SPGB Euroelection broadcast for Wales

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Hah, you got me, I'm actually worried that all five supporters of the SPGB will vote for them, and that the One, True, Catholic and Orthodox Socialist Party will defeat the political bandits posing as Trotskyists that make up the SEP and their four supporters. Then they will go to the European Parliament and this will undoubtedly somehow lead to socialism. Honest guv'nor.

Someone please do remind me how the conflict between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks is in any way relevant to the SPGB's involvement in the European Parliament elections.

It's quite simple. The support the SPGB gave to the Mensheviks demonstrates the rotten, counterrevolutionary nature of their politics - if their creepy parliamentary fetish wasn't enough - just as e.g. the support the SWP gave to Khomeini demonstrates the counterrevolutionary nature of SWP politics or the support the USEC gave to Solidarnosc the counterrevolutionary nature of theirs.

I might be a little late on this one, but if class society is the material basis that props up the family, why address it specifically? It follows that the destruction of class society will precede the destruction of the family, so why agitate for something that can't happen until after the revolution anyway?

No, it doesn't follow. Class society is the material basis of the family, but the family is part of the process by which the capitalist mode of production is reproduced. To demand the end of the family - through the socialisation of all forms of domestic labour, the abolition of inheritance etc. - is to demand an end to the process that daily generates capitalism.

It is the same with the bourgeois state and capitalism - the former exists on the basis of the latter. But smashing the bourgeois state is not something that happens after the end of class society, but the first act in the destruction of the same.

Your pathetic idiotic "explanation" consists in asserting that the SPGB supports the Mensheviks the Mensheviks supported the Whites and the Whites had the support of the British. Therefore the "SPGB supported the British". Every one of the links in this so called argument are false apart from the last one about the Whites and the British.

We have established that the SPGB printed Menshevik articles and agrees with the Menshevik attitude to the Bolsheviks. And pardon, once again you do not print an article unless you are in political agreement with the author, or you specifically print the article as part of a polemic. Apparently the SPGB would not mind printing UKIP articles, which speaks volumes about their politics. And as for the Mensheviks, I have cited numerous instances of Menshevik participation in the White movement, when your beloved Martov was part of the CC, and the sources for my claims. The Mensheviks did not support the Whites - the Mensheviks were Whites. Until you address these events, you're just blustering and trying to cover up your rotten politics.

Still waiting for that "detailed and nuanced" analysis, by the way.

[robbo203]

We have established that the SPGB printed Menshevik articles and agrees with the Menshevik attitude to the Bolsheviks. And pardon, once again you do not print an article unless you are in political agreement with the author, or you specifically print the article as part of a polemic. Apparently the SPGB would not mind printing UKIP articles, which speaks volumes about their politics. And as for the Mensheviks, I have cited numerous instances of Menshevik participation in the White movement, when your beloved Martov was part of the CC, and the sources for my claims. The Mensheviks did not support the Whites - the Mensheviks were Whites. Until you address these events, you're just blustering and trying to cover up your rotten politics..

FFS, obviously Im not getting through to this idiot. Perhaps someone else can have a bash. If the SPGB published an article by a Menshevik -and I only know of one, namely Martov's critique of the Bolshevik capitalist state (which the anti-communist, Vincent West, supports) - that does NOT ,repeat NOT, mean the "SPGB supports the Mensheviks". It merely means the SPGB broadly endorses the contents of the article in question. There is much more to the Menshevik's position than merely the argument expressed by one member of the party on one particular topic and the plain fact is that the SPGB did NOT support the Mensheviks any more than they supported the reformist parties of the Second International

There now - do you understand this or not or do I really have to teach you once again how to suck eggs?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

FFS, obviously Im not getting through to this idiot. Perhaps someone else can have a bash. If the SPGB published an article by a Menshevik -and I only know of one, namely Martov's critique of the Bolshevik capitalist state (which the anti-communist, Vincent West, supports) - that does NOT ,repeat NOT, mean the "SPGB supports the Mensheviks". It merely means the SPGB broadly endorses the contents of the article in question.

And the contents of the article are whiteguard nonsense! The article outlines the Menshevik position on the Bolsheviks, which led to their participation in the White movement.

Still waiting for that analysis, of course.

[Dave B]

The SPGB would agree with Kautsky and the Mensheviks in the primary importance of democracy in the communist movement.

The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks split on the issue of Lenin’s centralised democracy or the leadership by the elite members of the party or in other words the ‘Bourgeois intelligentsia’/vanguard.

An issue that hadn’t changed in 1920;

The Trade Unions, The Present Situation
And Trotsky’s Mistakes

Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920

But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard…….

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/l...920/dec/30.htm


The SPGB position on Russia in 1918 was the same as Lenin’s in 1905 ie that an attempt to have a socialist revolution in Russia was impossible and any attempt would lead to disaster;

This argument is based on a misconception; it confounds the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution, the struggle for the republic (including our entire minimum programme) with the struggle for socialism. If Social-Democracy sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim, it would assuredly discredit itself. It is precisely such vague and hazy ideas of our “Socialists—Revolutionaries” that Social-Democracy has always combated.

For this reason Social-Democracy has constantly stressed the bourgeois nature of the impending revolution in Russia and insisted on a clear line of demarcation between the democratic minimum programme and the socialist maximum programme. Some Social-Democrats, who are inclined to yield to spontaneity, might forget all this in time of revolution, but not the Party as a whole. The adherents of this erroneous view make an idol of spontaneity in their belief that the march of events will compel the Social-Democratic Party in such a position to set about achieving the socialist revolution, despite itself.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...05/apr/12b.htm


You have not cited ‘cited numerous instances of Menshevik participation in the White movement’.

You have mentioned some right wing Menheviks (who against the party centre which was crippled by Bolshevik state oppression) participating in the various SR lead anti Bolshevik rebellions.

The SR’s were the most anti White organisation in Russia and had been assassinating the 'Whites' in terrorist operations from the early 1900’s.

The SR’s, quite correctly, as things turned out, saw the Bolsheviks as a greater threat to their constituency than the Whites; who had in fact little support and no chance of ultimately regaining power.



The political program of the Socialist Revolutionaries (1905)


In 1905 the Socialist Revolutionary party (SRs) drafted a political manifesto, outlining its objectives.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia views its task as an organic, component part of a universal struggle of labour against the exploitation of human dignity, against all barriers that prevent its development into social forms, and conducts it in the spirit of general interests of that struggle in ways that are determined by concrete conditions of Russian reality.

