Banned and driven underground for its support of the Red Army, the Communist Labor Party of Poland issues a manifesto on the Pilsudski’s April, 1920 invasion of Soviet Ukraine.

‘A Communist Manifesto from Poland on the Invasion of Ukraine’ by Communist Labor Party of Poland from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 3 No. 3. July 17, 1920.

[The following is a translation from “Swit” Vienna, May 28, 1920.]

Instead of Peace — a New War.

SOLDIER WORKERS!

A new conflagration has come upon the Polish land.

Pilsudski is proclaiming in his manifesto a war for the “liberation of Ukraine.” He announces that Polish armies will drive the “foreign invaders*’ out of the territories inhabited by the Ukrainian people. And the Ukrainian hireling of the Warsaw Government, Ataman Petlura, promises in his manifesto to conquer Ukraine beyond the city of Yekaterinoslav with the aid of the Polish arms.

That means a new war for life!

For almost four months the Polish Government has been deceiving the masses of the Polish people, concealing first the peace proposals of the governments of Russia and Ukraine, and then simulating a desire to take up peace negotiations. Public opinion was being hoodwinked with disputes over the place of negotiations, Borisov. Meantime, behind the scenes, in concert with French generals, a great offensive was being prepared against Soviet Ukraine, a bargain was being negotiated with Ataman Petlura, Ukrainian detachments were being reorganized and armed. The Government was speaking falsely of peace while it was preparing for a new war.

In the year 1918, Petlura, together with his government, brought upon Ukraine the German invasion, in order to strangle in its blood the workers’ and peasants’ revolution. Today, the same bandit becomes a convenient tool in the hands of new “liberators,” the Polish conquerors, masquerading under the cloak of defenders of the “people’s” Republic of Ukraine.

The real nature of such “liberation” a la Hindenburg can be seen right now in Lithuania and White Russia, in Volhynia and Podolia, where by the order of Pilsudski the predatory occupational authorities are now ruling. They are robbing the whole country, throttling the popular strivings for liberation, shackling the people with the chains of peonage while crushing all resistance with blood and iron.

The manifesto of Pilsudski is a declaration of war upon the revolutionary Ukraine. Revolution is to be crushed on the vast stretches of Ukraine —is to be swamped in the blood of the Polish soldiers. The comedy of the peace negotiations is finding its conclusive end. A war is beginning for the destruction of the Ukrainian revolution, and later the Russian as well.

SOLDIER WORKERS! The mad campaign of the Polish militarists cannot end with a victory. By squandering the blood of the Polish people for the purpose of strangling the revolution in the neighboring countries, Polish reaction is digging its own grave. But it depends upon us to bridle this bloody madness, to prevent the war being drawn out into the seventh year.

Let us understand once for all, that they are deceiving us infamously those who under the cloak of defending Poland or liberating Ukraine are spilling ever new streams of our blood, placing Poland in the position of a gendarme of the capitalist counter-revolution in the east of Europe. Let us thrust aside the infamous deceivers of the Polish Socialist Party, who are hoodwinking us with their peace agitation, but who in reality are supporting Pilsudski and the imperialist government, who have drawn Poland into a new slaughter, in order to strangle the rule of the workers and peasants in Ukraine.

The Polish people will gain nothing from this predatory war under the leadership of bourgeois hangmen — nothing except famine, misery, and destruction. The toiling masses of Poland have an enemy not in the workers and peasants of Russia and Ukraine, but in their own exploiters. The toiling masses of Poland would trample upon their own rights and interests if they allow themselves to be thrust into war against their own brothers liberated by the revolution.

It is not Ukraine which we must liberate now, but Poland from the rule of the bourgeoisie. Our arms must be raised against the ruling band, always greedy for spoils and acquiring them at the price of our blood.

Only one thing can extricate us from the abyss of constant war calamities — the conquest of power by the proletariat, a Government of Workers’ Councils.

In the face of the new terrible war that has been started, new slaughter for capitalist profits, there is only one way out for us — revolution.

Let the new criminal campaign of the ruling hangmen awake to a struggle the entire proletariat of the villages and cities.

Down with the piratical campaign against Ukraine!

Down with the Government of Mass murder! Long live Soviet Ukraine! Long live Soviet Russia! Long live a Polish Republic of the Workers’ Councils.

Central Committee of the Communist Labor Party of Poland.

Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1919, published by the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia and replaced The Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia. In lieu of an Embassy the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was the official voice of the Soviets in the US. Soviet Russia was published as the official organ of the RSGB until February 1922 when Soviet Russia became to the official organ of The Friends of Soviet Russia, becoming Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1923. There is no better US-published source for information on the Soviet state at this time, and includes official statements, articles by prominent Bolsheviks, data on the Soviet economy, weekly reports on the wars for survival the Soviets were engaged in, as well as efforts to in the US to lift the blockade and begin trade with the emerging Soviet Union.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/srp/v3n03-jul-17-1920-soviet-russia.pdf