucasus from Moscow and the establishment of a local sovereign administration, on the lines of that which we had after the October revolution. Along this line it is necessary to co-ordinate our forces with the revolting masses and the Armenian sections. … Then we shall base ourselves on the League of Nations, into which the new government will undoubtedly enter."
This is written in 1927, at the same time as Abramovitch was writing that the Mensheviks do not stand, and never did stand, for an armed solution of the dispute between the Soviet Government and the Mensheviks.
The second line—the internal-national: "The dismemberment of the Soviet Union into national units," writes Jordania, "may take place in a more organised fashion if the Ukraine takes this upon itself. Under such conditions our party will play the role of director of the national movement, and will proclaim an open struggle against all the Moscow-imperialist elements … and by united efforts will effect the isolation of Great Russia."
The third line is that of the overthrow of the Soviet power as the result of military activities, as the result of external war, i.e., exactly that circumstance concerning which Kautsky wrote. What does the leader of the Mensheviks say on this account?
He writes: "In this possible imperialistic conflict the position of Georgia is clear. Like all the other Russian peoples [Query?—N.K.] it desires the defeat of Moscow, but unquestionably will take no part in the actual conflict, and will be neutral until its prospects have become clear. …
"It will take active steps only when Moscow is completely defeated, and we obtain a guarantee of independence."
And later: "If in the process of war our insurrection becomes necessary, this insurrection and decision should originate from the government, over the formal signature of the president of the government [i.e, Jordania]. … One thing is quite clear—we must not act alone and isolate ourselves."
There is Jordania's programme for the present day. It is the same programme as that on which Kautsky wrote. Here obviously are the same ​"Caucasian revolutionaries" of whom the renegade of revolution writes, and it is impossible to interpret these words as meaning other than what they say.
But what does the other leader of the Georgian Mensheviks, Ramishvilli, add to this letter?
"If the fall of Bolshevism is caused by an internal crisis we must immediately take the State power into our own hands, must arrest the Bolsheviks and re-establish the independent republic of Georgia."
And these social blackguards still dare to protest against our holding them in prison.
"To this end," he continues, "from this very day we must establish an extremely conspiratorial connection with the staff of the supreme command of the Georgian army, so that at the requisite moment we can depend on them to arrest the Bolshevik commanders and soldiers in the army and to add to their strength by way of mobilisation."
Are They Different to White Guards?
In what way are these gentlemen better or worse than the white-guards Dolgorukov and Elvengren, who were engaged in the same prepartions for an armed rising, by establishing conspiratorial organisations in the army, by perfidy and treachery to the Soviet power?
But meantime, while they go on making their preparations for arresting the Bolsheviks, they howl that the Bolsheviks arrest them, and the leaders of social-democracy offer to communicate without delay information on all "repression and terror: who is arrested, where and for what reason; who has been exiled, where he or she is and for what reason; the names of those tortured by the Cheka; the form of torture and the reason for its application," and all this in order to continue to lie to the workers of Europe about the sufferings to which their arrested comrades are subjected, in order to create an anti-U.S.S.R. opinion among the workers, because of the persecution of "innocent" persons, who seemingly want nothing, have no thought of any rising whatever, and think only of the legal "propaganda of their ideas."
After the document we have quoted, which origi​nates from these same Mensheviks, to say that they have never organised a rising or that they have never tried, are not trying and never will try to settle the question of the struggle between Menshevism and Communism (read—"between the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and Communism."—N.K.) by resort to armed struggle is of course impossible. And who is right, who is lying, who is misleading, deceiving the workers of the West?
What Happened in the Civil War?
Let us now go to the past. The Social-Democrats write that in the past also the Mensheviks have never raised this question, not only that, but in 1919 and 1920 they even took all measures possible to assist the Soviet power in its struggle with intervention, with foreign capital, in its struggle with the Russian counter-revolutionary generals Denikin and Wrangel, and to this end they twice proclaimed a mobilisation of their members for them to enter the ranks of the Red Army and to defend the Soviet fronts from the white-guard rabble.
We well remember those years, and we well remember what really happened then. We cannot forget those years, they cost too much to the working masses of the U.S.S.R.; our sacrifices in blood, in people suffering the torments of hunger and cold, have penetrated too deeply into our memories. Thousands of corpses were left behind them by the white-guard soldiers of Wrangel and Denikin, as they moved up from the south to the centre of the proletarian State—to Moscow, Yuzovka, the Don Basin, Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Odessa and Kiev, not to mention Siberia and the Volga valley, well remember the advance. The fate of Soviet Russia hung by a thread—the enemy were almost at the gates of Moscow itself. Who were those enemies? They were those with whom in 1918 and until midway through 1919 the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries worked together, hand in hand, for the overthrow of the Soviet power. Abramovitch and Co. will deny this now. So we remind them of the names of the Social Revolutionary members of the Samara government who were at the head of the armed struggle with the Soviet power in 1918; Avksentiev, Viedenyapin, Zenzinov, Rakov, Burova, Volsky and a number of others. And these are the names of the ​Social Revolutionaries, members of the Committee of the Constitutional Assembly in the south, who organised the armed movement in Rostov, Yekaterinoslav and other towns: Babenkoren, Schroeder, Poshutinsky, Ratner, Berezovsky and others. These are the names of the S.R.'s who organised the rising and worked in Archangel: Likhatch, Diedusenko and Tchaikovsky, who were members of a government functioning on territory occupied by the British. Throughout 1918 and 1919 they resorted to all measures, first with General Boldirev, then with Kolchak in the east, and Denikin in the south, to carry on an armed struggle against the Soviet power.
