Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy

by John Spargo

Protopopov and Sturmer and their associates recognized as clearly as the liberals did the natural kinship and interdependence of the three great autocracies, the Romanov, Habsburg, and Hohenzollern dynasties. They knew well that the crushing of autocracy in Austria-Hungary and Germany would make it impossible to maintain autocracy in Russia. They realized, furthermore, that while the nation was not willing to attempt revolution during the war, the end of the war would inevitably bring with it revolution upon a scale far vaster than had ever been attempted before, unless, indeed, the revolutionary leaders could be goaded into making a premature attempt to overthrow the monarchy. In that case, it might be possible to crush them. Given a rebellion in the cities, which could be crushed by the police amply provided with machine-guns, and by "loyal" troops, with a vast army unprovided with food and no means of supplying it, there would be abundant justification for making a separate peace with Germany. Thus the Revolution would be crushed and the whole system of autocracy, Russian, Austrian, and German, preserved.

The morning of the 27th of February—new style—was tense with an ominous expectancy. In the Allied chancelleries anxious groups were gathered. They realized that the fate of the Allies hung in the balance. In Petrograd alone three hundred thousand workers went out on strike that day, and the police agents did their level best to provoke violence. The large bodies of troops massed at various points throughout the city, and the police with their machine-guns, testified to the thoroughness with which the government had prepared to crush any revolutionary manifestations. Thanks to the excellent discipline of the workers, and the fine wisdom of the leaders of the Social Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionists, and the Labor Group, who constantly exhorted the workers not to fall into the trap set for them, there was no violence.

At the opening session of the Duma, Kerensky, leader of the Labor Group, made a characteristic address in which he denounced the arrest of the Labor Group members of the War Industries Committee. He directed his attack against the "system," not against individuals:

"We are living in a state of anarchy unprecedented in our history. In comparison with it the period of 1613 seems like child's play. Chaos has enveloped not only the political, but the economic life of the nation as well. It destroys the very foundations of the nation's social economic structure.

"Things have come to such a pass that recently one of the Ministries, shipping coal from Petrograd to a neighboring city, had armed the train with a special guard so that other authorities should not confiscate the coal on the way! We have arrived already at the primitive stage when each person defends with all the resources at his command the material in his possession, ready to enter into mortal combat for it with his neighbor. We are witnessing the same scenes which France went through at the time of the Revolution. Then also the products shipped to Paris were accompanied by special detachments of troops to prevent their being seized by the provincial authorities....

"Behold the Cabinet of Rittich-Protopopov-Golitizin dragging into the court the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee, charged with aiming at the creation of a Russian Social-Democratic republic! They did not even know that nobody aims at a 'Social-Democratic' republic. One aiming at a republic labors for popular government. But has the court anything to say about all these distinctions? We know beforehand what sentences are to be imposed upon the prisoners....

"I have no desire to criticize the individual members of the Cabinet. The greatest mistake of all is to seek traitors, German agents, separate Sturmers. We have a still greater enemy than the German influence, than the treachery and treason of individuals. And that enemy is the system—the system of a medieval form of government."

How far the conspiracy of the government of Russia against the war of Russia and her Allies extended is shown by the revelations made in the Duma on March 3d by one of the members, A. Konovalov. He reported that two days previously, March 1st, the only two members of the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee who were not in prison issued an appeal to the workers not to strike. These two members of the Labor Group of the War Industries Committee, Anosovsky and Ostapenko, took their exhortation to the bureau of the War Industries Committee for its approval. But, although approved by this great and important organization, the appeal was not passed by the government censor. When Guchkov, president of the War Industries Committee, attempted to get the appeal printed in the newspapers he was prevented by action emanating from the office of Protopopov.

IV

Through all the early days of March there was labor unrest in Petrograd, as well as in some other cities. Petrograd was, naturally, the storm center. There were small strikes, but, fortunately, not much rioting. The extreme radicals were agitating for the release of the imprisoned leaders of the Labor Group and urging drastic action by the workers. Much of this agitation was sincere and honest, but no little of it was due to the provocative agents. These, disguised as workmen, seized every opportunity to urge revolt. Any pretext sufficed them; they stimulated the honest agitation to revolt as a protest against the imprisonment of the Labor Group, and the desperate threat that unless food was forthcoming revolution would be resorted to for sinister purposes. And all the time the police and the troops were massed to crush the first rising.