The Revolutionary Age Chronicle and Interpretation of Events in Europe Saturday, February 8, 1919 Vol. I, No. 17 Price Cents You Who Are Out Act!
HAVE received a flaming appeal from a comrade By Louis Fraina 1:ever did arcent the means for the goal, forget that of ours an appeal to issue a call to action to you Essex County Jail, Newark, agitation is simply a preparation for creative action.
who are out, to rally to the cause of your comrades Youth is apt to repudiate the necessity for the hard, who are in prison. This is the appeal: men and women mock at the temporary triumph of re grim work of preparation; but is not experience apt to Oh. Fraina, are we not cowards to stand by limply action; they are symbols of the action an ideals latent grow cold, calculating and obstructive, losing the first like this when our strongest men and women are be in the masses which, once acquiring full expression, line Alush of revolutionary ardor?
hind bars which we could break?
will crush the reaction. They are augurs of the Rev Will the time for action never come? That is the olution. Are we not hypocrites to assemble on Sunday query of your imprisoned comrades. They have a afternoons, as if to enjoy ourselves, listen to a few Your comrades are in prison. They are there be right to ask. Their imprisonment, in itself, contributes speeches, and pass a few innocent resolutions. cause they could not let the flame of freedom die. nothing to the Revolution; it is a magnificent gesture, and nothing more, unless it inspires you to action and We do not take it seriously. Wake us up! Speak They are there as a protest against the democracy of to us from your cell!
words and the tyranny of deeds. They are there you use their imprisonment to arouse the action of the masses. The ideals of the individual are a source of Why don our comrades appeal to us, the mass that the proletariat may awaken to consciousness; that the soldier may not offer up life in the service of Revolution only as they become mass ideals.
for whom they were imprisoned?
death; that the world may cease being a shambles; Our activity might become still larger and more in We do not realize the awfulness of it all. Why do that the mother may not weep for her son and the tense not one of you, believe, will dispute this.
you men let us forget our mission? Appeal to us! sweetheart for her lover. They are in prison that But that is not the issue. It is not the lack of propaWe would be base indeed if the voices of our celled liberty may prevail; they are deprived of life, that ganda, but the character of this propaganda that is at comrades cannot wake us from this lethargy. life may conquer death.
issue. And, must confess, the propaganda for our am urged, and shall speak.
Your comrades are in prison. They are in prison, imprisoned comrades is in general a bourgeois liberal shall not speak for myself. My term ends in a above all, that Socialism may conquer that the mass propaganda. It is not revolutionary agitation. It is rot dir cted toward action. Expressing indignation, few days; it yas a very short term. shall speak of the people may cease being pariahs, and the world indulging in protests that accomplishes very little.
of my comrades who are serving long terms in prisons smile in the joy of life, instead of agonize in the sorCur imprisoned comrades, their ideals and their that cannot break their spirits or degrade them, but row of death.
action must be made an issue of the prowhich do torture them. shall speak, moreover, not Your comrades are in prison for you, mon, and letarian class struggle: the bourgeois liberal of them and for them principally, but of and for the for you, women. Are you out there for them. attitude is worse than inipotent, it promotes reCause for wh ch they are imprisoned. know that you are with vont comrades in prison. action. This issue and all other issues, must be met by For our imprisoned comrades are not the least for know that you are striving to liberate them, that you an intensive, aggressive agitation for revolutionary tunate. Thay do not envy the physical liberty of men are eager to welcome them home to life and the great mass action. The party must revolutionize its policy and women who are intellectually in thrall to Capi struggle. But my pen stops; my eyes look straight and agitation.