Nor will they dare to deny the terroristic struggle which the allied Mensheviks and S.R.'s carried on during the same period. The S.R. trial of 1922 conclusively established the direct participation of members of the Central Committee of the S.R. party: Totz, Ivanova, Donsky, Timofeev, Agapov and others in the organisation of the attempt on Lenin, in the assassination of Uritzky and Volodarsky. And, in conclusion, the work of the Mensheviks in 1918, in the rear of the civil war which was being waged by the Soviet power, is universally known.
What the Mensheviks Did in 1918
In 1918 there took place the Labour Congress called by the Mensheviks. At the head of the organisation committee for summoning this congress was no other than citizen Abramovitch, the same who now declares that the Menshevik party never set itself the task of armed struggle with the Soviet power. And this is what he then wrote on the question of the summoning of this conference, in an official document. This is what they wanted, and this is what they wrote for the "Labour Congress":
"The time has come to unite again with the working class, in order with our joint forces to defend our organisations, with joint forces to save and regenerate our fatherland, and for the restoration of the food taken from the country. … We must not delay. Ruin not only menaces us—it has already arrived. Our exhausted fatherland is struggling in its mortal convulsions. The working class is again fettered in the chains ​of slavery. Executions and violators tyrannise over us. …"
This proclamation sufficiently indicates in what direction, why and for what purpose this Labour Congress was to work. However, in accordance with their usual custom, the Mensheviks were afraid to call things by their right names, they knew that the workers would not answer to a direct call for the overthrow of the Soviet power and its replacement by a bourgeois regime.
The Mensheviks working in Leningrad, participants in the same Labour Congress, and from whom came the very idea of summoning it, were more open. Writing under the pseudonym of the extraordinary meeting of the plenipotentiaries of factories and shops of Petrograd, the Petrograd Menshevik delegation wrote in their instruction to the Moscow workers:
"We, Petrograd workers, instruct our delegates to tell you the following:
"In these heavy, mortal hours we say to you, the proletariat of all Russia:
"Under our name is cloaked a government inimical to us, an anti-national government, a government which brings us only torture and dishonour.
"Away with it!
"It promised us socialism, and with its senseless experiments it has destroyed all the national economy. What socialism could it introduce in a backward agricultural country, in which the workers compose a tiny part and are badly organised, in a country without technique, without culture, broken up by war?
"… The unfortunate (!) thought of transforming the workers into masters has made of them the worst of slaves."
That is how they wrote at that time, in the heaviest moments that the Soviet Government had to experience—these Social-Democrats. And what did they offer in exchange?
"Before us is a struggle for the independence of our fatherland. We cannot wage that war alone. Its interests demand a military agreement with the allied nations." (i.e., with the British and French imperialists.—N. K.)
​That is what the Mensheviks wrote in 1918. But in 1927, grown no wiser, they declare that they never stood for armed intervention, that they never stood for agreement with the British and French Governments.
You're a liar, citizen Abramovitch! You are shamelessly lying to the workers of Europe, when you say that the Menshevik party, including yourself, never took one step to wage a struggle with the Soviet power. You are a liar, for you yourself were the organiser of that Congress!
And how did the situation stand in regard to the outer borders, where the white-guard armies ruled? We have already spoken of Samara, but here is the composition of the members of the Committee of the Constitutional Assembly for the south of Russia, in Rostov and Kiev. Among its members were the S.R.'s Babin, Korel, Schroeder and others. But you will say that these are not Mensheviks, but S.R.'s. Yet at least the Mensheviks demand "freedom" of action in regard to these "socialists" also. In conclusion, if we are told that Mensheviks as such took no part in this struggle, here are other facts for you:
Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries
Here is a resolution, passed by the general meeting of members of the Samara organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. (Mensheviks) on June 11th, 1918, at the very moment when the S.R. committee of the Constitutional Assembly was being formed. The resolution says:
"While standing for the principle of one form of army—an army created on the basis of arming the whole nation, and recognising the vital necessity, especially after the situation created by the Brest-Litovsk peace, of the immediate organisation of universal military training and the arming of the people, the Samara organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. considers that in the present exceptional circumstances in which Samara is placed, when all communication has been broken between it and even the nearest towns, and the creation of a strong and mighty army does not brook of delay for even one day, it is necessary to call upon the workers and all the democratic population of the town and province of ​Samara to enter the ranks of the volunteer army.
"In the interests of the salvation of Samara from complete destruction, and of its population from absolute annihilation at the hands of the infuriated and vindictive Bolshevik bands, in the interests of democracy, of people’s government and of the Constitutional Assembly which personifies that government, in the interests of preventing the establishment of a government of the generals Krasnov and Skoropadsky after the inevitable destruction of the Soviet Government, and finally in the interests of the people's volunteer army itself, in order to safeguard its democratic composition, the workers and other democratic sections of the population need to enter the army; it is indispensable for them to enter the army."
And the Mensheviks dare to assert that they were against intervention, against a rising? Do you still need facts? Here you are then!
