https://socialistworker.org/2016/12/05/to-the-revolutionary-students
To the revolutionary students of Russia
December 5, 2016
One hundred years ago this month, an organizing committee of
Bolshevik-influenced students issued this underground proclamation
calling on students in Russia who were opposed to the war to come
together with workers and peasants to put a provisional revolutionary
government in power. The organizing committee linked revolutionary
student circles at higher educational institutions in Petrograd, Russia.
Its proclamation reflects the impact of the Zimmerwald movement on
leading student revolutionary activists in Russia.
This leaflet was translated and annotated by Barbara Allen, author of
the biography Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885-1937: Life of an Old
Bolshevik, and originally published by Shlyapnikov in 1923. It is the
first installment of an SW series giving a view from the streets during
the 1917 Russian Revolution. The series is edited by John Riddell and
co-published at his website.
"PROLETARIANS OF all countries, unite!"
To the revolutionary students of Russia.
The glory of victory is given only to the brave,
The fallen in struggle do not know shame...
Youth, our song is sung to you--
Eternal glory to you...
Youth activists pose outside an organizing conference after the Russian
Revolution
Youth activists pose outside an organizing conference after the Russian
Revolution
Comrades! During the years of reaction, when work was difficult and
routine, there were no questions demanding definite actions toward their
solution. Therefore, the differentiation which was occurring among our
students could not come to light in a sufficiently well-defined way.
Vulgar, bourgeois moods grew among students and became stronger in the
stinking decay of a bastardized constitution. Only now these moods have
been revealed in all their strength. Such moods attest to the complete
ideological bankruptcy and reckless opportunism of the general student body.
At one time they seemed united in their revolutionary democratic mood.
Now, given the exacerbation of class contradictions in society, students
have split into two opposing groups. First, the bourgeois-opportunist
group, which is ideologically connected to the Russian liberal
bourgeoisie, has become much stronger recently. The second group is
revolutionary-socialist and possesses the internationalist, class-based
ideology of the world proletariat.
With no desire at all to appeal to the former group, we appeal to those
comrades who share our convictions but who for some reason still stand
on the sidelines of the socialist work of proletarian organizations. In
the past, a large part of the student body merely sympathized with this
work, but at the present moment the revolutionary world view obligates
one to take corresponding action. Events force upon these students the
need either to renounce their sympathy and to completely merge with the
bourgeois sector of students and with the Russian bourgeoisie, or to
move from thoughts and words toward definite revolutionary action and to
connect themselves with the proletariat in the great struggle to
overthrow modern-day slavery.
What else to read
Read other leaflets, statements and documents from the Russian
Revolution in this series titled "1917: The View from the Streets"
edited by John Riddell.
Bolshevik leaflet
To the revolutionary students of Russia
Mezhraionka leaflet
The day of the people's wrath is near
Menshevik leaflet
Only a provisional government can bring freedom and peace
Bolshevik leaflet
For a provisional revolutionary government
Mezhraionka leaflet
A day to prepare for conquering the enemy
Mezhraionka leaflet
For a general strike against autocracy
Mezhraionka leaflet
Soldiers, take power into your own hands!
Polish socialist workers' appeal
The only guarantee of Polish independence
Petrograd Soviet appeal
Joining together to achieve peace
Petrograd Soviet Executive appeals
https://socialistworker.org/2017/05/15/calling-for-peaceand-renewed-o
.
Yes, the students were very "sympathetic." They talked very much about
the interests of "the people." but they spent too much time in thought
to be capable of doing the slightest thing in the name of their great
values. All the best ones perished. Merging their sense of consciousness
and will with those of "the hungry and the slaves," they went forward on
the straight path of difficult, heroic struggle against the current
Tsar's predatory pack of hounds.
Eternal memory to those who were lost for the sacred cause!
Eternal memory to those who were tormented in rotten prisons!
Eternal memory to those who told us the living word!...
And the students?! They convinced themselves that they held a definite
ideological position and by it they justified their inaction and weak
will. They did not notice that they had long ago lost any defined
"position." They stood not on the firm foundation of ideological-social
convictions, but in a dirty swamp of vulgar opportunism. So they lived
for a long time. They breathed the poisoned air of ideological
demoralization. They held forth, in their own self-importance, about
their highly elevated "position" and the absolute worth of their
(stagnant) moods. Years passed by while the students bogged down more
and more deeply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE WORLD war broke out as a result of the plundering policy of the
ruling classes and their governments, and it put on the agenda very
acute questions, which everyone had to answer quickly. Various social
strata in Russia reacted differently to these burning questions and to
the terrible events which were unfolding. Up to this time, there was not
and could not have been a single attitude among students to these
questions. No matter how much the bourgeois press lied about "national
unity," the people (proletariat and peasantry) have not wanted war.
The revolutionary minority of our students has gone along with the
people, not with so-called "society." The students were with the people
on the barricades of the first revolution [in 1905], suffered with them
during the difficult years of reaction, and along with them tried to
prevent the bloody feud of the bourgeoisie, for whom the people are only
a means to an end. Together with the proletariat, the students defended
the red flag of the International from concerted attack by the
bourgeoisie of all countries and by some early teachers of socialism. It
is true that some students were fooled by chauvinism, actively accepted
war, and flung themselves into slaughtering imaginary oppressors to
defend the "fatherland," meaning the state, and its money bags, which
are its heart and soul.
Among those who, from the moment the world slaughter began, did not find
anything better to do than merely "not to oppose," there were even some
who had said earlier that the state is the most acute expression of
class rule and that the current government expresses bourgeois rule.
