Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
"One must, indeed, be insane not to understand the palpable and
simple acts of Bolshevism! One must be sightless, stark-blind or
have eyes that see not, to fail to observe on the face of the great
mutilated Russia murder without end, ruins, miles of cemeteries,
dungeons and insane asylums; not to perceive what hunger and terror
have done to Petrograd, and, alas, to many other cities!
"One must be earless, stone-deaf, or have ears that hear not, to
remain callous to the sobs, the sighs and the wailing of women, the
heart-rending cries of the children, the death-rattle of strangled
men, the cracking of the assassins' rifles, the only music that has
filled the air of Russia for the last eighteen months!...
"As the wireless operator on a sinking vessel, in the thick
blackness of the night, sends out his last appeal, 'Help, quick, we
are sinking, save us!' so I, moved by my faith in the goodness of
man, am sending out into distance and darkness my prayer for my
people who are sinking.
"If you only knew how dark is the night around us, if my words
could only convey its density and depth! Whom am I calling? I know
not. Does the wireless operator know who may intercept his call?
For thousands of miles around the ocean may be deserted and not a
living soul may overhear his appeal.
"The night is dark. The sea is frightful. But the operator has not
lost his faith, and he calls persistently, to the very last minute,
until the last light is gone and his apparatus is silenced forever.
"What does he trust in? He trusts in humanity, and so do I. He
trusts in the law of human love and life. It is impossible that one
human being will deny help to another in his hour of perdition. It
is impossible that one human being will abandon another to perish
without attempting to help. It is impossible that such an appeal
for help will not receive any response!...
"Friend! I do not even attempt to tell you how frightful life is in
Russia at present, in our tormented Petrograd. Others have told
enough, and new words cannot be coined by the human tongue.
"It is frightful when children starve and perish, and assassins are
well-fed and Trotzky is pouring down his throat the last bottle of
milk. It is frightful when the cemeteries of Petrograd have no more
room for the dead, and the murderers have a free road not only to
the Princess Islands, but to all the ends of the world, and the
wealth they have stolen will enable them to live in balmy lands and
in the most attractive corners of our mercenary globe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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