‘Russia’s Embattled Liberators’ by Eugene V. Debs from The Liberator. Vol. 5 No. 11-12. November-Decemeber, 1922.

THERE is nothing in all the struggle of the oppressed peoples of the earth for freedom that begins to compare in historic importance to the significance of the sublime spectacle that the Soviet Republic of Russia, on the fifth anniversary of the stupendous revolution that gave it birth, presents to the world.

The Russian revolution, whatever may be its ultimate fate, its final outcome and results, will stand forth in perspective and be chronicled in history as the greatest and most luminous and far-reaching achievement in all the annals of mankind.

That the revolution and the republic which sprang from it have survived, not only to be commemorated on their Fifth Anniversary, but are today more puissant and promising, and pulse with keener life and activity than ever before, in the face of every conceivable attempt to crush and destroy them on the part of the combined capitalist powers of the earth, is a miracle no less marvellous and seemingly impossible than the revolution and the republic themselves.

The invincible revolutionary spirit, the noble heroism, the sublime faith and fortitude, the flaming idealism and the stoical self-denial of the Russian revolutionary warriors are infinitely beyond human speech and will be recorded only in the triumphant liberation of the race.

For five years they have stood with more than Spartan courage against the foul assaults of the whole criminal capitalist world.

They have waded through hell in their own blood to banish hell from the earth and bring peace to the world.

They have fought in rags to clothe the naked, they have starved themselves to feed the race, and they have died in fetters to free the world.

The Russian Republic stands triumphant, gloriously triumphant on its fifth anniversary, a beacon light of hope and promise to all mankind!

If there has been retreat it has been only to secure a firmer foothold; if there have! been concessions it has been to lay a stronger and deeper foundation for the first and only working-class Republic, whose blood-red banner of Socialism and freedom waves in defiance of all the black flags of capitalism and piracy that surround and threaten it.

If there have been days of doubt, misgiving and sore trial, it has not been due to the weakness or wavering of the red Russian warriors, but because of the cowardly nonsupport of the working classes of other nations, for whom Russia was pouring out her noblest blood in the red rivers of the revolution- the supremest sacrifice known to history.

Long ago I said that Lenin, as the incarnation of the Russian revolution, is the one great thing that came out of the world-massacre, and could the blind and petrified imperialist monsters have foreseen it, they would never have precipitated that barbarous and bloody catastrophe upon the world.

The Soviet Republic, though but an infant of five, stands before us a towering menace to all the empires, dynasties, thrones, rulers, crowns and scepters of capitalist imperialism that crush humanity, banish liberty, devour the substance of labor, and cumber the earth.

The Red Russian Republic, the monumental achievement of the ages and the crowning glory of our century, under the superb and inspiring leadership of Lenin, Trotzky, and their equally high-souled and lion-hearted compatriots, is battling bravely, immortally, against the autocracy of all the empires of imperialism for the emancipation of all the people of the world.

All hail, the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Republic on their fifth anniversary! These colossal events blaze and flash in vivid red letters on the pages of history and make the twentieth century eternally glorious and immortal!

The Liberator was published monthly from 1918, first established by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman continuing The Masses, was shut down by the US Government during World War One. Like The Masses, The Liberator contained some of the best radical journalism of its, or any, day. It combined political coverage with the arts, culture, and a commitment to revolutionary politics. Increasingly, The Liberator oriented to the Communist movement and by late 1922 was a de facto publication of the Party. In 1924, The Liberator merged with Labor Herald and Soviet Russia Pictorial into Workers Monthly. An essential magazine of the US left.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1922/11-12/v5n11-12-w56-nov-dec-1922-liberator-hr.pdf