Since the process of the transformation of Russia is led by non-socialist forces, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, on the basis of the above principles will advocate, defend, and seek by its revolutionary struggle the following reforms:

In the matters of politics:

The establishment of a democratic republic with broad autonomy for oblasts and communes, both urban and rural.

Increased acceptance of federal principles in relations between various nationalities, granting them unconditional right to self-determination.

Direct, secret, equal, and universal right to vote for every citizen above twenty years of age regardless of sex, religion, or national origin.

Proportional representation; direct popular legislation (referenda and initiatives); election, removability at all times, and accountability of all officials.

Complete freedom of conscience, speech, press, meetings, strikes, and unions; complete and general civil equality inviolability of the individual and home; complete separation of the church from the state and declaration that religion is a private affair for every individual.

The introduction of a compulsory, general public education at government expense; equality of languages.

Abolition of permanent armies and their replacement by a people’s militia.

In the matters of economics:

A reduction of the working time in order to relieve surplus labour.

Establishment of a legal maximum of working time based on norms determined by health conditions (an eight-hour working norm for most branches of industry as soon as possible, and lower norms for work which is dangerous or harmful to health).

Establishment of a minimum wage in agreement between administration and labour unions.

Complete government insurance (for accident, unemployment, sickness, old age, and so on), administered by the insured at the expense of the state and employers.

Legislative protection of labour in all branches of industry and trade, in accordance with the health conditions supervised by factory inspection commissions elected by workers (normal working conditions, hygienic conditions of buildings; prohibition of work for youngsters below sixteen years of age, limitation of work for youngsters, prohibition of female and child labour in some branches of industry and during specified periods, adequate and uninterrupted Sunday rest, and so forth).

Professional organisation of workers and their increased participation in determining internal rules in industrial enterprises.

In matters of agricultural policy:

Socialisation of all privately owned lands; that is, their transfer from private property of individual owners to public domain and administration by democratically organised communes and territorial associations of communes on the basis of equalised utilisation.

http://alphahistory.com/russianrevol...ionaries-1905/

[Hrafn]

I have a distinct feeling this type of behaviour is what's holding back the left.

[Dave B]

The SR's were a broad church organisation and the manifesto probably better reflects the position of the 'majority rightwing'.

[robbo203]

No, I do not imagine that they did, having actually read the work (which, as you note, is dated - in fact I would say the entire concept of primitive communism is on uncertain ground). And even if they did, that would prove nothing. The primitive classless society was not some primitive theophany of future communism, but a society that was too primitive - in terms of the development of the means of production - for classes. History is not T-invariant, and the only commonalities between communism and the primitive classless society will be the absence of classes. One might as well say that cities appeared with property (which they did), so cities will not exist in communism (which is blatantly incorrect).

The point is that Engels analyses the family, not as some abstract form, but in its economic role. Families ensure inheritance and create a supply of unpaid domestic and reproductive labour preformed by individual women. In socialism, there is no inheritance, and all labour is preformed socially. There is no material basis for the family, then.

Another example oif Vincent West's illogic.

You seem to agree that Engels spoke of different forms of the family prior to the emergence of private property and "civilisation" viz 1) the consanguine family 2) the punaluan family and 3) the pairing family. But you then go on to argue that point is that "Engels analyses the family, not as some abstract form, but in its economic role. Families ensure inheritance "etc But when Engels talks about the family's economic role in ensuring inheritance etc he is talking about a specific kind of family formation - namely the monogamous patriarchal familiy which he quite clearly states emerged out of the pairing family.

It is this particular form of the family which Engels is analysing not the family as such . This is what you dont seem to understand. If the material basis for the monogamous patriarchical family will no longer exist in socialism - because there is no inhereitance etc in socialism - that does NOT mean the family as such will cease to exist as an institution. You have nowhere provided any evidence that Engels made such claim . Nor can you for the simple reason that he did not make such a claim. He was talking about the monogamous patriarchical family not the family as such

I repeat - the family in some form existed long before the emergence of private property. Whatever Engels might have said on the matter is neither here nor there; it is a fact universally accepted among modern anthropologists.

You and Queervanguard have sought to link the family to the emergence of private property and to argue that with the disappearance of private property the family will dispappear becuase there is"no material basis for the family" (your words). Which begs the question - what was the "material basis" of the family prior to the emergence of private property?

Your whole argument can thus be seen as completely reductionist and simplistic crap . There is no reason not to expect the familiy as an institution to contrnue in socialism albeit in a changed form. And why not? Families unlike cities did not appear with property so there is absolutely no grounds for supposing they will disappear with property

[The Idler]

The Bolsheviks offered peace, land and bread.
You state Skobelev offered a hundred percent taxation and compulsory labour.
The SPGB offer common ownership, democratic control and production for use, if the SPGB weren't serious this wouldn't be the platform for contesting elections.
Which is revolutionary, and if actions speak louder than words, which one was delivered by the Bolsheviks who captured power? If you want a moderate party with moderate demands, you can vote for one.


What was the Bolshevik advice to British Communists in relation to the Labour Party? Does that mean Bolsheviks = Labour Party? I don't think so. In relation to the SPGB article from 1910, you asked about the attitude of original SPGB members so it is not unreasonable to post the article from 1910.


In relation to addressing LGBT issues in the election address, where was this in Lenin's April Theses, the closest thing to a short platform for power?


The formulation 'if you're not with us, you are against us' has been used for a long time. George W. Bush was chosen because he was a recent prominent example, while Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and Mussolini are material of history as Hrafn observes. The logic is not “detailed or nuanced analysis” as you claim to want, yet you persist in using this sort of logic.


Ironically, in accusing the SPGB of holding a dogmatic exclusive sectarian “one true catholic orthodox socialism”, you might find this dogmatic exclusive sectarianism more applicable to your notions about the Bolsheviks and their opponents. The SPGB and their sympathisers here have stated ideas can be arrived at seperately, and different opposing groups can have some members who agree on some ideas.

[The Idler]

I have a distinct feeling this type of behaviour is what's holding back the left.

The willingness to disagree on ideas and try different tactics?

Or the idea that only one party can have the sole exclusive fully-correct ideas and analysis and everyone else is 'counterrevolutionary Mensheviks on the wrong-side of the class line' who need shooting as much as possible?

[Hrafn]

The fact that every single debate on modern issues inevitably turns into a fuckfest about people's rigid, ever unchanging position on events in early 20th century Russia.

[PhoenixAsh]

The fact that not mentioning LGBTQ rights explicitly directly makes you homophobic ....

