634 THE CLASS STRUGGLE DOCUMENTS 635 Documents Protest of the Independent Labor Party of England The International Socialist Commission in Stockholm transmits the following protest of the Central Committee of the Independent Labor Party of England against the intervention of the Entente in Russia: The Allies have landed in the north of Russia. It is reported that the Russian government has protested against the occupation of a neutral and peaceful country, which is regarded as equivalent to an act of war, and has declared that it will take measures accordingly.
It is reported in addition that an Allied expedition consisting of English, French, American, Japanese and Chinese troops intends to occupy Siberia in order to support the Czecho Slovaks who are fighting the authority of the Soviets in this region in order to break their power.
It is no longer claimed that the campaign of the Allies is to serve the purpose of carrying on the war against Germany on the western front of Russia. This idea was never practicable: the most elementary conception of the nature of the case is sufficient to enable anyone to understand that it is impossible to move a large army and all the necessary appurtenances and supplies 7, 000 miles across country where there are difficulties of transportation on all sides. And even that were not so, the idea of occupying a neutral country on the pretext of military necessity would nevertheless be unacceptable, and should be strongly condemned. Such a procedure would be exactly the same in its nature as the German invasion of Belgium.
The intervention of the Allies in Russia has been decided upon without the consent of, and in fact, in direct contradiction to the wishes of the Russian government, and is being received by the masses of the Russian people with intense uneasiness and ill will. On the other hand, the intervention scheme is being hailed by the English and foreign press as a step in the direction of the suppression of the Russian Revolution.
It is claimed that the Soviet government is not the expression of the will of the Russian people, and that the Allied occupation is for the purpose of freeing the people from the tyranny of the government. We shall not render an opinion concerning the accomplishments or mistakes of the present Russian government. It is generally admitted that it is difficult to know what is going on in Russia at this time. However, that claim that the Russian government exists in opposition to the will of the people is contradicted by two important facts. The first fact is that the government, while maintaining its authority, has in the course of nine months introduced extensive social measures based on a program of reorganization; the second proof is that no counter revolutionary movement has taken place, based on the support of the people, which was in a position to even attempt to overthrow the Soviet government and to substitute another government for it.
The Allies, it seems, have really effected a change of government in the neighborhood of the Murman coast, but that was accomplished by means of sending in supplies and financial support, whereas in Siberia the so called uprising is nothing else than the attack of an allied power (the Czecho Slovaks) on the Russian people and the Russian government. The only support accorded the Allied intervention is derived from Aristocratic and Capitalist sources (the very same as in the Ukraine, along the Don and in Finland, supported and welcomed the German military power to suppress the Revolution in those regions. also from the very feeble liberal and socialist intellectual sources that supported the Kerensky government, whose overthrow drove them over to the reaction.
The intervention of the Allies in Russia, contrary to the will of the Russian people and the Russian government, is a challenge to Socialism and to Democracy. In our opinion it is nothing less than an attempt to suppress the Social Revolution and to establish the power and dominion of Capital. The Russian people will fight invasion, which at most can succeed in increasing enormously industrial disorganization and starvation.
The Socialists of England and the other allied countries cannot remain silent and indifferent over against the threatening aggression of their governments. Accordingly, we turn to the organized English workers and summon them to condemn as strongly as possible the participation of the English government in an undertaking which is a crime against the national independence and against the Russian Revolution, which in spite of its faults has done so much to revive the hopes of human freedom. It is a crime which, if it is adhered to, can lead to fatal results not only in the case of Russia, but in the matter of the freedom and democracy of the whole world.