Foreign Gold
The counter-revolutionary organisations, the "Union for Regeneration of Russia," which in 1918 worked in Moscow and Leningrad, embraced not only S.R.'s—it also embraced Mensheviks. The Menshevik Rozanov was a member of the tactical centre together with Melgunov, while associated with the S.R. leaders, Gotz and Ignatiev, the prominent Mensheviks, Potresov, who has recently published a scurrilous book on the U.S.S.R., and Rozanov, were members of the counter-revolutionary centre of Petrograd. These facts are established by persons who worked with them then and are still alive. It is impossible to dismiss or repudiate these facts. Here is what the S.R., Ignatiev, a member of the "Union for Regeneration," says concerning the receipt of moneys by this "Union for Regeneration" from the Allies, the bourgeois governments of France and Britain, which were then organising armed intervention:
"I consider that political honesty demands an open admission from all the participants in the work of that period: yes, we considered foreign assistance indispensable in regard to both mili​tary forces and money; at first we received money and expended it, and afterwards we received other resources. Through my own hands," Ignatiev says further, "resources passed three times: the first sum amounting to several dozen thousands of roubles I received from Moscow from the Union for Regeneration; its exact source was unknown to me, but by the general impression I have no doubt that it originated from the Allies. The second sum I received from General Suvarov from Allied sources. The third sum, amounting to from two to three hundred thousand roubles, according to General Suvarov's information, was transferred by the representative of the French mission directly to the central military organisation of the Union for Regeneration in Moscow in the persons of Boldirev and Moisienko, and through the S.R. connection Moisienko sent this money to Petrorad for the military organisation of the Union for Regeneration. I only received part of this sum, and concerning the remainder I asked Gotz to clear the matter up, when he went to Moscow and had an explanation with Ivanov, a member of the C.C. on the question of the moneys that had not come to hand."
Then there was the rising organised by the S.R.'s and Mensheviks in Yaroslavl in 1918, after which Yaroslavl was reduced to ruins, when General Pierkhurov, together with the Menshevik Schleif, attempted on these ruins to re-establish a bourgeois government. The Yaroslavl rising is clearly remembered by the Yaroslavl workers. It is now adequately established by documents that the Yaroslavl rising was carried out with the agreement and on the instruction of the French ambassador Noulens with the money and the blessing of the capitalist States of Britain and France. And this also is now admitted by the organisers of the rising.
And what is the truth behind their story of the call to mobilisation in 1919 and 1920? After Kolchak in Siberia and Denikin in the south had summarily dealt with compromisers, driving out the S.R. and Menshevik members of the government, and establishing their own autocracy—when, according to the testimony of the S.R.'s themselves, there was nothing left for ​them to do but to flee from these white-guard generals—where did they flee to? Into Soviet Russia. They then came with a confession to the Soviet Government, declaring that they now realised to whose mill they had been carrying grist, whom they had been aiding, for whom they had been snatching the chestnuts out of the fire. The best story of this episode has been told by the well-known S.R., Avksentiev, a member of the Samara Government and chairman of the directorate, who admitted all this while in emigration, to which he had fled to save himself from the persecution of Kolchak.
"The real power," writes Avksentiev, "was in the hands of the Czechs and afterwards of the Russian command [generals]. It was not by accident that the revolutionary democracy, with the S.R. party at its head, proved to be unable to hinder the destructive evolution of red Samara in the direction of the domination of an unbridled militarism. It was no accident that in Ufa what was at first a working agreement with the bourgeois organisations was quickly transformed into a formal agreement, and still later into the Kolchak dictatorship. …"
And this is what another leader of the S.R.'s, a member of the Central Committee, Viedenyapin, writes to supplement Avksentiev's words, when telling of the work of the S.R.'s jointly with the interventionists against Soviet Russia:
"It is not difficult to raise the masses, and it is equally possible to extend this movement even over a large area, but immediately all the right groups attach themselves to the movement, and in the best case there is a repetition of the Volga history, since behind the backs of the rights infallibility stands the Entente with its policy."
This admission is the tragic warning of a man who from his personal experience had learnt to what the alliance with the bourgeoisie had led in 1918.
Having had such a lesson, driven out of the government by the white-guard generals, they came bowing to the Soviet authority, and presented a reasoned declaration of their renunciation of armed struggle with the Soviet power.
​In answer to which the Soviet Government then said:
"Continuing their previous struggle with all groups who openly or secretly support the external and internal counter-revolution, the Supreme Central Executive Committee consider it their duty to grant the parties of the petty-bourgeois democracy the possibility of proving their readiness in the actual, open struggle to support the proletariat and peasantry in the struggle with external and internal bourgeois counter-revolution."
Broken Menshevik Promises
But the "socialist" parties did not keep their solemn promise for long; not for long did their courage last them. When the menace of a direct invasion of Moscow by the white-guards hung over Soviet Russia they again began their propaganda for the overthrow of the Soviet authority, and their struggle against it.
The facts above quoted have shown how correct are the declarations of the Mensheviks that in the past also they never recognised armed uprising as a measure of struggle against the Bolshevik power, and that in that struggle they never resorted to the aid of bourgeois governments. If they tell us that these errors were committed by them long since, that they have repented and corrected those errors, well, we have also quoted facts relating to quite recent times which show that they have repented of nothing and have learnt nothing.
In 1920 we have a further new organisation of an armed movement on the part of the S.R.'s, in the form of the so-called "Antonovsky Movement" in Tambov province. This movement was organised by the S.R.'s as a revolt of the peasants against the Soviet authority, but this revolt speedily passed into isolated bandit attacks of separate bands, who engaged in pillage, murder and common hooliganism. And meantime at the head of this movement was the S.R. Podbielsky and others.
More Recent Menshevik Plotting
While we have just quoted facts relating to 1918, 1919 and 1920, now let us recall facts relating to 1924, which show that in this year, several years after the ​close of the civil war, the same tactic, the same policy of organising armed rising and armed struggle against the U.S.S.R. continued in existence.
