332 THE CLASS STRUGGLE DOCUMENTS 333 They want to reinstate the landlords whom the country people have driven out and to thrust the poor peasants, the small landholder, the squatter, the agricultural workers back into the condition of serfdom.
They want to put the confiscated money and jewels back into the hands of the rich so that they may be able to continue their luxurious, indolent, frivolous life which is a bane to society.
The house rent usurers and the usurious dealers who without any necessity or cause have raised the price of every commodity these they want to let loose once more upon the proletarian consumer, so that the value of his money may decrease still more. They want to reduce wages and increase the hours of labor, in short, WHATEVER THE REVOLUTION HAS BUILT UP IN THE WAY OF SOCIALIST INSTITUTIONS they want to tear down and distort.
The international counter revolution aims to force upon us once more with armed might the dominion of private property, the strength of the capitalists, and it aims to drown in the blood of the workers that mighty work of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a work which has carried us amid a thousand dangers and sufferings but with giant strides toward the world of Socialism.
Under the protection of the international capitalistic counter revolution preparations are being made to organize THE HUNGARIAN COUNTER REVOLUTION.
Under the protection of the Roumanian and Checho Slovakian army of occupation the great Hungarian patriots have gathered to lay waste the Hungarian land with the force of arms. In Arad the landlords, the capitalists, and their beholden retinue of bourgeois politicians have established an opposing government. Like the Russian leaders of 1849, so to day the representatives of the ruling classes are clearing the way for the present hostile invasion. They are trying to organize WHITE GUARD FOR THE WHITE GOVERNMENT. The justices of the peace, the notaries, the little autocrats of the comitats, the former congressional representatives of privilege, the grafters, who have been deprived of their business, the bankrupt adventurers, all the derelicts of the worn out and overthrown political parties, findingt support in the Roumanian and French arms, are preparing to revive the class government of tyranny and oppression, they are organizing to wrest the political power from the poor workers and peasants and to entrust it again to those mercenary oppressors and politicians, to those classes whom only the storm of two revolutions was able to shake out of their political seats of power.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat as a transition stage of the state to Socialism that is the watchword of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
The Dictatorship of the oppressors and exploiters as a permanent form of government that is the emblem of the counter revolution.
In the factories, in the fields, in the offices all power to belong to the workers, the producers that is the significance of our red banner.
All authority vested in the landlord, the manufacturer, the banker, the bishop that is the motto which sullies the white flag of our opponents.
The preparing and establishing of Socialism that is the purpose and the reason for existence of the Soviet Republic.
The vain attempt to revive Capitalism that is the economic program of the counter revolution.
Hence it is not a war, whose furies are now being loosed upon us, even though it is being conducted by the force of arms, but an ARMED CLASS STRUGGLE which Hungarian and International Capitalism is carrying on against the proletariat of Hungary, the advance guard of the World Revolution. This conflict is the struggle for the existence and development of the working class, a life and death struggle which will mean the realization or the overthrow of Socialism, and every proletarian is a traitor to himself, a traitor to his class, a traitor to the sacred cause of the Social World Revolution, a traitor to the world redeeming idea of Socialism, who does not now with all his readiness to sacrifice, with all his energy, with all his courage, his life and limb, his work, his manhood stand by the endangered Revolution, the besieged Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the hard pressed Cause of Socialism!
The organized workers of Budapest are at this moment at the front holding over the dominion of the proletariat a shield made of their own living bodies. The pick of the workers have taken up arms in order, even at the cost of their lives. to defend the great idea of the rule of the workers, to protect the CAUSE OF THE SOCIAL WORLD REVOLUTION from any reverse.
We believe that the great energies of Socialism poured forth in an inexhaustible stream will render this Red Army, which is fighting the class.
struggle of the workers against the hordes of the exploiters and oppressors, invincible. But this struggle necessitates the work, the sacrifices of the workers and poor peasantry of the whole country! We, therefore, call all proletarians, the workers of city and village, all the adherents of outraged Poverty demanding power, to arms. We call upon the prole: tariat of the occupied districts to prevent with all lawful and unlawful means, with all methods of open and underground warfare the organization of the White Counter revolution and to fight with every weapon of individual and mass action against all counter revolutionary classes, groups, and individuals! We call upon every proletarian of the occupied districts to OBSTRUCT BY MEANS OF SABOTAGE THE WAR WHICH THE INTERNATIONAL AND HUNGARIAN CAPITALISTS are waging against the Hungarian Revolutionary Soviet Republic, against the rule of the toiling masses of the poor.
But let the capitalists and the counter revolutionists heed the following: The Cause of the Proletariat, of the Social Revolution cannot fall, in fact it is obviously making strides the world over. And the forces of the proletariat will advance to the points where at this moment the counterrevolutionists are hiding under cover of the arms of the imperialistic conquerors, and then our settlement with those who introduced armed civil war against the rule of the proletariat will be merciless and unsparing!
But until we are able to extend the power of the proletariat to those districts which have been wrested from us, we owe it to our proletarian brothers fighting at the front, to our own principles, and the obligation which we have assumed toward the World Revolution, to work with all our might to destroy root and branch the economic system of Capitalism and the State based upon oppression and force, and OUT OF THE CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES OF SOCIALISM to rebuild and perfect it as much as possible in the triumphant, indomitable spirit of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!
Long live the International Socialist World Revolution!
Long live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!
Long live the Hungarian Soviet Republic!
With fraternal greetings, THE REVOLUTIONARY SOVIET GOVERNMENT.
THE HUNGARIAN SOCIALIST PARTY.