[Dave B]

From the History of Homosexuality in Europe and America edited by Wayne R. Dynes, page 358;

The Soviet regime in the 1920’s saw it as an illness to be cured. This view is clearly stated in the book Sexual Life of Comtemporary Youth published in Moscow in 1923 under the aegis of the Peoples Commisariat of Public Health and authored by Israel Gelman.

“Science has now established with precision that excludes all doubt..[that homosexuality]..is not ill will or a crime but a sickness. The world of a female or male homosexual is perverted , it is alien to the normal sexual attraction that exists in a normal person……….

By Science that presumably refers to Freudism which was standard at the time.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Bolsheviks were generally pretty homophobic, although much less homophobic than other Russian political groups, with the exception of the urban anarchists (the Black Flag group etc.). The exceptions to this trend were Chicherin, himself openly gay, and Bonch-Bruevich, the expert on the Old Believers, and incidentally the chairman of the first security organ of the Soviet republic. Dzerzhinsky, as I recall, protested the actions of a CheKa officer who interrupted a lesbian wedding (unofficial, of course), but then again Dzerzhinsky, popular misconceptions aside, was extremely wary about using the repressive powers of the ChK.

This represents a serious failure of the Russian Marxists to carry out a materialist analysis of the phenomenon of homosexuality, along with abortion etc., and it would have resulted in problems had the revolution in Germany not been defeated - by the very SPD the Mensheviks found themselves in bed with - but presumably if the revolution had triumphed in Germany the centre of gravity of the movement would have switched from Moscow to Berlin.

That said, the revolutionary upsurge brought on by the October Revolution resulted in positive changes for homosexuals in Russia. The old Tsarist laws against homosexuality were abolished - something the Kadets and the Mensheviks refused to do. Homosexual culture flourished in the cities - Bonch-Bruevich was able to collect a massive library of literary works in Russian dealing with male-male love. The text you cite - written in 1923 - postdates the defeat of the revolution in Germany and the deep bureaucratic reaction resulting from the same.

This does not mean, of course, that Bolshevik homophobia is not to be criticised. No one said the Bolsheviks were perfect - in fact if you look through the earlier pages of this discussion, you will notice that I explicitly stated that Lenin's slogan of a "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry" was nonsense. But, pardon, the Bolsheviks no longer exist as a group. We are not talking about Russia in the second decade of the previous century - when the Bolsheviks were the most progressive group on the question of gay rights in any case - but about Great Britain in the second decade of the current century. I mentioned the attitude of the SPGB in the past, not in order to criticise the SPGB of the present for that attitude, but to criticise them for not moving forward one bit, for remaining stuck in the mud of homosexual erasure and abstract posturing.

I have a distinct feeling this type of behaviour is what's holding back the left.

I do hope so, because there are few things I despise more than "left unity" (the sentiment, not the party, although the party is pretty shit too). There can be no unity between revolutionaries and opportunists, and if having principles and carrying on the political struggle by criticising other groups disrupts this false "unity", well, so much the better for those who have principles.

The fact that every single debate on modern issues inevitably turns into a fuckfest about people's rigid, ever unchanging position on events in early 20th century Russia.

Is that really surprising, though? The early 20th century coincided with a massive revolutionary wave, and most of us think that the proletariat was able to seize state power in Russia, Hungary and briefly in Bavaria. We are still feeling the repercussions of these events. So, sorry, why should we treat the October Revolution as some minor footnote in history? So we can "focus on the now" and unite with opportunists? But we'd rather not.

The SPGB and the Menshevik attitude to the October Revolution represent a great betrayal of the international proletariat, the Menshevik more so since they had the means to do something about it. And when we are discussing a political group, its betrayals are significant, particularly if it is clear the group in question holds onto the positions that constituted the betrayal. So it is with the SPGB and the October Revolution, so it is with the SWP and Khomeini, with USEC and Solidarnosc, and so on.

The Bolsheviks offered peace, land and bread.
You state Skobelev offered a hundred percent taxation and compulsory labour.
The SPGB offer common ownership, democratic control and production for use, if the SPGB weren't serious this wouldn't be the platform for contesting elections.
Which is revolutionary, and if actions speak louder than words, which one was delivered by the Bolsheviks who captured power? If you want a moderate party with moderate demands, you can vote for one.

Skobelev talked about a tax rate of 100% and compulsory labour, but had no intention (or means) of carrying this alleged programme of his out. And, as I already said, when one doesn't intend to apply one's pronouncements in practice, one is free to be as r-r-revolutionary as they like. If I raise the slogan of, not just immediate peace with no annexation or indemnities, but also the immediate abolition of war, which is impossible to fulfill, does this mean I am more revolutionary than the groups who propose immediate peace? No, it means I'm an idiot that has let his mouth run off.

"Peace, land and bread" was not the only Bolshevik slogan - it was a slogan widely used among the peasantry. But the main Bolshevik slogan of the period was the seizure of political power - a dictatorship of the proletariat. This slogan is more revolutionary than the democratic platitudes the SPGB offers because it expresses the real historical task of the proletariat.

What was the Bolshevik advice to British Communists in relation to the Labour Party? Does that mean Bolsheviks = Labour Party? I don't think so.

Well, what was the Bolshevik advice? Because it has been distorted both by anti-communists and opportunistic "left of Labour" types. The advice was to expose the Labour Party. It was sound advice.

Now, what about groups who advocate voting for the Labour Party on principle, without understanding the tactic of exposing reformists? Do they - groups like the old Militant - support the Labour Party? Of course they do.

In relation to the SPGB article from 1910, you asked about the attitude of original SPGB members so it is not unreasonable to post the article from 1910.

And not only does the article not address homophobia, it repeats verbatim the usual bigoted assertions about the "natural purpose" of sex. So, once again this proves my point.

The formulation 'if you're not with us, you are against us' has been used for a long time. George W. Bush was chosen because he was a recent prominent example, while Mensheviks, Bolsheviks and Mussolini are material of history as Hrafn observes. The logic is not “detailed or nuanced analysis” as you claim to want, yet you persist in using this sort of logic.

Obama is a more recent example, yet you chose to focus on Bush.

In any case, the point is that robbo made a statement - that "a more detailed and nuanced analysis" of the question of homosexuality can be found in the SPGB material. So, where is it? He is avoiding the question because he knows damn well that the SPGB has kept mum about the subject.

"Chi non è con noi..." is the rule in revolutionary periods because revolutions represent the most aggravated form of class struggle, where an incipient proletarian power is opposed to all the elements of the old society and their hangers-on. It isn't particularly conductive to people who would play a loyal democratic opposition, but such is life.

