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THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE December 14, 191.
Chapters from My Diary Meet were war.
VI By Leon Trotzky proletariat: that Wilhelm II and Francis Joseph Letter to Jules Guesde, Socialist member of the are two criminals, who, contrary to Nicholas II French Ministry, concerning Trotsky expulsion them, which was still somewhat offensive to the and Mr. Poincare, refused to respect the rules and from France in 1916.
French authorities, but in order to create a pre regulations of international law. MINISTER: Before leave the soil of text for repressive measures against the Russian France, under the escort of a police officer, immigrants, accused of abusing French hospital its proud line of thinkers, of fighters and mar.
French Socialism, with its glorious past, with who personifies the liberties in whose deity by demoralizing Russian soldiers during the tyrs, has at last found and what a disgrace fense you were appointed to the national minig. war. To their credit we will assume that the in to think that it has found in Renaudel, a try, consider it my duty to express to you a stigators of this project did not themselves be translator, during the most tragic period of the convince you, but that they may at least be use aspect, that they did not intentionally desire what yellow book into the language of yellow journalful and of value against you. When my expul actually occurred from the very beginning. It ism.
league, Mr. Malvy, the Minister of Justice, did sacrifices. But all undertakings of this sort in Fourier, of Blanqui, of the Commune, of Jaures, of. this measure. Nor did the other of your col the provocateur himself went unmolested, but of the days of yore has found its Albert Thomas, leagues, the Minister of War, consider it proper Colonel Krause and his assassins were the vic who consults with the Russian tyrant concerning to enumerate the causes that led to the suppres, tims. Even the patriotic Russian, journalists, the surest and safest method of capturing Consion of the Russian newspaper Nashe Slovo who are openly hostile to the Nashe Slovo, er stantinople; has found its Marcel Sembat, to (Our Word. of which was the editor, and which prese given to the soldiers, at the most auspicious exercise and display dilettante nonchalance over the suspicion that copies of our paper had, for two long years, suffered continually the trials of censorship, under the watchful eye and moment, by the agent provocateur.
the corpses and the ruins of French civilization; has found its Jules Guede, to follow the triumphal special care of that same Minister of War.
May beg of you, Mr. Minister, to institute, chariot of the trumpeter Briand. And you believStill need not conceal from you the fact that through the services of Mr. Malvy an in ed and you hoped that the French proletariat, the reasons that led to my expulsion are no se vestigation of this matter? You do not see that has been bled to the point of exhaustion in cret to me. You feel the need of adopting repres that anything could be gained by such an investi this endless war for the crime of the ruling classes, sive measures against international Socialist; gation? Neither do Because let us speak will continue to tolerate quitely, to the end, this against one of those who refuse to accept the part openly agents provocateur are at least as valu shameful union between official Socialism and the of defender or voluntary slave of this imperialistic able for national defense as Socialist ministers. worst enemies of the proletariat? You are misMoreover, even though the reasons for this sumed responsibility for the foreign policy of the martial law, in spite of this mania of nationalism And you, Jules Guesde, having so generously as taken. The opposition is growing. In spite of action against me have not been communicated to Third Republic, for the Franco Russian alliance which, whatever its form, be it royalistic, radical, me, whom they above all concern, these rea and its consequences, for the conquest aims of the or socialistic, always preserves its capitalistic Bons have been stated by Mr. Briand to the depu Czar, and for all the aims and methods of this quintessence revolutionary opposition is marchties and to the journalists.
war it remains for you to accept as well the ing forward, Blowly, but surely. Daily it is gainIn Marseilles last August a number of Russian renown for the deeds of these agents provocateur ing ground. Nashe Slovo, the paper that you mutineers killed their colonel. court investi of his Majesty the autocratic ruler of Russia. have strangled, lived and breathed in the atmosgation is alleged to have disclosed that a number of these soldiers were in possession of several At the beginning of the war, when promises phere of awakening French international Socialnumbers of the Nashe Slovo.
ism. The group of Nashe Slovo, expelled from were spread with a lavish hand, your partner, At least this is the explanation given by Mr. Briand in an inter Sembat, enchanted the Russian journalists with Russia by the counter revolution, that is gaining of the Chamber Committee of Foreign Affairs, be exerted by the allied democracies upon the in port of the French Banking Exchange, the group Mr. Leygues, who, in turn, transmitted this verternal regime of autocratic Russia. Moreover, of Nashe Slovo was privileged to echo, even sion to the journalists of the Russian bourgeois tial patriots of France and Belgium to reconcile censor the voice of the French side of the new this argument was used persistently by the So though it was hindered and hampered by your press. To be sure, Mr. Briand did not possess the revolutionary Russians with the French Gov. International, that raises its head in the midst which stood subject to his own censorship, was ernment, but with little success. Twenty six of the terrors of fratricidal war. In our capacity months of constant military coalition between the as undesirable foreigners we have identified directly responsible for the killing of the officer.