talism. The iron bars of their cells, of their prisons, ahead there are the iron bars of my cell; six feet The official party policy in general is largely bourcannot imprison their ideals, their minds; and while beyond are still more iron bars; then come the win geois liberal not the implacable policy of revolutionthe mind is free, one is supreme and may mock at dows, barred with iron; and outside is the prison wall. ary Socialism. We must learn, we must acquire the governments and at iron bars, mock even while the The keeners are hawling out orders. In another new spirit of the Revolution; we must reconstruct and body is being broken. They suffer, but their ideals cell is Roger Baldwin, in another Ralph Chevney: reorganize. We must devote ourselves anew to the come first. They desire liberation, because, after all, other comrades in other ce! ls, in this one prison alone. revolutionary class struggle.
they may then contribute more than they are contrib And but how many prisons are there in this free na Are we not cowards to stand by limply like this uting now.
tion of ours. when our strongest men and women are behind bars The imprisonment of our comrades is testimony to the brutality and class character of the govern prisoned comrades? have no right to ask this in the Are you doing all that could be done for vour im which we could break You could break the iron bars of our prisons and of ment; but it is equaily testimony to the lack of power name of myself, but have not the right to ask in the Capitalism. We could. you and I, and the masses; of Socialism. Karl Liebknecht goes out in the streets we intend to but do we really and seriously, lamof Berlin urging armed revolt against the old Imperial name of tens and hundreds of imprisoned men and women Comrades all?
ingly, or is it simply an intention? Is it a resolve government four and one half years in prison. Eugene Dehs sheaks against the war and in favor of the The anguished appeal of our young comrade is instinct in immediate action, or is it simply an ideal for the days to come?
Bolsheviki ten years in prison! The Italian Socialist lofty and intense is it true?
Serrati is convicted of high treason eighteen months know that it is an impatient appeal that it is the Your imprisoned comrades call upon you to act in prison. but, for the most trivial offenses, scores flaming appeal. naive perhaps, of the ardent spirit of not for them, but for the revolutionary struggle. They of our comrades are serving three and five, ten and youth impetuous, irrepressive, eager for the moon. depend upon this sttruggle. They will this struggle twentv year terms. The savagery of the American It is all that. But is not the spirit of Revolut on the necessary and relentless, beautiful and inspiring.
government in its attitude to political criminals has spirit of youth? Are we not apt to become too pa We must dare. We must issue the revolutionary been unparalleled. But the clemency of the German, tient, to accept routine for action, to get into a state challenge uncompromisingly. There are your imprisFrench, Italian and British governments is a conse of mind bordering on lethargy? The complacency oned comrad:s; more infinitely more there is Rusquence not of their being less savage, but of the power must be shocked out of us. have been guilty myself; sia and our own crisis; there is the international proleand consciousness of the proletariat. The American was bordering on lethargy, my other imprisoned tarian revolution all insist upon action. We must government is as savage as it is because it believes comrades becoming a memory, when this appeal famed flame out in challenge to Capitalism, but also to our the proletariat will not protest in action against tyran through me and restored my spirit. Are not you, cwn complacency, to our own inaction, to our own ny and reaction. Acquiescence invites repression. comrade, perhaps equally guilty? The impatient, ir policy of hesitation. Fearless and aggressive in all Your comrades are in prison. In a world trampling repressible, hasty spirit of ardent youth is the spirit things: scorning timidity and consequences.
upon ideals, they maintain their ideals; at a time when of Revolution Germinal.
We must dare, you and I, comrades. We must act, the majority are thinking in terms of the military The indictment of our young comrade is too sweep creatively and dynamically.
struggle, they think in terms of the proletarian class ing. admit that. Meetings are necessary; resolu Break the iron bars, comrades the iron bars of truggle. Apparently reaction is conquering, om tions are necessary. Aggressive agitation is itself an our prisons, of your fears and prejudices, of moderate nipotent; but the tens and hundreds of men and wom act of Revolution. For many lonely years the revo Socialismi, of Capitalism!
en who are now in iron cells, and whose spirit sings in lutionary activity of the Bolsheviki was limited in this Break and then we shall build anew, finely and joy at the onward sweep of the Revolution these way. But we are apt to do that which the Bolsheviki bumanly.