But when Engels talks about the family's economic role in ensuring inheritance etc he is talking about a specific kind of family formation - namely the monogamous patriarchal familiy which he quite clearly states emerged out of the pairing family.

That is simply not the case - inheritance is explicitly mentioned in the analysis of what Engels, following Morgan, calls the punaluan family, although not as a right of inheritance (which presupposes the emergence of the state):

"In the very great majority of cases the institution of the gens seems to have originated directly out of the punaluan family. It is true that the Australian classificatory system also provides an origin for it: the Australians have gentes, but not yet the punaluan family; instead, they have a cruder form of group marriage. In all forms of group family it is uncertain who is the father of a child; but it is certain who its mother is. Though she calls all the children of the whole family her children and has a mother’s duties towards them, she nevertheless knows her own children from the others. It is therefore clear that in so far as group marriage prevails, descent can only be proved on the mother’s side and that therefore only the female line is recognized. And this is in fact the case among all peoples in the period of savagery or in the lower stage of barbarism. It is the second great merit of Bachofen that he was the first to make this discovery. To denote this exclusive recognition of descent through the mother and the relations of inheritance which in time resulted from it, he uses the term “mother-right,” which for the sake of brevity I retain. The term is, however, ill-chosen, since at this stage of society there cannot yet be any talk of “right” in the legal sense."

You and Queervanguard have sought to link the family to the emergence of private property and to argue that with the disappearance of private property the family will dispappear becuase there is"no material basis for the family" (your words). Which begs the question - what was the "material basis" of the family prior to the emergence of private property?

Generalised scarcity due to insufficiently developed means of production, resulting in the institution of inheritance, and the relations that prevailed when it came to domestic labour (i.e. domestic labour being preformed by one sex in several family-units).

And what would be the material basis of the family in socialism, pray tell? Are you going to tell us fairy-tales about how the family is "natural"?

The SPGB would agree with Kautsky and the Mensheviks in the primary importance of democracy in the communist movement.

Quite so - and therefore, like Kautsky and the Mensheviks he so adored, the SPGB places the democratic form above the class content of state power.

The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks split on the issue of Lenin’s centralised democracy or the leadership by the elite members of the party or in other words the ‘Bourgeois intelligentsia’/vanguard.

Please do yourself a favour and read "What is to be Done?" before embarrassing yourself further. "Elite" is a stupid reformist soundbite that should be expunged from serious discussions. The intelligentsia is not a bourgeois stratum. And, most importantly, the vanguard is the vanguard of the proletariat, the most advanced element of that class.

The SPGB position on Russia in 1918 was the same as Lenin’s in 1905 ie that an attempt to have a socialist revolution in Russia was impossible and any attempt would lead to disaster;

Which is blatantly incompatible with the original assertion of the group that left the BSP to form the SPGB that socialism was possible; unless of course you mean to say they were talking about some form of socialism in one country decades before Stalin and Bukharin.

You have not cited ‘cited numerous instances of Menshevik participation in the White movement’.

You have mentioned some right wing Menheviks (who against the party centre which was crippled by Bolshevik state oppression) participating in the various SR lead anti Bolshevik rebellions.

So, how is it that the Menshevik Central Committee was "crippled" enough to do nothing about "right" Mensheviks (who were the "left" Mensheviks? the only ones that fit the description - people like Sukhanov etc. - had left the Mensheviks long ago) participating in White rebellions (the Esers being one of the most numerous groups in the White movement), but not "crippled" to prevent them from a long political struggle in the trade unions. How convenient.

The SR’s were the most anti White organisation in Russia and had been assassinating the 'Whites' in terrorist operations from the early 1900’s.

Undoubtedly they used magic bullets that could shoot nearly two decades into the future, since the White movement dates back to 1918, to the Union for the Salvation of Russia, founded in part by Mensheviks and mostly staffed by Esers and Kadets.

The political program of the Socialist Revolutionaries (1905)

Yes, that was their political programme in 1905. The Esers who led the KomUch government might have had the same programme, but they never intended to carry it out, as indeed the history of the KomUch shows.

By the way, Dave, what would you say about a party that proclaimed its adherence to republicanism, democracy, freedom of religion, and a "socialisation" of the means of production by giving them over to the workers, explicitly in opposition to Bolshevik nationalisation?

[robbo203]

And the contents of the article are whiteguard nonsense! The article outlines the Menshevik position on the Bolsheviks, which led to their participation in the White movement.

You know what? Im gonna call you bluff here. I dont believe you have read any such article published by the SPGB and written by Martov. You are known for being a fantasist and inventing stories. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Prove me wrong

1) Let us have the date of publication of the article in question in the Socialist Standard (the SPGB's journal) and a link to the article in question

2) copy and paste the relevant part of the article which you consider to be "whiteguard nonsense" so we can judge for ourselves

I cant wait to see you wriggle out of this one. You remind of the "reds under the bed" paranoia in the McCarthy era. Anypne hostile to the broad strategic aims, and philosophy, of the good 'ol United States of America was obviously a "communist" In your case, anyone who opposes your beloved capitalist Bolshevik state is a "whiteguard".

In the meanwhile. as you ponder how to wriggle your way out of this one, your might care to peruse a 1967 article in the Socialist Standard "Martov: a Russian Social-Democrat"

Please note the following passages in that article since you are fond of blindly assuming the SPGB supported Martov (and therefore the Mensheviks and therefore the Whites and therefore the British blah blah blah ho ho ho)

When measuring up Martov’s contribution to the working class movement it is convenient to compare him with Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The Menshevik-Bolshevik split of 1903 was largely centred on different conceptions of how a social-democratic party should be organised. Lenin, with his Jacobin turn of mind, wanted (as Rosa Luxemburg put it) “the blind subordination of all party organisations and their activity, down to the least detail, to a central authority which alone thinks, acts and decides for all”. Martov, on the other hand, favoured an organisation roughly modelled on the German SPD. This then was not a controversy between Socialists – since both sides accepted the need for leaders and both were opportunists, prepared to ally themselves with, and support, anti-socialists if it seemed politically expedient.

......

This then is Martov’s value to Socialist theory. Even however when bitterly criticising the Bolsheviks, he still had no real alternative to offer – not, at any rate, in uncompromising, revolutionary terms such as those of the Socialist Party. But like other social democrats – Plekhanov, Kautsky, Luxemburg – despite all his errors, he made a contribution to the general body of Marxist theory. Lenin is a pale shadow at the side of him. http://<b>http://www.worldsocialism....l-democrat</b>

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"The State and the Socialist Revolution, by J. Martov" (SS425, January 1940)

On reviewing the article, I am not sure if the SPGB printed the pamphlet in question, but they recommended and distributed it. Again, the same criticism applies - recommending and distributing Martov's whiteguard pamphlet means supporting him politically, and supporting the White project of overthrowing the Bolshevik authorities.

