Page:Finnish Communist Party - An Open Letter to Lenin (1918).djvu/6

 German Imperialism, which hastened to the aid of Finnish capitalism with weapons of highly trained forces. Whether German Social Democracy did all that it ought to prevent this we leave it to the German workers to decide. To us the interference of the German Government was destructive—and instructive. The independence of our mother country, a gift which came to us from you honoured Russian comrades, we Finnish Social Democrats enthusiastically protected; but the bourgeoisie of Finland sold it to German Imperialism for the price of the Finnish workers' blood. By this deed the bourgeoisie has stripped us of social patriotism.

By international slaughter, power and the capitalist technique of mob murder, the opposition of our revolutionary workers was strangled last April (1918); men whose bravest efforts could not withstand the pressure of our enemies, and no help came to us from abroad. The German comrades did not hear our call. Our Russian Comrade heard, but had not power enough to save us. He was himself in danger, but yet helped as much as he could. Our debt of thankfulness became larger day by day and week by week. This we felt deeply, and also were ashamed, because there was once a time when, under the influence of bourgeois local-patriotism, we hesitated to accept aid from the soldier comrade of Russia, and to enter into noble alliance with him. The sacred blood that was shed on the snowfields of Finland has bound us now in a fraternal alliance that will last for ever.

Comrade Lenin, the real meaning of revolutionary Socialism, which on the eve of our workers' revolution we failed to understand, now begins to be made clear by the example of the victorious Russian proletariat and by your teaching. Here in Russia we have been able to study the working of the greatest revolution in the history of the world, the first grand revolution. We were told in Finland that we should see here destruction, only destruction. It is true we have seen much destruction, but destruction which has resulted from the proletarian revolution has shattered only the capitalist class state; it has only meant the conscious and thorough annihilation of the old, rotten and oppressive State organisation of the exploiting classes; from under this destruction we have seen germination and sprouting upward a nobler crop than we have even imagined. We have seen the grand and suffering Russia bring forth to the world in life and actual reality the beautiful ideal of which the workers of the world have been dreaming for many thousands of years.

We now understand that only thus can Socialism