Before us lies a copy of the deposition made on May 19th, 1924, by Nikander Alexandrovitch Preobrajensky, who from 1917 to 1923 was a member of the Menshevik party. He writes:
"I went to the north [Berezov, in 1923] in the capacity of co-worker of the Economic Co-operation, provided by the Siberian Centrosoyus, to the town of Surgut. In Surgut, and even on the road, I heard rumours of disturbances, occurring somewhere around Tobolsk (in Siberia). … At the end of January the rumours of a rising were confirmed, and the town was proclaimed under martial law. … About February 10th the Soviet authorities and the small garrison hastily abandoned the town. …
"After a little time Surgut was occupied by the first partisan [guerilla] Tretyakov division (a division of insurgents), organised by Tretyakov from the local peasants… The insurgents proclaimed the most varied of slogans, such as 'Long Live the Soviet power without Communists,' 'Long live the Constituent Assembly.' … And among those with whom I talked there were monarchists as well as men who simply did not know what they wanted. … I took no part in these affairs until a telegram arrived for the Committee, quite unexpectedly to me and to the Committee, from Tobolsk, with approximately the following contents: 'Preobrajensky is appointed plenipotentiary of the central staff of the national army. Instructions are being brought by divisional commander So-and-So. Signed Azarkievitch.' At one time Azarkievitch called himself an S.R., but I knew nothing of his political activity, while his official position was that of member of the board of the Centrosoyus Tobolsk office. … Some ten days later I received a letter from Goriunov—a member of our expedition, a Menshevik—who fervently persuaded me to join the rising, describing it all in very rosy colours. … In March I was to take command of the staff for the selection of partisans [irregulars], as they were entirely ​without an organiser, and the rising was taking on a more systematic character every day. … The work of the staff (its unofficial title was Surgut Military Staff for the Struggle with Communism) was: (1) To supply the front with men and stores and general military direction; (2) the establishment of communications with the front and with Tobolsk; (3) the provisioning of the population; (4) the organisation of the rear from the military aspect and the capture of any remaining Communists: the formation of new partisan divisions, their equipment and despatch and so on; and (5) propaganda.
"Towards the latter part of April, in connection with the shaky position at the front, I went there, endeavouring to stop the demoralisation and desertions that had begun. … Here some five days later I fell ill with typhus … and when I left the hospital everything was ended to all intents and purposes. We all retreated. Our communications with Tobolsk were broken, and we, both reds and insurgents, were at a standstill awaiting the thaws. … Help came from outside with machine guns, and against us. … We retreated into the Taiga (Siberian virgin forest and swamp), where the necessary stores had been previously prepared by the staff. At the end of August I arrived at Tobolsk, having covered about 1,500 kilometers by compass bearings through the Taiga."
What is this if it be not a rising? And what else but lies are the Mensheviks' statements that they have never organised risings?
Preobrajensky further communicates:
"I arrived in Moscow with an absolutely definite attitude of mind, to overthrow the Soviet authority at all costs. I found a definite line corresponding to own position in the right group, the so-called 'Moscow Group of Social-Democrats,' to which I attached myself, and was quickly put in the Bureau of the group. … The ideology of the group was … a democratic republic on the basis of the Constitutional Assembly; capitalism. The time for the dictatorship of the proletariat had not arrived yet. … Its ​tactics—propaganda among workers for a rising in the future. … And if the question of the overthrow of the Soviet authority arises, it is necessary to be frank and say straight out that the only road to this end is by intervention and intervention not of assistance, of course, but on the part of the sharks avid for the Russian riches, such as Degout, Poincaré and other 'friends of Russia.'"
This much we learn from the Menshevik Preobrajensky, an active organiser of insurrection and a member of the illegal Menshevik organisation in Moscow. We think these facts are sufficient.
While the Menshevik Preobrajensky informs us that the logic of things compelled him to come to the conclusion that 1t was necessary to resort to the aid of intervention, i.e., to the aid of the bourgeois States of Britain and France, in face of which he wavered, and because of which he left the Mensheviks, others showed themselves to be less scrupulous and took this road.
Mensheviks and the Imperialist Governments
We now wish to adduce facts which refute Abramovitch's lie, that they never were in contact with the Polish staff or the French Government. We have already spoken of how they coquetted with MacDonald and Herriot, when we were dealing with the Georgian rising of 1924. But now for what they did in 1925 and 1926.
In June, 1925, Andjaparidze, a Menshevik, sent from Georgia in 1922 to Western Europe, received from Kandelaki, a member of the foreign bureau of the Georgian Mensheviks in Paris, a letter in which the latter informed him that he had been summoned to Paris by the foreign Bureau. Andjaparidze went to Paris, and there learnt that Jordania, the head of the Georgian parallel committee, had sent for him in order to send him to Georgia to carry on underground activity. After negotiations with Jordania, Andjaparidze consented to go to Soviet Georgia to carry on illegal work. Jordania informed him that the foreign bureau of the Menshevik party had lost touch with the Georgian Central Committee, that Andjaparidze must restore that contact and indicated that he must ​travel to Georgia through Poland, where the unofiicial representative of the Georgian Government in Poland, Imnadze, would assist him to make his way across the Polish-Soviet frontier.
The directions which Andjaparidze received consisted of instructions: first, to restore a united front with the illegal Georgian parties of socialist federalists and social revolutionaries in Georgia; second, to select a new Central Committee, and somehow or other obtain the legalisation of the Menshevik party of Georgia.