Some excerpts:

"But bloodshed gives rise to more bloodshed. The political terror the Bolsheviks introduced in October has saturated the air above the fields of Russia with bloody fumes. The civil war is becoming ever more cruel, people are becoming ever more savage and bestial, and the great precepts of genuine humanity, which socialism always taught, are being increasingly forgotten. In those places where Bolshevik power has been overthrown by the masses or by armed force, the same terror is beginning to be used against the Bolsheviks as they had been employing against their enemies. The followers of Dutov, Semenov and Alekseev, the Ukrainian haydamaki, the troops of Skoropadsky and Krasnov, and Drozdovsky’s detachments are all hanging and shooting. Peasants and landlords, having toppled their local Bolshevik soviets, treat their members with the greatest cruelty.

People are becoming more bestial on both sides – and the full weight of responsibility for this rests on that party, which in the name of socialism blasphemously sanctified the cold-blooded execution of unarmed prisoners, which hypocritically protests against whiteguard executions in Finland while Russian soil is being drenched in the blood of the victims of firing squads.
The increasing cruelty of the civil war can already be seen in covert killings. The Bolshevik commissar Volodarsky was murdered – the unfortunate victim of the mutual hatred sown by government terror. And two days later a Red Army soldier killed an old worker – the social-democrat [Menshevik] Vasil’ev who had given many years’ honest service to the workers’ cause. It is possible Vasil’ev was murdered by a man angered by the killing of Volodarsky, who wished to avenge it upon the first opponent he encountered.

The Social-Democratic Workers’ Party has always opposed political killings, whether carried out by state executioners or voluntary avengers. It spoke out against them even when revolutionaries killed Tsarist secret policemen. It taught the working class that it would not improve its lot by murdering people, even the worst enemies of the people, but by changing fundamentally the entire political structure, all the conditions which give rise to oppression and violence. And now the party warns workers and peasants driven to despair by the violence of the Bolshevik authorities: do not seek revenge against individual commissars and individual Bolsheviks, do not go down the road of killings, do not take the lives of your enemies, but content yourselves instead with removing power from them – the power you gave them in the first place!"


"The working class must cry “stop!” to this river of blood.
The working class must declare loudly and as one to the whole world that this terror, this barbarism of execution after trial, and this cannibalism of execution without trial has nothing to do with the Russian proletariat.

To your rulers, who lost your trust long ago and rely now on naked force, you must say that they are perjurors, who have violated their own solemn promises, that the working class rejects as outcasts all those involved in the business of death sentences, all executioners, executioners’ assistants and those that inspire them.

To those workers who still belong to the Bolshevik Communist Party – a party of judicial and extra-judicial murder – you must say that they have no place in the workers’ ranks, as they all bear responsibility for the blood shed by the executioners. Say that to them and show it in practice by cutting off all comradely relations with them and treating them as plague-ridden outcasts, just as you always did to the pogromists from the Union of the Russian People."

[Rugged Collectivist]

No, it doesn't follow. Class society is the material basis of the family, but the family is part of the process by which the capitalist mode of production is reproduced. To demand the end of the family - through the socialisation of all forms of domestic labour, the abolition of inheritance etc. - is to demand an end to the process that daily generates capitalism.

It is the same with the bourgeois state and capitalism - the former exists on the basis of the latter. But smashing the bourgeois state is not something that happens after the end of class society, but the first act in the destruction of the same.

I agree with this but I still think it's absurd to condemn the ad for not explicitly calling for an end to the family.

[robbo203]

"The State and the Socialist Revolution, by J. Martov" (SS425, January 1940)

On reviewing the article, I am not sure if the SPGB printed the pamphlet in question, but they recommended and distributed it. Again, the same criticism applies - recommending and distributing Martov's whiteguard pamphlet means supporting him politically, and supporting the White project of overthrowing the Bolshevik authorities.

Do you even read what you copy and paste? The excerpts you quote were in no way supporting the Whites against the Bolsheviks. Instead, they amounted to a scathing attack on the civil war itself and the brutality it engendered. As Martov put it "People are becoming more bestial on both sides" Not only is the terror employed by the Bolshevik authorities roundly condemned but also that of its enemies - the Whites: In those places where Bolshevik power has been overthrown by the masses or by armed force, the same terror is beginning to be used against the Bolsheviks as they had been employing against their enemies. The followers of Dutov, Semenov and Alekseev, the Ukrainian haydamaki, the troops of Skoropadsky and Krasnov, and Drozdovsky’s detachments are all hanging and shooting. Peasants and landlords, having toppled their local Bolshevik soviets, treat their members with the greatest cruelty

So you are completely wrong about Martov. Martov was not a supporter of the Whites. Here's what one site says

Martov supported the Red Army against the White Army during the Russian Civil War, however, he continued to denounce the persecution of liberal newspapers, the nobility, the Cadets and the Socialist Revolutionaries...

In 1920 Martov was forced into exile. He continued to criticize Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet government but refused to join other anti-communists exiles in calling for allied intervention in Russia (http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSmartov.htm - my bold)

Recall that your original ridiculous claim was that the SPGB supported the British during the civil war . You tried to justify this by asserting that the Mensheviks supported the Whites and as Martov was a Menshevik therefore the SPGB supported the Whites as well. Since the Whites were aided by British intervention this meant according to you that the SPGB must have supported that British intervention.

This crackpot and ludicrous argument has now completely fallen apart at the seams. If you were honest you would acknowlege this forthwith and desist from digging yourself into an ever deeper holethat you must by now be wishing you had never begun digging. Anyone who knows anything about the SPGB at all will know that it has consistently refused to take part or take sides in any military conflict anywhere throughout the entire history of the organisation's existence (it was founded in 1904). Its members were imprisoned for their anti-war beliefs during both World Wars or fled abroad. Why you imagine that it would suddenly want to take sides in Civil war, I have absolutely no idea


These are the stark facts of the matter and you have not produced a single shred of direct evidence to suggest otherwise. You have relied completely on a patently ridiculous process of inference - guilt by association - and in this repect too you have fallen completely flat on your face and have not even been able to get beyond the first hurdle. The SPGB, as I demonstrated, had mixed feelings regarding Martov but they did endorse his searing exposure of the Bolshevik dictatorship and its thoroughly anti working class character. And why not? For Martov spoke the truth about this brutal state capitalist regime and no communist who was a communist would disagree with what he said in that respect.

