Dear Comrades,—The citizen Inna Rakitnikov has lately come from Petrograd to Paris for personal reasons that are peculiarly tragic. At the time of her departure the Executive Committee of the Second Soviet of Peasant Delegates of All-Russia, of which she is one of the vice-presidents, requested her to make to the International Socialist Bureau a detailed report of the fights that this organization had to make against the Bolsheviki in order to realize the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
This is the report under the title of a document that I present here, without commentary, asking you to communicate it without delay to all the sections of the International. Two words of explanation, only: First, I wish to draw your attention to the fact that this is the second time that the Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Peasants of All-Russia addresses itself publicly to the International.
At the time of my journey to Stockholm in the month of September, 1917, I made, at a session of the Holland, Scandinavian committee, presided over by Branting, a communication in the name of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants. I handed over on this occasion to our secretary, Camille Huysmans, an appeal to the democrats of the entire world, in which the Executive Committee indicated clearly its position in the questions of the world war and of agrarian reform, and vindicated its place in the Workers' and Socialist International family.
I must also present to you the author of this report. The citizen Rakitnikov, a member of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist party, has worked for a long time in the ranks of this party as a publicist and organizer and propagandist, especially among the peasants. She has known long years of prison, of Siberia, of exile. Before and during the war until the beginning of the Revolution she lived as a political fugitive in Paris. While being a partizan convinced of the necessity of national defense of invaded countries against the imperialistic aggression of German militarism—in which she is in perfect accord with the members of our party such as Stepan Sletof, Iakovlef, and many other voluntary Russian republicans, all dead facing the enemy in the ranks of the French army—the citizen Rakitnikov belonged to the international group. I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki, who, as you know, tried to cover their follies and their abominable crimes against the plan of the Russian people, and against all the other Socialist parties, under the lying pretext of internationalist ideas, ideas which they have, in reality, trampled under foot and betrayed.
Yours fraternally,
E. Roubanovitch,
June 28, 1918.
Member of the B.S.I.
"The Bolsheviki who promised liberty, equality, peace, etc., have not been ashamed to follow in the footsteps of Czarism. It is not liberty; it is tyranny." (Extract from a letter of a young Russian Socialist, an enthusiast of liberty who died all too soon.)
I
Organization of the Peasants after the Revolution in Soviets of Peasant Delegates
A short time after the Revolution of February the Russian peasants grouped themselves in a National Soviet of Peasant Delegates at the First Congress of the Peasants of All-Russia, which took place at Petrograd. The Executive Committee of this Soviet was elected. It was composed of well-known leaders of the Revolutionary Socialist party and of peasant delegates sent from the country. Without adhering officially to the Revolutionary Socialist party, the Soviet of Peasant Delegates adopted the line of conduct of this party. While co-ordinating its tactics with the party's, it nevertheless remained an organization completely independent. The Bolsheviki, who at this Congress attempted to subject the peasants to their influence, had not at the time any success. The speeches of Lenine and the other members of this party did not meet with any sympathy, but on the contrary provoked lively protest. The Executive Committee had as its organ the paper Izvestya of the National Soviet of Peasant Delegates. Thousands of copies of this were scattered throughout the country. Besides the central national Soviet there existed local organizations, the Soviets, the government districts who were in constant communication with the Executive Committee staying at Petrograd.