They had considered the only just war to be the war of the proletariat
against the bourgeoisie and against the tyranny of Nicholas the Bloody,
and the war of actual slaves against actual oppressors.
By their decision "not to oppose," they cut themselves off from the
majority of their comrades. They turned their backs on the proletarian
and turned toward dissolution and debauchery. Only after 28 months of
war have they now come to recognize with horror that their hands, which
they raised as if to defend oppressed peoples, had been woven into a
horrible fraternal embrace with Tsarism. They feel that they have been
deceived and that fraternization with monarchs is the chief reason for
long, protracted war without end.
The Second International was not fit to play the role of a revolutionary
organization of action even in peacetime, when contradictions between
internationalist and national-socialist elements were not so acute. Its
majority was unaware of the need for immediate revolutionary acts in
case of imperialist war. When world war began, it was consumed with
opportunism and lacked the desire to summon the proletariat to a
revolutionary act. Thanks to its uncertain practical position, it often
earned the sympathy of the radicalizing intelligentsia. If it could not
throw off the yoke of militarism from the peoples even in peacetime,
then it was even less capable of doing so at the moment when the "great"
slaughter originated. Resolute steps were needed when the united world
bourgeoisie faced off against the International, but it could not unite
behind a single action. The bankruptcy of the Second International's
practical position showed how weak still were its organization and its
will to carry out resolute actions when needed.
This historical lesson did not pass in vain. From the sea of blood and
tears and from the moans of the maimed, the Third International will
emerge as an international organization of the revolutionary proletariat
and of action. When the first Zimmerwald Conference met, we welcomed its
"manifesto" to the proletarians of Europe as an attempt to gather the
forces of the future International.
From the very beginning of war, the organizational connection between
individual parts of the international proletariat was severed. The
proletariat could do no more than defend its socialist conquests from
the bourgeoisie, which was united against it. Now it is emerging from
the stage of organizational fragmentation into the stage of unification
on the basis of revolutionary action. From now on, comrades, the
convictions held by each one of us will be tested by the degree of our
participation in socialist organizations From this moment, whoever is
not with us is against us.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
GET TO work, comrades! Go into the illegal social-democratic workers'
organizations! Create your own student organizations for struggle
against war and its perpetrators! Connect these organizations with the
Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party. You should also work in legal
democratic organizations in the spirit of fortifying socialist and
revolutionary propaganda in them! Assume the initiative to act and speak
out! By all possible means, you should dispel the fragmentary illusions
that people can be emancipated by means of the all-Russian despot's
bayonets! To work! To work, comrades!
You heard: "To you working men and women, mothers and fathers, widows
and orphans, wounded and crippled, and to all victims of war, we appeal,
extending hands to one other across all borders, blood-drenched fields,
ruins of cities, and mountains of corpses: Proletarians of all
countries, unite!" These are the words of the first Zimmerwald
Manifesto. Do you hear them? "Two years of world war. Two years of
devastation. Two years of bloodied victims and rabid reaction. Who will
bear responsibility for this? Who hides behind those who cast the
burning torch into the barrel of powder? Who wanted war and prepared for
it already long ago? The ruling classes did!"
Do you hear, comrades: "Having laid millions of people in the grave,
having plunged into sorrow millions of families, having turned millions
of families into widows and orphans, having heaped up debris upon ruins,
and having destroyed irreplaceable objects of cultural value, the war
entered into a dead end." "There were neither victors nor conquered.
More accurately, all were defeated, became weak through loss of blood,
were ruined, and were exhausted. Such are the results of this
horror-filled war. Thus, the ruling classes' fantasies about imperialist
world dominion did not come true."
Do you hear, citizens? "During peacetime the capitalist system deprives
the worker of any joy in life. During war it deprives him of everything,
even life. Enough murder! Enough suffering! And enough devastation! Use
all the means at your disposal to promote the quickest possible
conclusion to human slaughter! Demand an immediate end to the war!
Ravaged and ruined peoples--raise yourselves up to struggle! Act more
boldly! Remember that you are the majority, and if you want, you can
become a strong force. Let the governments see that hatred toward war
and the desire for social redemption grow in all countries. Then the
hour of peace among peoples will approach. Down with war!'
These are the words of the second Zimmerwald manifesto: "To the ravaged
and ruined peoples." This is the inviting voice of socialism! We are at
the threshold of great events. They do not wait. Don't tarry, comrades!
Take care not to arrive too late! Already the vanguard of the
International has entered the blood-filled arena to halt the slaughter,
to destroy the hateful slavery, and to create new forms of life. All new
and large forces go forward to the victory of the revolution and toward
the people's festival of insurrection. We will not stab them in the
back. We will follow along behind them. So go ahead, comrades! Keep pace
with workers in the ranks of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers'
Party under the proud, red banners of irreconcilable struggle!
Call the Tsarist monarchy to account! Down with war! Long live the
revolution! Forward! For the Provisional Revolutionary Government! For
the Russian Democratic Republic! For socialism! Long live the Third
International of the Revolutionary Proletariat!
Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party
December 1916
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Source: "To the Revolutionary Students of Russia." Appeal from the
Organizing Committee of the SD (Social Democratic) fractions of Higher
Educational Institutions, December 1916. Published in A.G. Shliapnikov,
Kanun semnadtsatogo goda, Moscow/Petrograd: Gosizdat, 1923, vol. 2, pp.
63-67.
Next: The day of the people's wrath is near
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