Andjaparidze went to Warsaw, and with him went the former chief of the Georgian general staff under the Jordania government, General Zakariadze, who is now serving in the Academy of the Polish general staff. Here Andjaparidze made the acquaintance of a certain "Kostia" (Pienkov-Podlozny) and two other persons, dressed in official uniform, who, had to get Andjaparidze across the frontier. These two men in official uniform were officers of the Polish general staff, and they did assist Andjaparidze across the frontier. "Kostia" himself (Pienkov-Podlozny) proved to be an official of the Polish secret service, who had carried out espionage activities on the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
These facts are sufficient to refute the statement that the Mensheviks never had any kind of relationship with the Polish staff. However, the facts tell us still more.
Mensheviks and the Polish General Staff
Despatching Andjaparidze across the frontier, Pienkov-Podlozny directed him to his acquaintance Jelezny for the night. Further, the same Pienkov-Podlozny discovered Dr. Goglechidze for Andjaparidze, who had been given the doctor's address by Jordania. Andjaparidze then began to develop illegal activities in the territory of Kiev, as a transmission point between Paris and Georgia.
In July, 1925, Andjaparidze and Pienkov-Podlozny went to the Caucasus, to Tiflis, where they continued their work. The materials sent to the foreign bureau were also confided to Pienkov-Podlozny by Andjaparidze for the former to keep.
Andjaparidze and Pienkov-Podlozny were both arrested at the station in Kamienietz-Podolsky on ​August 22nd, 1925, when they were attempting to make their way back into Poland.
The connection between the Georgian illegal Menshevik organisation and the Polish general staff was not limited to this one episode. The remaining members of the Kiev organisation, the other Mensheviks, Areshidze-Gogoreshvilli and Charkviani, crossed the frontier at Volochisk, and were arrested by the Polish police on the other side of the frontier. They stated that they were members of the Georgian illegal organisation, were sent to Lvov, and there were confronted with Kate Imnadze, who questioned them in detail concerning their arrest and arranged for their release.
Did Andjaparidze know who Pienkov-Podlozny was? He did. He himself informed his co-worker Mamia that he knew Pienkov-Podlozny was a courier of the Polish general staff, and that this connection with the same general staff was made use of to assist him, Andjaparidze, to cross the frontier. Pienkov-Podlozny himself states that he was an agent of the Polish general staff, and that he had received instructions to put Andjaparidze on Soviet territory, which he did.
That is how the facts refute the lie that the Mensheviks never were in relations with the Polish general staff, and in general never had any relations whatever with the bourgeois governments, whether of Poland or of France.
Should the Soviet Government Allow the Mensheviks to Organise a Party?
If the Government of the U.S.S.R. had need of justification, these facts are sufficient to make clear the necessity for it to undertake measures for struggling against the illegal counter-revolutionary organisations, to arrest their leaders, to keep them in prison or send them into exile or abroad.
The Mensheviks abroad protest not only against our keeping them in prison, when they organise armed risings for the purpose of attempting to overthrow the Soviet authority, they usually reproach us for keeping them in prison for mere membership of the Menshevik party or for openly preaching their views. They are angry at the fact that we do not allow them openly to publish their own newspapers, to make public speeches, to have legal organisations; that we drive ​them underground, and then arrest them and keep them in prison.
But what is meant by the legal preaching of Menshevism? What is meant by a legal Menshevik party? What is meant by permission to act in the open? It means permission to the Mensheviks at all times and in all places, in the newspapers, in the press, and at public meetings to declare that the Soviet power must be overthrown, that in its place must be set up a similar system to that of Western Europe, the regime of the bourgeois West European democracy, i.e., the rule of capital. It means permitting them everywhere, at workers' and other meetings, to say that the struggle of the Russian workers and peasants against West European imperialism is hopeless; that the Russian workers and peasants will not build socialism; that they have neither the strength, nor the resources, nor the intelligence to achieve it; that in consequence it is senseless and useless to struggle with the forces of capitalism; and that, to draw the final conclusion, they ought to seek reconciliation with the bourgeoisie, to seek a reconciliation with the capitalists.
We have seen what this message of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s led to in places where the counter-revolutionary generals and landowners temporarily got the upper hand during the civil war. It led to the power being seized by those generals, and they returned the land to the landowners, returned the factories to the capitalists, and lined their route with thousands of corpses, mercilessly shooting the toiling population, torturing, beating, burning and consigning to hunger and cold millions of the working masses. And then they kicked out these same Mensheviks and S.R.'s.
May we lend our assistance for such an end to the revolution?
May we allow, may the proletarian State allow such a gospel to be preached within its borders? On what grounds, for what purpose must the Soviet Government allow on its territory the preaching of the mistrust and panic which the Mensheviks spread everywhere?
Mensheviks and Socialism
Here, for example, is what the acknowledged leader of the Mensheviks, Dan, writes in No. 4 of the "Socialisticheskoe Viestnik" for February 27th, 1926:
"The lack of success, the (in Russian conditions unavoidable) lack of success of the Bolshevik 'experiment' in socialist construction, may it not lead them (the workers of Western Europe) to the contrary conclusion, to the conclusion that the capitalists cannot be done without, that the proletariat are condemned to wear the fetters of capitalist exploitation until the end of the ages?"
And further: "The unavoidable failure of the Bolshevik 'experiment' is now obvious. … In modern Russia the question is not at all of the construction of socialism, but of the conditions in which the working class will be placed in the capitalist society now being created." And from this he draws the final conclusion: "The struggle for political rights, for freedom, for the abolition of the dictatorship, for the democratisation of the State regime of Russia, is the most vital task of to-day for the Russian working class."