[Hit The North]

It is abolition of private property, not the family, that will end the hereditary principle. Capitalism has already effectively abolished it for millions of workers by leaving them nothing to hand down to their children.

It is abolition of the relations of production based on private property that is the real precondition for socialism. As others have pointed out, it is the mode of production that shapes the family. There is no reason to suppose that a family form will not grow out of socialism corresponding to its relations of production.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yuliy Osipovich Martov

Down with the Death Penalty!

(June/July 1918)

Source: http://www.uea.ac.uk/his/webcours/russia/documents/.


With these words, comrade workers, you took to the streets on many occasions in the accursed days of Tsarism. These words were written on your glorious red flags. These words resounded during the great days of February 1917, when the yoke of age-old oppression was broken and the government of the revolution first pronounced: the death penalty is abolished.

In July 1917, when an attempt was made to restore the death penalty for the worst offenders against the people – for deserters from the battlefield, marauders and spies for foreign states – you protested against the restoration of the death penalty. You did so not out of sympathy for deserters or marauders, but because you realised the full extent of the danger to the people posed by the resurrection of the death penalty, even if only for the worst and proven criminals.

And when you protested in 1917 against the restitution of the death penalty, at your head stood those very people who are now ruling Russia. The Bolshevik party at that time called upon you not to allow the restoration of the death penalty even for spies, even for traitors, deserters and marauders. At that time that party told you that the death penalty, under all circumstances, for whatever crime, was savage barbarism which brought shame upon humanity. That Bolshevik party told you that socialists reject the death penalty, they reject the cold-blooded killing of unarmed criminals no longer capable of harm, they reject turning civilians into executioners, carrying out on court orders the foul business of depriving human beings, albeit criminal ones, of that greatest gift – life.

That Bolshevik party told you then: so the Christian church, professing a religion of love for thy neighbour, hypocritically justifies the murder of a person by the state authorities and the state courts when it suits it. Socialism will never stoop to such hypocrisy, and will never use its religion, the religion of fraternity of working people, to sanctify the cannibalistic principle of the death penalty.

Thus spake the present rulers of Russia. And, on taking power in October, at the Second Congress of Soviets they decreed:

The death penalty is abolished – even at the front!

These were their words, comrade workers, which you applauded, with which they bought your affection and your trust. You saw in them bold revolutionary fighters, ready to die for their ideas, and ready to kill their enemies in open battle for these ideas. But they could not be executioners, killing neutralised, already defeated, disarmed and defenceless criminals after a mock trial.

Such were their words, comrade workers. Now you can see their deeds.

* * *

As soon as they had taken power, on the very first day after they had announced the abolition of the death penalty, they started to kill.

They killed prisoners taken after battle in a civil war, just as all savages do.

They killed their enemies who had surrendered after battle on the promise that their lives would be spared. This is what happened during the October days, when the Bolshevik Smidovich gave a written promise to spare the lives of those Junkers who surrendered, and then allowed the prisoners to be beaten to death one by one. [1] Thus it was in Mogilev, where General Dukhonin surrendered to Krylenko, who in turn offered Dukhonin no protection as he was torn limb from limb before his very eyes. [2] The murderers remained unpunished. Thus it was in Kiev, in Rostov, and in many other towns as they were taken by Bolshevik troops. Thus it was in Sevastopol, in Simferopol, in Yalta, in Evpatoriya, in Feodisiya, where gangs of thugs massacred supposed counterrevolutionaries on the basis of lists, without any investigation or trial, not sparing even women or underage children.

After all these lynchings and reprisals, organised either at the instigation or with the connivance of the Bolsheviks, killings began to take place on the direct orders of the organs of Bolshevik power. The death pealty had been declared abolished, but in every town, in every province various “Extraordinary Commissions” [Chekas] and “Military-Revolutionary Committees” were ordering the shooting of hundreds upon hundreds of people. Some were killed as counterrevolutionaries, others as speculators, and yet others as robbers. No court established whether those sentenced were really guilty, nobody can tell whether the person executed was really guilty of conspiracy, speculation or robbery, or whether somebody ordered him killed in order to settle personal scores and satisfy a desire for revenge. How many innocent people have been killed like that all over Russia! With the silent approval of the Council of People’s Commissars, nameless individuals are sitting in Chekas passing death sentences. Among these individuals we sometimes discover criminals, bribe-takers, people themselves on the run from the law, and former tsarist provocateurs. Often, as in the case of the six Petrograd students executed by firing squad – we cannot even discover who precisely pronounced the death sentence.

Human life has become cheap. It is cheaper than the paper on which the executioner writes the order to destroy it. It is cheaper than the increased bread rations, for which a hired murderer is ready to send a person to the next world on the orders of the first villain who seizes power.

This bloody debauchery is being carried out in the name of socialism, in the name of that teaching which proclaimed the brotherhood of working people the highest goal of humanity.

This debauchery is being carried out in your name, Russian worker!

* * *

Having massacred tens of thousands of people without trial, the Bolsheviks have now resorted to passing death sentences in court.

They created a new Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal to try enemies of Soviet power.

At its very first session this new tribunal passed its first death sentence, which was carried out 10 hours later.

When they established this tribunal, the Bolsheviks did not declare that it would have the right to pronounce death sentences in spite of the decision of the Congress of Soviets to abolish the death penalty.

They hid their vile plan from the people. This plan was to create a court-martial, which, like Stolypin’s, was supposed to send those who displeased the Bolshevik party into the next world.

Like thieves in the night, they smuggled in the death penalty, abolished by the Second Congress of Soviets.

Sensing that shootings on Cheka orders and mob law were earning them the hatred of the entire people, they decided to precede executions by a pretence at a trial, supposedly to consider the guilt of the accused prior to execution.

But it is all a pretence, comrades! These courts do not exist.

Look at how they judged Captain Shchastny.[3]

He was accused of conspiring against Soviet power.

Captain Shchastny denied his guilt.

He asked to call witnesses, including those Bolshevik commissars who were supposed to be keeping an eye on him. Who could know better than they whether he was really intriguing against Soviet power?

The tribunal denied him the right to call witnesses. It denied him the very right that any court, apart from Stolypin’s courts-martial, grants to even the most serious criminal.

And this was a question of a man’s life or death.

It was a question of the life or death of a man who had earned the trust and love of those who served under him – the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, who protested against his arrest.

This man had rendered the people a great service by accomplishing a difficult feat: he withdrew all the ships of the Baltic Fleet from Helsinki, thereby saving them from the Finnish whiteguards.

