248 THE CLASS STRUGGLE DOCUMENTS 249. w Quit Fighting, British Soldiers And Join Your Russian Comrades!
Englisk prisoner from Archangel front writes to his brother Scots Is it right for working peopls of one country to kill working people of another. The Allied troops, invading Russia, have so often been told that if they are taken prisoner they will be tortured and killed by the bolsheviks, that it is interesting to see what in fact happens when an English soldier falls into the hands of the Russian workmans and peasants army. Here is the letter of a private of the Royal Scots. taken prisoner last month near Archangel: Cutlas.
Monday, Oct 14 th 1918 To the men of the Royal Scots.
Fellow workingmen, this is the purpose for which you have been brought here.
You have not como to fight Pmedian Mhitarism, thật 18 finished. You have not come to fight for liberty. You have come to Daerth first real Workers Republe. There is another important fact which you should know In this attack on Soviet Russia from the South, your government will be co operating with the present government of the Ukraine.
Last year we had a Soviet Republic in the Ukraine. But the present head of the government, Skoropadsky, with the assistance of the Kaiser supressed the Soviet Republic, and since then has maintained an iron rule over the Ukraine people with the aid of German bayonets.
The German soldiers have now refused any longer to be the policemen for the Ukrainian German capitalists and landlords, and are going home to their now free country.
Skoropadski, has now turned to the Allied Governinents and they, not in the least troubled by the fact that he has been actually co operating with the Kaiser, have como to an arrangement with him, to keep the Ukrainian people down, and to sacrifice you in the interests of international capitalism. If you were told that your landing will be welcomed by the people, do not believe it. During the whole period ot the German occupation the Ukrainian people have been in a state of rebellion. The German Cominanding General was assasinated. Numbers of other acts of violence, and strikes showed the hostility of the people to the present regime, not merely because it was German, but because it was capitalist. At any moment we expect our comrades in the Ukraine to overthrow Skoropadski and to re establish the Soviet Republic.
Now you have come to the assistance of the South Russian landlords and capitalists. Comrades, are you going to do the dirty work that the German soldiers refused to do any longer?
The supreme motive which animates the capitalist governments of the Allies for invading Russia is to suppress this stronghold of the revolutionary socialist movement.
They fear above everything else that the working poople in their own countries will overthrow them and take the power into their own hands. They hope, by crushing the Russian revolution, to take the heart out of the tremendous movement for working class emancipatin that is spreading everywhere. And how rapidly it is spreading. The soldiers, who only yesterday were slaughtering each other on the Western front are now mingling as brothers. Will it bo long before the voice of revolution is heard is France, England, America and Italy?
Comrades, if the workers of Englandor America made a revolution would you suppress it? You would not. You would side with your own class. We also are workers, we belong to the same class as you do. Will you then, fight against us. Comrades, we are living to day at the beginning of a new period in the histroy of mankind. This is the last struggle between Capital and Labour. If you continue your present job, you will be siding with the gang of imperialists, who during four years have sacrificed ten millions of the flower of manhood, have mutilated thirty millions more, have caused unutterable misery and devastation, and who, if allowed to remain in power will reduce us workers, to a worse slavery than has everbeen known.
Comrades, don do it. You have arms in your hands. Your officers are powerless against you. Raise the red flag of workingclass freedom. Join with us, and with the revolutionary workers of Germany and Austria to make the world free for Labour.
Down with capitalisml Long live the Social Revolution. Signed: Lenin. President of the Council of Peoples.
Commissaries. Chicherin.
Peoples Commissary for Foreign Affairy. wonder if you all know the kind of men you are fighting. do. You are fighting an army of working men and there are no officers amongst them.
Everybody is the same. They ask, why do we fight them. Well, that is more than can say; in fact do nt know why we have come to fight them, and another thing that counts is, ihey do nt want to fight us. They are not fight ing their own class, the working class, but the capitalists of Russia and all countries. Since have been a prisoner have been treated as one of them.
selves, and given me plenty to eat and drink. have also seen one of our men that lies in hospital wounded. Ile tells me he has been well treated and Jooked after and as friend, a working man, and not as a soluicr.
Now ask you this qnestion; is it right, that the working class of one country should come and fight the working class of another country? We are Rotat war with Russia, and the Russians are not at war with us, but with the capitalists of all the countries, the people whom we work for and keep in plenty, while we, the working class, merely exist. If the working class knew why they are fighting and for who, they would refuse to fight any longer. Think things over and ask yourselves, is it worth while killing each other to please other people, who care not what happens, as long as sheir pockets are being filled at our expense. From what have seen the Russians are a good people and they are fighting for good cause, a causa that every country in the world should follow.
Private Lapham 10 th Royal Scots,