So socialism in Russia is doomed to failure. The arrival of capitalism is inevitable.
And what does this "struggle for the democratisation of the State regime" mean? What system do they wish to set up in place of the dictatorship of the working class—Mr. Dan and his bosom friends? They think—and they stated this in their programme of 1924—in place of the Bolshevik rule to organise in Russia a bourgeois-democratic regime on the lines of the regime of the bourgeois European countries. To this end they demand that our workers should immediately grant full political rights to the exiled and outcast landowners, capitalists, traders and parasites, whom we have deprived of those rights; they propose to the working class that they should voluntarily give up their power and transfer the rule to the hands of these "democrats"; i.e., actually they preach an immediate capitulation of the working class, its self-immolation, for the sake of a restoration—the laying down of the road for the triumph of the very blackest of Tsarist reaction. That is what they want and that is what they are making for. And we are to allow freedom to such "propaganda"? Do they think we're children? In this matter the heads and lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants are at ​stake. Can anyone, except utter blackguards and conscious traitors of the working class yield to such demands, or even connive at them?
Lenin's Answer
The finest answer to these preachers of panic, distrust, impotence and irresolution, these preachers of complete surrender and capitulation to the enemy was given by comrade Lenin in 1922, when in reference to the introduction of N.E.P. and the return to methods of the economic system peculiar to the capitalist world, because of this "retreat" howls and sobs arose from some of our weak-nerved comrades.
"The most dangerous feature that may accompany a retreat," wrote comrade Lenin, "is panic. If the whole army … is retreating there cannot be the same mood as when all are moving forward."
And again: "When the whole army is retreating it is not clear, it does not see where to call a halt, but sees only the retreat, and then at times but a few panicky voices are sufficient to cause a general flight. Here the danger is tremendous. …"
How did Vladimir Ilyitch propose to deal with the panic-mongers at such a moment? He wrote:
"If anyone raises a panic, even though they are guided by the finest motives, at a moment when we are carrying out an incomparably difficult retreat, and when the whole aim is to maintain good order—at such a moment it is absolutely necessary to punish sternly, harshly, ruthlessly the least violation of discipline, and not merely in regard to certain of our internal Party affairs, but—and this must be kept in mind—still more in regard to such gentlemen as the Mensheviks or all the gentlemen of the Two-and-a-half International."
"A day or two ago," comrade Lenin continues, "I read an article by comrade Rokoszy on the latest book by Otto Bauer, who once was the teacher of all of us, but who, like Kautsky, since the war has become a miserable petty bourgeois. He now writes: 'And now they are retreating towards capitalism; we always said that the revolution was a bourgeois one.'
"Both the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s" comrade Lenin continues, "who all preach such ideas, are ​astonished when we say that we shall shoot those who preach such ideas. They are amazed, but the issue is clear: when an army retreats discipline is a hundred times more necessary than during an advance, because in an advance everyone rushes forward. But if now everyone begins to rush backward destruction is inevitable and immediate.
"And when the Mensheviks say: 'You are retreating now, but I was always in favour of retreat,' we answer them: 'Our revolutionary ranks must answer all public demonstrations of Menshevism with death, for otherwise they are not revolutionary judges, but God knows what.'
"But they are quite unable to understand this, and exclaim: 'What dictatorial habits these people have got.'
"The leaders of the Second and the Two-and-a-half Internationals, with the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s, say: 'The revolution has set. We have always said what you are saying now. Allow us to repeat it once more.' But we answer: 'Allow us to place you against a wall for that; either you will trouble to refrain from an expression of your views, or if you wish to give expression to your political opinions in the present situation, when we are in much more difficult conditions than if we had the open domination of the whites, then you must pardon us if we treat you as the worst and most injurious elements of the white-guard movements.'
"This we must not forget."
So comrade Lenin wrote. We ask every class-conscious worker and peasant: If Vladimir Ilyitch was right when he wrote thus at the moment of a temporary breathing space after the civil war and in the first period of N.E.P., then at this moment when we have ended the retreat, when we are moving forward in the development of our socialist structure, but at the same time find ourselves in a situation where all the capitalist States are against us in a united front, when they are preparing war against us, and when in a united front with these imperialists, with Chamberlain, the German and Russian Social-Democrats with Kautsky at their head, and the Black Hundreds of the monarchist emigrés are marching, preparing a united armed attack—at such a moment can there be any other attitude on our part to these "socialists" (save ​the mark!) than that which comrade Lenin recommended in 1922?
Sabotage Cannot be Tolerated
We think that there can be only one answer to this question: We have never allowed them, nor in the future shall we allow them, to sow panic in our ranks, or to disorganise our creative work for the construction of socialism. This we have never allowed, and shall never allow, and we think we are right.
Consequently we cannot allow them freedom of action, freedom of organisation, i.e., in reality freedom to destroy the labour structure of the workers and peasants. Consequently we can do no other than place them in conditions in which they find themselves deprived of the possibility of actively doing any harm, which of course does not mean that they are all to be kept in prison. Even the S.R.'s condemned by the Supreme Tribunal of the Supreme Central Executive Committee in 1922, when their participation in the organisation of terrorist activities and participation in the organisation of the attempt on Lenin was proved, are not held in prison, but are held under guard in distant localities of Siberian provinces, such as Simbirsk; and we merely do not allow them to continue their counter-revolutionary activity.
But when we, in order to safeguard ourselves against their activities, propose that they should go abroad, in exchange for worker Communists languishing in capitalist prisons, they solemnly refuse such an exchange, not wishing to become what they call "living goods."
