Page:Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922).djvu/15



Zinoviev: Comrades, the Congress will do great honour to the Petrograd workers by addressing special greetings to our city in the name of the Communist International. Comrade Kolaroff, the old leader of the Balkan Communist Federation, will now speak.

Kolaroff (reads): To the working men and women, and to the Red Army men of Red Petrograd.

On the solemn occasion of the anniversary of the October Revolution, the Fourth Congress of the Communist International extends its greeting to the heroic proletariat of Red Petrograd.

By its courageous action in the February-March days in 1917, the working men and women in Petrograd, supported by the soldiers of the garrison, threw down from the blood-stained pedestal the hated Czarism, and in the form of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies laid the foundation of the organisation destined very soon to complete the triumph of revolution and open a new era of construction of the Proletarian State.

In the memorable days of October, 1917, the Petrograd proletariat advanced to a point from which a new era in human history was to proceed.

Following on the footsteps of the immortal Paris Commune of 1871, the Petrograd workers overthrew the power of the bourgeoisie and established the dictatorship of the proletariat, and thus ushered in the era of the social revolution, not only in Russia, but the world over.

In the internal and external war which commenced from this moment and lasted for many years, the Petrograd proletariat stood continuously in the front ranks, sending its sons to all fronts and contributing incalculable sacrifices in toil and lives.

Its example fired the hearts of the broad working masses of Russia with enthusiasm, and to-day, after five years, the Russian working class is able to congratulate itself on the attainment of complete victory on all internal and external fronts.

At the present time, during the transition to peace construction, the indefatigable Petrograd proletariat continues to occupy one of the foremost places at the front of labour. By its efforts, Petrograd is healing its wounds and is once more being converted into an industrial proletarian centre.

The merits of Red Petrograd are great, not only in the eyes of the Workers' and Peasants' Republic, but also in the eyes of the entire world proletariat. Soviet Russia has become