Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial DemocracySpargo, John
History
Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Spargo, John
Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
We, peasants assembled in Congress, we, too, have been the object
of violence and outrages, unheard of even under the Czarist
regime. Red Guards and sailors, armed, invaded our premises. We
were searched in the rudest manner. Our goods and the provisions
which we had brought from home were stolen. Several of our
comrade-delegates and all the members of the Committee were
arrested and taken to Peter and Paul Fortress. We ourselves were,
late at night, put out of doors in a city which we did not know,
deprived of shelter under which to sleep. All that, to oblige us
either to go to Smolny, where the Bolshevist government called
another Congress, or to return to our homes without having
attained any result. But violence could not stop us; secretly, as
in the time of Czarist autocracy, we found a place to assemble and
to continue our work.
In making known these facts to the country and the numerous
millions of the peasant population, we call upon them to
stigmatize the revolting policy practised by the Bolshevik
government with regard to all those who are not in accord with it.
Returned to our villages, dispersed in every corner of immense
Russia, we shall use all our powers to make known to the mass of
peasants and to the entire country the truth concerning this
government of violence; to make known in every corner of the
fatherland that the actual government, which has the hardihood to
call itself "Government of the Workmen and Peasants," in reality
shoots down workmen and peasants and shamelessly scoffs at the
country. We shall use all our strength to induce the population of
peasant workers to demand an account from this government of
violence, as well as from their prodigal children, their sons and
brothers, who in the army and navy give aid to these autocrats in
the commission of violence.
In the name of millions of peasants, by whom we were delegated, we
demand that they no longer obstruct the work of the Constituent
Assembly. We were not allowed to finish the work for which we had
come; at home we shall continue this work. We shall employ all our
strength to effect, as soon as possible, the convocation of a new
National Congress of Peasants' Delegates united on the principle
of the defense of the Constituante, and that in a place where we
need not fear a new dissolution. Lately we fought against
autocracy and Czarist violence; we shall fight with no less energy
against the new autocrats who practise violence, whoever they may
be, and whatever may be the shibboleths by which they cover their
criminal acts. We shall fight for the Constituent Assembly,
because it is in that alone that we see the salvation of our
country, that of the Revolution, and that of Land and Liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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