APPENDIX I
AN APPEAL TO THE PROLETARIAT BY THE PETROGRAD WORKMEN'S AND SOLDIERS' COUNCIL
Comrades:
Proletarians and Working-people of all Countries:
We, Russian workers and soldiers, united in the Petrograd Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegate Council, send you our warmest greetings and the news of great events. The democracy of Russia has overthrown the century-old despotism of the Czars and enters your ranks as a rightful member and as a powerful force in the battle for our common liberation. Our victory is a great victory for the freedom and democracy of the world. The principal supporter of reaction in the world, the "gendarme of Europe," no longer exists. May the earth over his grave become a heavy stone! Long live liberty, long live the international solidarity of the proletariat and its battle for the final victory!
Our cause is not yet entirely won. Not all the shadows of the old régime have been scattered and not a few enemies are gathering their forces together against the Russian Revolution. Nevertheless, our conquests are great. The peoples of Russia will express their will in the Constitutional convention which is to be called within a short time upon the basis of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. And now it may already be said with certainty in advance that the democratic republic will triumph in Russia. The Russian people is in possession of complete political liberty. Now it can say an authoritative word about the internal self-government of the country and about its foreign policy. And in addressing ourselves to all the peoples who are being destroyed and ruined in this terrible war, we declare that the time has come in which the decisive struggle against the attempts at conquest by the governments of all the nations must be begun. The time has come in which the peoples must take the matter of deciding the questions of war and peace into their own hands.
Conscious of its own revolutionary strength, the democracy of Russia declares that it will fight with all means against the policy of conquest of its ruling classes, and it summons the peoples of Europe to united, decisive action for peace. We appeal to our brothers, to the German-Austrian coalition, and above all to the German proletariat. The first day of the war you were made to believe that in raising your weapons against absolutist Russia you were defending European civilization against Asiatic despotism. In this many of you found the justification of the support that was accorded to the war. Now also this justification has vanished. Democratic Russia cannot menace freedom and civilization.
We shall firmly defend our own liberty against all reactionary threats, whether they come from without or within. The Russian Revolution will not retreat before the bayonets of conquerors, and it will not allow itself to be trampled to pieces by outside military force. We call upon you to throw off the yoke of your absolutist régime, as the Russian people has shaken off the autocracy of the Czars. Refuse to serve as the tools of conquest and power in the hands of the kings, Junkers, and bankers, and we shall, with common efforts, put an end to the fearful butchery that dishonors humanity and darkens the great days of the birth of Russian liberty.