But it was not the Finnish whiteguards, nor the German imperialists, who shot this man in anger: he was executed by Russian socialists, or by people who like to call themselves such: Messrs. Medvedev, Bruno, Karelin, Veselovsky, and Peterson – the judges of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal.

Shchastny was denied the right granted to any thief or murderer – the right to call witnesses to court. Not one of his witnesses was allowed to appear. But the court heard a witness for the prosecution.

And that witness was Trotsky.

It was that same Trotsky who, as Commissar for Army and Naval Affairs, had arrested Shchastny.

It was that same Trotsky who, as a member of the Council of People’s Commissars, had ordered that Shchastny be tried by this Supreme Tribunal, created for pronouncing death sentences.

And in court Trotsky behaved not as a witness, but as a prosecutor. As a prosecutor he declared: this man is guilty, condemn him! – having first gagged the man by forbidding him to call witnesses able to refute these accusations.

One does not need to be very brave to fight one’s enemies like that – already bound and gagged.

Nor does one need to be very honest or honourable.

No, that is not a court, it is a mockery of a court.

It is not a court, when sentence is passed by judge-bureaucrats who are dependent upon the authorities.

In the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal there are no jurors from the general public, there are only state officials, drawing their salaries from the state treasury, which is in the hands of Trotsky and other People’s Commissars.

It is not a court, when the accused is not allowed to call witnesses in his defence.

It is not a court, when a representative of the highest authorities appears, masquerading as a witness, and orders the judges as a member of the government: crucify him!

And this non-court pronounced the death sentence, which was speedily carried out before people, revolted and shocked by this order to murder, could do anything to save the victim.

Under Nikolay Romanov it was sometimes possible, by pointing to the monstrous harshness of the sentence, to prevent it being carried out and rescue the victim from the executioner’s clutches.

Under Vladimir Ulyanov even that is impossible. The men and women at the head of the Bolshevik party were sleeping soundly, while somewhere, in the quiet of the night, the first person condemned by their court was being killed.

Nobody knew who was doing the killing or how. As under the Tsars, the names of the executioners are hidden from the people. Nobody knows whether Trotsky, having personally conducted this entire juridical comedy from beginning to end, turned up in person to observe and direct the execution.

Or maybe he too slept soundly, dreaming that the world proletariat was lauding him as the liberator of humanity, as the leader of the world socialist revolution?

Because it was in the name of socialism, in your name, proletarians, that these blind lunatics and vainglorious idiots carried out this blood-drenched comedy of cold-blooded murder!

* * *

The beast has tasted warm human blood. The murder machine has been started up. Messrs Medvedev, Bruno, Peterson, Veselovsky and Karelin have rolled up their sleeves and set to work as butchers.

We have already seen the first example, and now the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal will be dispatching to the next world anyone that the Bolshevik party wishes to deprive of their life. It will turn as many people into corpses as conscientious bureaucrats working an eight-hour day can manage.

It has begun with an officer, who can be presented to the ignorant masses as an enemy of the people, as a counterrevolutionary. Soon it will be the turn of everyone who tries to open the masses’ eyes to the criminal and ruinous nature of the order the Bolsheviks have created.

There are already hundreds of workers and peasants, hundreds of socially-useful workers, numerous social-democrats and socialist-revolutionaries languishing in Bolshevik prisons and torture-chambers. For a word of criticism, for a word of protest, for openly expressing their convictions, for defending the interests of workers and peasants these people are locked up under guard. Sometimes, in a display of savage mob law, they have been killed without any cause. Now every one of them can pass through the courtroom of the Supreme Tribunal on their way to the next world.

For reprisals against all opponents of the Bolshevik party, to eliminate socialists and recalcitrant workers and peasants, the Stolypin courts-martial and the death penalty have been reintroduced.

But bloodshed gives rise to more bloodshed. The political terror the Bolsheviks introduced in October has saturated the air above the fields of Russia with bloody fumes. The civil war is becoming ever more cruel, people are becoming ever more savage and bestial, and the great precepts of genuine humanity, which socialism always taught, are being increasingly forgotten. In those places where Bolshevik power has been overthrown by the masses or by armed force, the same terror is beginning to be used against the Bolsheviks as they had been employing against their enemies. The followers of Dutov, Semenov and Alekseev, the Ukrainian haydamaki, the troops of Skoropadsky and Krasnov, and Drozdovsky’s detachments are all hanging and shooting. Peasants and landlords, having toppled their local Bolshevik soviets, treat their members with the greatest cruelty.

People are becoming more bestial on both sides – and the full weight of responsibility for this rests on that party, which in the name of socialism blasphemously sanctified the cold-blooded execution of unarmed prisoners, which hypocritically protests against whiteguard executions in Finland while Russian soil is being drenched in the blood of the victims of firing squads.

The increasing cruelty of the civil war can already be seen in covert killings. The Bolshevik commissar Volodarsky was murdered – the unfortunate victim of the mutual hatred sown by government terror. [4] And two days later a Red Army soldier killed an old worker – the social-democrat [Menshevik] Vasil’ev [5] who had given many years’ honest service to the workers’ cause. It is possible Vasil’ev was murdered by a man angered by the killing of Volodarsky, who wished to avenge it upon the first opponent he encountered.

The Social-Democratic Workers’ Party has always opposed political killings, whether carried out by state executioners or voluntary avengers. It spoke out against them even when revolutionaries killed Tsarist secret policemen. It taught the working class that it would not improve its lot by murdering people, even the worst enemies of the people, but by changing fundamentally the entire political structure, all the conditions which give rise to oppression and violence. And now the party warns workers and peasants driven to despair by the violence of the Bolshevik authorities: do not seek revenge against individual commissars and individual Bolsheviks, do not go down the road of killings, do not take the lives of your enemies, but content yourselves instead with removing power from them – the power you gave them in the first place!

We social-democrats are opposed to all terror, both from above and from below.

For this reason we are also against the death penalty – this extreme weapon of terror, to which all rulers resort to frighten people when they have lost their trust.

The struggle against the death penalty was inscribed on the banners of all those who struggled for the freedom and happiness of the Russian people, all those who struggled for socialism.

The history of the Russian people, so filled with suffering, sanctified the gallows and the scaffold, surrounding them with an aura of martyrdom. The best people in Russia climbed the steps of the scaffold or faced the rifles of the firing squads. Lev Tolstoy, Korolenko, Maksim Gorky and countless artists denounced the soulless business of killing a bound and unarmed man in the name of the law.