The Political Prisoners
We come now to the question of contumely and tortures. It is senseless and absurd to assert that we make it our business systematically and specially to make game of or torture prisoners. No matter who may be a prisoner in our prisons—even an arch-murderer or super-bandit—we apply no illegal measures of influence whatever to them, and fight all cases wherever such things take place. It is true we know of many disorders that have taken place in our prisons, including those of Yaroslavl and Solovetsky. But special investigations on the spot revealed that the authors of the unfortunate events were not always ​the prison staff, that there had been cases of prisoners acting insultingly to the prison guard, to Red Army men who had carried the weight of the civil war on their shoulders, and who in the prisoners saw their mortal enemies and counter-revolutionaries.
All these complaints, all these outcries are merely a means of political agitation, deceit and falsehood, which they exploit for the purpose of discrediting the proletarian Government in the eyes of the toilers of Western Europe.
That this is undoubtedly the case we shall prove with facts and documents originating from the Mensheviks themselves.
How They are Treated
Here is what the Mensheviks imprisoned in the Suzdal internment camp themselves write concerning the conditions of their imprisonment. (Suzdal is a county town about 22 miles from Vladimir, the provincial centre of one of the central industrial provinces, about 112 miles from Moscow. The camp was situated in the buildings of a former monastery. )
From the letter of Karp Bielvodsky, a Menshevik, member of the Rostov city committee of the R.S.D.L.P., a worker:
"I arrived in the camp on Tuesday, and was allotted a good room, clean and quite tidy, and please not only stop worrying about me, but, if I may express it like that, do not think that I am having a bad time in these conditions and so on. I give you my word that I am telling you the honest truth, and I don't intend to hide the fact that, from the material point of view, I am living as though I was at home, the food is the same as at home, so that I don't think I shall get tuberculosis in the three years, if I don't have it already, although there would be good cause for it, having worked since I was a lad in a smithy. I ask you not to worry about me and to think only of yourself. Here, if I may say so, is good husbandry and industry, a good and well-stocked garden, almost all the trees are fruit trees, cherries, apples and so on, so here is my daily food; in the morning, tea; soup, with meat, for dinner, and potato puree; and ​supper also of bread and meat. We get plenty of bread—rye bread—and good; they also give white, a mug of milk, tea and sugar, and also cigarettes to smoke, though I am not thinking of learning to smoke. We have a walk twice a day for an hour each time [illegible] in the fruit orchard."
From a letter by Dorojkov, member of the Chitinsk Social-Revolutionary organisation:
"In this faith I bear my imprisonment more lightly. But the imprisonment is light in itself. My cell room is large and amazingly clean. Everything is painted white; the table, the chairs, the wash-basin, the walls. Just outside the window is a large orchard, entirely of apple trees (if only my relations were here, Lelka, Youshka, and Raya, Shura, Marusia and the little shrimps Shurka and Lupan and the gnome, the apples would have them all beaten)… The yard in which we exercise is covered with grass, flowers, all the plants imaginable; the season is marvellous. … The air is like balsam, you can't have too much of it. … The food is excellently, very excellently prepared. It is served up on clean plates and trays. Everything absolutely glitters. Dinner and supper consist of two courses. And I give you my word of honour that I am not being sarcastic, and that the conditions of imprisonment are good. … I read as many books as I can, and I am thinking of occupying myself with very serious studies. There is nothing to do. No work whatever. I am with two others in one room, and I read day and night."
From a letter written by the Social-Revolutionary Chaikin to his brother:
"We don't have at all a bad time. There are two of us in a large room, with two windows that look out on a green monastery courtyard. We take exercise three times a day, ten at a time, with even women's company. Victuals in plenty (43 kopecks daily is the Government allowance, supplemented by our own), lots of books. We drink a lot of tea and three times a day. We ​broil mutton Caucasian fashion for breakfast."
From a letter by the Menshevik Danilin (a printer) to his family:
"Well, at last I've reached the place to which I was assigned, and I can write to you telling you something of my life. I must frankly confess that life here is not at all bad. The cell (or, rather, room) in which I have been placed is quite large (six paces by six paces), light, with two windows, furnished with a good table a bed, a large mattress, a blanket, pillow and two stools. There are quite a number of trees outside the windows, and the monastery stands in the midst of them. We exercise twice a day, for an hour each time. The food is good so far, and dinner and supper consist of two courses. We are supplied with sugar, tea, cigarettes and matches. In a word, so far I feel all right."
From a letter by the Menshevik Svietitzky in Suzdal camp to his family:
"I assure you that in all my life I have never fed so well as now. I even often feel awkward at the thought that you, my dears, cannot allow yourselves one-fifth of what I get, although it is possible that you have much greater need of all this than I. I must emphasise that I am absolutely fit, and I am fed so well only because everybody here is fed well. As I told you in my previous letter, I am quite free the whole day, and I spend the time together with all the others. We walk, talk, read and so on."