It is likely that his thoughts were somewhat generalissimi, between diplomats and parliamen our cause and our fate with that of the French along the following lines.
view of the presence Tsarkoe Selo, in short, twenty six months of intarians, the visits of Viviani and Thomas to opposition. We are proud to have received the first blow from the French Government, from of Russian guldiers in France, it is necessary to weed out the Nashe Slovo and to banish its cessant influence exerted by the Western democ your government, Jules Guesde editors from the soil of the Republic. For a Soracies upon the Russian regime have only served We have the honor, together with Monatte, cialist newspaper that refuses to spread illusions to strengthen in our land the boldest and most Merrheim, Saumoneau, Rosmer, Bourderon, Lo and lies may, according to the memorable docimpudent reaction, softened, to small extent, riot, Guilbeaut, and so many others, to be accused, trine of Mr. Renaudel, open the eyes of the Rus by the chaos of the administration; have sucall of us, of being pro German, of friendliness sian soldiers to hypocrisies and lead them into ceeded, moreover, in transforming the internal toward Germany.
dangerous paths of reflection and meditation. regime of England and France until they have The weekly Paris organ of your friend PlekchaUnfortunately, however, for Mr. Briand, this ex become very similar to that of Russia.
noff, your partner in honor and glory as well as planation of his is based upon a very vexatious anachronism. year ago Gustav Herve, at that viously less expensive than his coal. The unThe generous promises of Mr. Sembat are ob in your inglorious fall, has denounced us week after week to the police of Mr. Malvy, as being time still a member of the permanent administra fortunate fate of the right of asylum is but in the service of the German General Staff. For tive committee of your party, wrote that this conspicuous symptom of materialistic and police merly you knew the value of such accusations, forcible removal from France of Russian refu rule that are becoming more and more predomi for you yourself had the honor of being subjected es guilty o pot revolutionary, internationalism nant on both sides of the Channel. Lloyd Georgien stamp of approval upon Her Malvy by collecting, et or resistance. Obviously Herve received the the manners of a drunken clergyman, and Mr. reports of Mr. Malvy police spies. Moreover, inspiration for this prophecy from ministerial Aristide Briand, for whose characterization beg to refer you, Mr. Jules Guesde, your own army political correspondence box contains a very At the end of July this same Herve whispered, ticle of earlier days, these two figures represent during the war, by a German court, in continuofficiously, that would be expelled from France; in at about the same time. e. stil before the war, its justification, its morality based upon the ation as was not present for my pamphlet, killing of the colonel in Marseilles Professor appetites of classes and of individuals. Can there The War and the International.
Durkeheim, the President of the Commission for be a better and a more deserving partner for But besides this brutal fact, that can make an Russian immigrants, established by the Govern Messrs. Lloyd George and Briand than this Mr. impression even upon the police brain cells of ment, informed a representative of these immi. Sturmer, who, like a real Russian, has made. Mr. Malvy, should, believe, emphasize that we Nashe Slovo and the expulsion of its editors Metropolitang and to the petticoats of bigoted ous enemies of German reaction than all the Govgrants of the impending suppression of the career by pinning himself to the Cossacks of the revolutionary internationalists are more danger(vide, Nashe Slovo, July 30, 1916. Every court damsels? What a splendid, what an incom ernments of the Allies taken together. Their thing had been prearranged, even the public opin parable trio! Verily, history could have selected hostility to Germany is, at the bottom, nothing ion of the slaves of Mr. Herve. They waited only no better colleagues and chieftains for Guesde, but the hatred of the competitor; our revolutionfor a pretext to strike the final blow. And the the minister.
ary hatred of its ruling class is indestructible.
pretext was found. The unfortunate Russian Is it possible for an honest Socialist not to fight Imperialist competition may again unite the rival most opportune to the interests of certain people. ist party into a submissive chorus, that servilely soldiers killed their colonel at a moment that was against them? You have transformed the Social enemy brethren of today. When the total dest ruction of Germany has been realized, England This happy coincidence invites a suspicion that imitates the leaders of capitalist highway rob and France, after a decade, would again approach may, fear, penetrate the invulnerable skin of bery, at a historical epoch when bourgeois society the Kaiserdom of the Hohenzollern in the friendliest spirit, to defend themselves against the suists who made a special investigation of the case hitherto been has revealed and demonstrated periority of Russia. future Poincare will ex in Marseilles have established the fact that in its true nature to the core. From the events, pre helm or with his heirs; Lloyd George, in the pecu. this case, as in so many similar cases, the lead pared in a period of world wide depredation and ing role was played by an agent provocateur. robbery, whose awful consequences we have so liar language of the priest and the boxer, will What was his aim, or rather what were the aims often predicted, from the rivers of blood, from curge and condemn Russia, as the defending wall of the well paid rascals who directed this agent, is the awful suffering, and misfortune, from the of barbarism and militarism; Albert Thomas, as not difficult to comprehend. An excess of some crimes, from the bloodthirsty ferocity and hypo showered with flowers cut by the gentle hands kind among the Russian soldiers was necessary cracy of the Governments you, Jules Guesde, draw not only to justify the rule of the knout against but one lesson for the enlightment of the French (Continued on Page Seven. sources.