But now that the nations of the world have actually been thrown into an armed conflict, and the war, which in itself is the greatest crime of the world, still is raging, we must stand it. We must, however, destroy the originator and the cause of the war, the militarism, by its own arms, and on its ruins we must build, in harmony and in peace—not by force, as the Russian Bolsheviki want—a new and a better social order under the guardianship of which the people may develop peacefully and securely.
I have been explaining to you my ideas, expecting that you will publish them. You over in America are not able to imagine how horrible the life in Russia at the present time is. The period after the French Revolution surely must have been as a life in a paradise compared with this. Hunger, brigandage, arrests, and murders are such every-day events that nobody pays any attention to them. Freedom of assemblage, association, free speech, and free press is a far-away ideal which is altogether destroyed at the present time. Arbitrary rule and terror are raging everywhere, and, what is worst of all, not only the terror proclaimed by the government, but individual terror as well.
My greetings to all friends and comrades.
Oskar Tokoi.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Plechanov never formally joined the Menshevik faction, I believe, but his writings showed that he favored that faction and the Mensheviki acknowledged his intellectual leadership.
[2] They had gained one member since the election.
[3] Quoted by Litvinov, The Bolshevik Revolution: Its Rise and Meaning, p. 22. Litvinov, it must be remembered, was the Bolshevik Minister to Great Britain. His authority to speak for the Bolsheviki is not to be questioned.
[4] The date is Russian style—March 12th, our style.