Solovetsky
Such is the regime in Suzdal internment camp, and none the less the Mensheviks are dissatisfied with that regime. They want, and demand, that they should receive … the Solovetsky regime. Those same people who trumpet to the whole world how "terribly" they suffered in Solovetsky camp are dissatisfied with Suzdal camp, and demand that there should be the same system in Suzdal as … in Solovetsky. That is how they themselves write. Yet here is what the Menshevik Bloch, transferred to Suzdal wrote to his brother at Solovetsky:
"It is true we haven't here the apparent freedom—freedom to move about the camp—that you have. The Suzdal camp has the nature of a prison, but all this is redeemed by the incomparably better climate, the excellent food of fresh produce and the absence of isolation from the world. The regime: Twice a day examination, two exercises of an hour each time, dinner and supper of two courses, boiling water for tea three times a day, fourteen ounces of black bread daily, over two pounds of white sugar, half a pound of tea, 400 cigarettes, four boxes of matches monthly; when necessary better food and a supplement confirmed by the doctor: fourteen ounces of white bread, a bottle of milk, two eggs, and two ounces of butter daily. Unhindered subscription to newspapers, journals, and food-stuffs through the administration, six letters to one's family monthly, visits from relations three successive days monthly, for visitors from a distance an hour each day."
Here is what the Menshevik Vasiliev, transferred to Suzdal, writes:
"… I think that our aim should be to realise the Solovesky regime here in Suzdal. … So the struggle is inevitable, but in entering on it we should first of all have a clear understanding of what results it may entail. … Our general slogan is clear: The Solovetsky regime in Suzdal."
And here is what is written concerning the same camp regime—written collectively by the Georgian group of Mensheviks in answer to a questionnaire organised by the Mensheviks in prison. You recollect how Jordania had written to his agents on the necessity of collecting all kinds of information on the "prison regime" and about the "tortures" to which Mensheviks are subjected in our prisons. We shall see what are the "tortures" told of by Mensheviks who are themselves interned. They are discussing the question what measures need to be undertaken and whether it is necessary to undertake any measures at all for the lightening of the prison regime: should they declare a general hunger strike or put an end to everything by collective suicide, so as demonstratively to show to ​the whole world in what unendurable conditions the Mensheviks are placed in our prisons. On this point the Georgian Mensheviks answer as follows:
"This resource, i.e., suicide, either instant or comparatively prolonged (hunger strike), may be resorted to for more narrowly political ends also, namely, for obtaining an alteration in the prison regime. But we think that when a struggle is carried on by such clamant methods for these ends and under such a slogan, then in order that they may be justified in the opinion of society, the prison regime itself should be clamant at least to a certain degree. But you must agree, comrades, that the regime here wholly and entirely is such as not to justify resort to hunger-strike without especial need. At another time, in a different political situation and correlation of forces, hunger-striking for even insignificant reasons, as has already happened in past times, may be permissible and expedient. … But in general we all repeat that the regime cannot appear so clamantly unjust to anyone. If in answer to our hunger-strike the most anti-Soviet Commission, even one of European socialists, were to be allowed to make acquaintance with our regime they would undoubtedly say that the Soviet system and its justice are bad things, but the regime in the Suzdal prison is quite satisfactory."
We think that after such frank admissions by the Mensheviks themselves, the lies and slander of foreign delegates concerning the regime in our prisons can be regarded as refuted by the Mensheviks themselves.
Thus the matter stands in regard to the last question.
Summary
What are the general results of our analysis? Those results may be presented as follows:
(1) The U.S.S.R. is at present subject to extraordinary danger from without, the largest of the bourgeois States are arming against her, are preparing for war against the U.S.S.R. The capitalist governments themselves are dreaming of the annihilation and overthrow of ​the Soviet rule, of the establishment of a capitalistic rule, the return of the exiled capitalists and landowners, the triumph of black reaction.
(2) In such circumstances the proletarian State is obliged to struggle by every means, even the harshest and most ruthless, against those who are carrying on the policy of the overthrow of the Soviet rule, who within the U.S.S.R. are preparing for the weakening of the rear and the provision of assistance to the bourgeois governments preparing for war, by resorting to terroristic acts, conspiracies and espionage.
(3) In so far as they set themselves the same aim in their practical work, i.e., the overthrow of the Soviet rule, whether by way of secret preparations for insurrection or by way of direct relationships with the counter-revolutionary bourgeois governments, or by way of legal or illegal propaganda of their opinions concerning the necessity of overthrowing the Soviet rule—the political parties of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, who call themselves socialists, stand for us in the ranks of the same enemies, in regard to whom we must, we are obliged by our responsibility to the toiling masses of the U.S.S.R., to apply the same measures. And we shall never allow them to undermine the internal fortress and might of the Soviet rule and the labour structure.
(4) No specially harsh measures are applied to prisoners in the U.S.S.R., and whenever exceptional individual cases of such occur they are investigated and stopped. Wherever it is possible to avoid stern repression, replacing it by lighter measures, even by exile abroad, or by way of exchange for those Communists who are in the prisons of Western Europe, we always do so. Only an idiot or a conscienceless liar can regard measures as dishonest which, liberating revolutionary workers from the paws of capitalist justice, at the same time accord the Mensheviks and S.R.'s the possibility of obtaining their freedom and residence abroad, instead of residence in Soviet prisons. ​And if they do not desire this there are obviously other reasons concerning which they keep silent at the moment.
(5) The latest facts concerning the activities of the Mensheviks, and in particular Kautsky's article and Jordania's letter, show that at the moment when international relations have grown sharper, at a moment of war and intervention, the Mensheviks will equally set themselves as their task an advance against the Soviet Union on the side of the interventionists and the bourgeois capitalist robbers.
We consider it necessary to say this frankly to the workers and toiling masses of the West, and we think that the toiling masses of the West, who are bearing all the burden of the capitalist regime on their backs and are languishing in the fetters of serfdom to capital will be with us, and not with them, and that they will aid not them but us in the defence of our country and our struggle for the triumph of the Communist revolution and the smashing of the yoke of capital throughout the world.
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This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1928, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
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