And now we have a party which calls itself revolutionary, workers’ and socialist, which has encroached upon the Russian people’s sacred loathing for the death penalty! It has the impudence to restore the executioner to his place among the highest officers of state power! It has inherited from Tsarism the bloody religion of judicial murder – in the name of state interests!

Shame on revolutionaries, whose executions justify those carried out by Nikolay and his ministers, and which were cursed by generations of the Russian people!

Shame on people, whose quick-firing courts erase the mark of shame from Stolypin’s vile, hateful courts-martial!

Shame on a party which uses the title “socialist” to sanctify the foul trade of the executioner!

The International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen in 1910 resolved to fight against the barbarous death penalty in all countries.

International socialism recognised that socialists should never, under any circumstances, reconcile themselves to that cold-blooded murder of unarmed people on state orders, known as the death penalty.

This resolution, comrades, was signed by all the current leaders of the Bolshevik party: Lenin, Zinoviev, Trotsky, Kamenev, Radek, Lunacharsky. I saw them there, in Copenhagen, raising their hands in favour of a resolution declaring war on the death penalty.

Later, in July last year, I saw them in Petrograd protesting against the application of the death penalty, even in wartime, even against traitors.

I see them now using the death penalty right and left, against bourgeois and workers, against peasants and officers. I see them demanding that their underlings do not stop to count the victims, but that they should use the death poenalty as widely as possible against the opponents of Bolshevik power.

I see how, like thieves in the night, they have crept in to set up a special court for pronouncing death senternces – a machine for murder.

And I say to these Bolshevik judges:

You are vile cheats and perjurors.

You deceived the Workers’ International. You supported the demand to abolish the death penalty everywhere, but you reintroduced it once power had fallen into your hands.

You are deceiving the workers of Russia when you bring in the death penalty, hiding from them the fact that it was condemned by the Workers’ International as savage barbarism and foul bestiality arising from the bourgeois order. You are deceiving those unfortunate Latvians and Red Army men when you send them to execute people tied hand and foot, concealing from them that the Workers’ International, in whose name you claim to rule, forbade such foul deeds.

You, Rakovsky and Radek, deceived the Western European workers when you told them that you were travelling to Russia to struggle for the socialist cause, a cause of the highest humanity. You deceived the Western European workers when you told them you were taking the lantern of socialism to backward Russia.

In reality you came here to cultivate that ancient barbarism fostered by the Tsars, to burn incense on the old Russian altar of human sacrifice, to increase contempt for other human lives to an extent unheard of even in our savage country, to organise executions all over Russia.

You, A. V. Lunacharsky, you who love to stand before the workers and extol in ringing terms the magnificence of the socialist ideal and the universal humanity of socialist teaching; you who roll your eyes to the heavens and sing the praises of the brotherhood of man in the socialist order, you, who denounce the hypocrisy of the Christian religion for sanctifying murder and who evangelise the new religion of proletarian socialism – you are thrice a liar, thrice a Pharisee when you take a rest from the intoxication of your vulgar phrases and join Lenin and Trotsky in organising judicial and extra-judicial murder!

All of you who signed up to the International’s agreement on the struggle against the death penalty, all of you who beat your path to power with promises to the working class to abolish the death penalty once and for ever – all of you are vile bankrupts, worthy of nothing but contempt!

* * *

“I cannot remain silent!” declared that grand old man Lev Tolstoy when he heard of the daily executions carried out on the orders of Stolypin’s courts.

Russian workers! Lev Nikolaevich [Tolstoy] did not call on you to remain silent at this time, when the executioner is once again a central figure of Russian life! Karl Marx, whose memory you recently honoured, did not call on you to remain silent. The great teacher of socialism was a sworn enemy of all that barbarism we had inherited from ages past. The executioner’s bloody work, carried out in the name of socialism, in the name of the proletariat, is a desecration of his memory.

We must not remain silent!

As you judge, so shall you be judged. Tomorrow the insanity of Bolshevism will have exhausted the democratic forces and will be replaced by that very counterrevolution it has been preparing. Tomorrow the same horrors may begin in Russia as have been happening in Finland, where any workers, any socialists can be slaughtered like wild animals. And woe to us if we protest about violence against workers and demand that the workers’ lives and honour be defended against tyranny, only to be told by the bourgeoisie: you, workers, approved the same sort of violence, the same sort of executions! You kept silent about them!

But we need not wait long for that moment. At this very moment counterrevolution, protected by German bayonets, rules the roost on the Don, in the Crimea, in the Ukraine, and in the Baltic provinces. And every volley from Bolshevik rifles, shooting the opponents of Bolshevik power here, will be echoed tenfold by other rifles executing local revolutionary workers and peasants. And both the local counterrevolutionaries, and the German commanders will say in reponse to workers’ protests: “We are doing it the Bolshevik way.”

The execution of one Captain Shchastny by the Bolsheviks will pave the way to the murder of tens of workers and peasants in the South and West of Russia. Because bloodshed breeds more bloodshed.

The working class must cry “stop!” to this river of blood.

The working class must declare loudly and as one to the whole world that this terror, this barbarism of execution after trial, and this cannibalism of execution without trial has nothing to do with the Russian proletariat.

To your rulers, who lost your trust long ago and rely now on naked force, you must say that they are perjurors, who have violated their own solemn promises, that the working class rejects as outcasts all those involved in the business of death sentences, all executioners, executioners’ assistants and those that inspire them.

To those workers who still belong to the Bolshevik Communist Party – a party of judicial and extra-judicial murder – you must say that they have no place in the workers’ ranks, as they all bear responsibility for the blood shed by the executioners. Say that to them and show it in practice by cutting off all comradely relations with them and treating them as plague-ridden outcasts, just as you always did to the pogromists from the Union of the Russian People.

The party of death sentences is as much an enemy of the working class as the party of pogroms.

Let all those ignorant, blinded, and debauched sons of the working class who have been bought see, that the family of the proletariat will never forgive them their participation in the business of execution!

Let all those who have not yet lost their socialist outlook make haste to distance themselves from the Medvedevs and Stuchkas, the Krylenkos and Trotskies, Dzerzhinskies and Sverdlovs, from all those who are in charge of wholesale and individual murder!

We must not remain silent! For the honour of the working class, for the honour of socialism and the revolution, for our duty to our motherland and the Workers’ International, for the principles of humanity, for our hatred of autocracy’s gallows, for the beloved memory of our martyred fighters for freedom – let the mighty call of the working class resound across all Russia:

Down with the death penalty!
Let the people judge the executioner-cannibals!

Yu. Martov

[Proteus2]

I sometimes think that the left is an awful state. No less than the future of our species is at stake and all we have for hope is the possibility of a few more votes in Wales.