Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/357

Rh Comrades! It is dirty work you are doing. Have the courage to pitch it. Do not let it be said that English workingmen were so mean and contemptible as to suppress their own fellow-workers for the sake of a little extra money and food.

Comrades! Do not be scabs. Stand by your class in the great world movement for the emancipation of labor.

Yesterday was the day of the Great Falsehood—the last day of its power.

For ages, man has, spider-like, thread by thread, diligently woven the strong cobweb of a cautious philistine life, impregnating it more and more with falsehood and greed. Man fed on the flesh and blood of his fellow men. The means of production were used to oppress men,—this cynical falsehood was regarded as immutable truth.

And yesterday this road brought mankind to the madness of the great World War. In the red glow of this nightmare the ugly nakedness of this old falsehood was brought to light. Now we see the old world shaken to its foundations. Its hidden secrets are exposed, and today even the blind have opened their eyes and see the utter ugliness of the past.

Today is the day of reckoning for the falsehood which reigned yesterday.

The violent explosion of the people's patience has destroyed the outworn order of life, and it cannot again be re-established in its old forms. Not all of the outworn past is annihilated, but it will be—tomorrow.

Today there is a great deal of horror, but it is all natural and comprehensible. Is it not natural that people infected by the strong poisons of the old order—alcohol and syphilis—should not be generous? Is it not natural for people to steal,—if theft was