424 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 425 Documents Bolshevist Propaganda WHY DON THEY SEND YOU HOME?
impetuous insistence and his creative criticism contributed their full share in causing the Junius pamphlet to be created so soon and so masterfully, just as it is due to his iron will that it could be printed and distributed despite the extraordinary difficulties caused by the state of siege. The counter revolutionists knew what they were doing when, a few weeks after the murder of Rosa Luxemburg, they had Leo Jogisches assassinated too in an alleged attempt at flight in the same Moabite Prison from which it had been possible to abduct Rosa assassin, in an elegant private automobile in broad daylight.
The Junius pamphlet was an individual revolutionary deed.
It must give birth to revolutionary mass action. It is of the dynamite of the spirit which is blasting the bourgeois order.
The socialistic society rising in its place is the only fitting monument for Leo Jogisches and Rosa Luxemburg. And this monument is being reared by the Revolution for which they lived and died.
May, 1919. Introduction to the Second Edition of the Junius Pamphlet, The Crisis in the German Social Democracy. To the American and British Soldiers Did you ever stop to think why they don send you home?
The war is over. Armistice is concluded. Peace negotiations are already being conducted. Months have already elapsed since the great slaughter has stopped.
Millions of soldiers French, British, American are returning home from the battlefields. Millions of prisoners are returning home from prison. This is a time of joy and happiness for thousands of humble homes the boys are coming back! Hundreds of ships are carrying American boys in khaki from the Western front back to tbe shores of Columbia.
Why then don they let you go home. Sweet home is waiting for you. Those whom you love are waiting for you. Your wives and children, your sisters and sweethearts are waiting for you. Your gray, old dear mothers are waiting for you.
Are they waiting in vain?
Your mother is asking every newcomer from the front: Where is my boy? Don know! Somewhere in the steppes of Russia.
What are you doing here, somewhere in Russia? What do they want you here for, The war is over because there is nothing left to fight for, and nothing to fight against.
They have been telling you that this was a war against German autocracy, against German imperialism, against kaiserism, But now there is no more kaiserism, there is no more autocracy. The German workers have arisen in revolt and they have themselves defeated kaiserism. Themselves! without the help of British and American troops. There is no more imperialism in Germany. The Kaiser and the cruel war lords have fled. Germany, like Russia, is now the land of Revolution. Germany, like Russia, will be governed not by a bunch of cruel masters, but by the people, by revolutionary workers.
Is it true that you have been fighting for freedom and democracy? If this was true you would have been sent home on the very day the German revolution broke out. But instead of home you are sent to the steppes of Russia. Why?
Because this is not a war for Freedom. This is not a war for Democracy, but against Democracy, Do you know that Russia is the freest and the most democratic country in the world? Do you know that all the wealth of Russia now belongs not to a small group of greedy capitalists, but to the vast majority of the people, to the workers and the poor peasants?
Do you know that the land, the mines, the shops, the factories of Russia are now owned and governed by the people and operated for the benefit of the people? Do you know that the present Government of Russia the Government of the Soviets (councils of work