Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/82



A determining phase of the Russian Revolution was the failure of the Socialists of the Central Powers and of the Allies to respond to the Revolution's call for international solidarity and action against war. This was a fact during the period when the moderates were in control as well as during the regime of the Bolsheviki.

In April, 1917, the Council of Workers and Soldiers through Cheidse, president of the Executive Committee, issued the following manifesto to the workers and Socialists of all countries:

"We, Russian workers and soldiers, united in the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, send you our warmest greetings and the news of great events. The democracy of Russia has overthrown the century-old despotism of the Czars and enters your ranks as a legitimate member and a powerful force in the battle for our common liberation. Our victory is a great victory of the freedom and democracy of the world. The principal supporter of reaction in the world, the 'gendarme of Europe,' no longer exists. May the earth over his grave become a heavy stone. Long live liberty, long live the international solidarity of the proletariat and its battle for the final victory!

"Our cause is not yet entirely won. Not all the shadows of the old regime have been scattered, and not a few enemies are gathering their forces together against the Russian Revolution. Nevertheless, our conquests are great. The people of Russia will express their will in the Constituent Assembly which is to be called within a short time on the basis of universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage. And now it may already be said with certainty in advance that the democratic republic will triumph in Russia. The Russian people is in possession of complete political liberty. Now it can say an authoritative word about the internal self-government of the country, and about its foreign policy. And in addressing ourselves to all the peoples who are being destroyed and ruined in &is terrible war, we declare that the time has come in which the decisive strug-