News of the revolt on the Battleship Potemkin arrives in and electrifies New York City. As do underground leaflets from the sailors, printed in an illegal R.S.D.L.P. paper and smuggled to America. A leaflet from that extraordinary movement denouncing Tsarist officers’ attempt to incite hatred against Jews among the ranks of the sailors was quickly translated and produced with this story.

‘Hurrah for the Navy of the Revolution! Proclamation of the Socialist Sailors’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 15 No. 15. July 8, 1905.

The Russian Situation Unparalleled in History and Full of Promise for the Oppressed of All the Earth- Even Iron Militarism Cannot Resist the Solvent of Class Consciousness – Now Is the Time for American Socialists to Show International Solidarity.

“Hurrah for the Navy of the Revolution” is the surprising exclamation that is now to be heard the world over. The mutiny of the crew of the Russian warship Kniaz Potemkin and of the sailors at Libau and Cronstadt and the threat of mutiny elsewhere which prevented the other vessels of the Black Sea squadron from attacking the Potemkin- a mutiny which is not merely a protest against bad food or other personal grievances, but a declaration of solidarity with all the oppressed toilers of Russia and of the world- a mutiny that hoists the red flag instead of the black- this is something absolutely new in the world’s history.

Never before has such a condition existed- a navy in revolt against the government, not on behalf of some other prince or leader and not for merely personal and immediate demands, but revolting as a part of a great revolutionary movement running through all the producing classes of the nation.

It is something that must cause the gravest fears, not to the Tsar and his counsellors alone, but to the “masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,” to all who have been depending on the iron force of military discipline to keep the workers in subjection.

It is natural that the rising should come earlier in the navy than in the army, since the naval forces are generally men of a higher type than the land forces; the sailors and marines are recruited chiefly from among the industrial workers, while the soldiers come largely from the peasant class, which is still somewhat more submissive. But signs are not wanting that the Russian government will soon find that it cannot depend on its army much more than on its navy to keep down popular discontent. The naval mutiny has set an example that is sure to be followed by the soldiers on land.

Meanwhile, political demonstrations and strikes-strikes not merely for better pay or shorter hours, but for political liberty as well, are going on in the South, in the Caucasus, In Russian Poland, in Bessarabia, and in many other parts of the Empire.

The Russian revolution is no longer a matter of conjecture for the future. In the strictest sense of the word, it is well under way. It is too late now for absolutism to prolong its lease of life by issuing more vague promises of petty reforms. Forcible repression is the only policy that the government dare use- and to attempt forcible repression is to stimulate further revolt. The Tsar and his agents and his backers can hardly hope even to be saved by foreign intervention, for in Germany and in France and in every other country whose government might turn for aid there is a powerful Social Democratic movement in thorough sympathy with the Russian revolution ready and able to checkmate any attempt of their governments to prop up the tottering throne at St. Petersburg.

For nearly a century Russian absolutism has been recognized as “the backbone of reaction” in Europe and,  through Europe, in the whole world. The clique of Jewish bankers and Jesuits and libertine army officers who threatened the republic in France a few years ago looked to Tsarism as their support. The coalition of capitalists, great landlords, and militarists who rule Germany have always counted on its help. Even in little Holland, the Calvinist Pope Kuyper was in communication with St. Petersburg while he was planning laws to make striking a crime and suppress free speech. The fall of Tsarism, therefore, will be a victory not for the Russian proletariat and peasantry alone, but for every progressive force in any quarter of the world.

We in America, isolated as we are from international affairs, are likely to underestimate the importance of events that are now taking place in Russia. But American Socialists, at least, ought fully to understand and to rejoice, and to help.

It is important that in the strenuous conflict that is now opening, the Russian Social Democracy be enabled to play its full part for there will be plenty of bourgeois Liberals ready to let the proletariat do the fighting and then to betray it. We American Socialists are not called upon to risk our lives, as are our Russian comrades. We can surely afford, then, to open our purses, to do our share that the Russian Social Democratic Party shall not lack for literature or arms or whatever it may most need.

PROCLAMATION OF SOCIALIST SAILORS.

One of the Leaflets Issued at Sebastopol Shortly Before the Rising on the Kniaz Potemkin.

In view of the stirring events of the last few days in the Black Sea our readers will be interested in the translation of one of the revolutionary leaflets distributed among the sailors at Odessa, Sebastopol, and other ports shortly before the mutiny on the Kniaz Potemkin. This particular manifesto, which we get through the medium of one of the secretly published Social Democratic papers just arrived from Russia, was the reply of the Socialists in the naval force to a speech made by one Captain Baranovsky, commander of the drill-steamer Pravt, warning his crew against listening to revolutionists. It shows that, while the rising in the navy came as a great surprise to the outside world, it was no sudden uncalculated outburst, but the result of a well conducted propaganda which has been going on under the very noses of the officers for a long time. The sailors’ reply to their captains speech is as follows:

“You say that we have been attending secret meetings in the suburbs of Sebastopol. You are quite right. We do indeed attend such meetings. You say that this is a crime. That we deny. We say that these meetings are not criminal, but that it is our right to attend them. It is right and necessary that we should come together and discuss the questions that affect our common interests, that we should hear the sacred words of justice and liberty, that in these gatherings of comrades we should for a little while at least escape from the oppression and outrages that the Tsar and you, his lackeys, and lickspittles, inflict upon us.

“All you tools of the Tsar and he himself are contemptible in our eyes. We despise you, do you understand? We have no need of you. We hate you- you who lie and steal and squander the people’s money.

“You tell us that it is the Jews that are spreading discontent and sedition among us. It is false; it is one of your lies. We perfectly well know and understand that you and the like of you are deliberately trying to incite hatred against the Jews. the most oppressed of the people. But they are workingmen, just as we are. No, traducers, you will not succeed in setting us against the Jews. We know too well who are our real enemies. You are our enemies, you embezzlers, you murderers, you tyrants. And the oppressed Jews are our comrades and brothers, do you understand?

“You pretend to be, not, our master. but our friend! You, a friend: We know better. You, all of you- admirals, commanders, officials- all of you are robbing the people, sucking the people’s blood. torturing us. You are our sworn enemies.

“Yet you said that your hand would not quiver in signing the death-warrant for any of us who attends those meetings. There you spoke truly. Of course, you are a hangman!

“But beware! The hour is near when in turn our hands will not quiver in tightening the noose around your neck- you, Baranovsky, Choucterin, Aphonasteff, and others like you. Remember that the hour of reckoning is at hand. And it will be a terrible hour for you.

“You pretend that the proclamations are written by Jews. But you do not yourself believe it. This proclamation, for instance, is written by real Russian sailors- sailors who belong to the Social Democratic Party.

“Comrades, do not believe the commanders. Do not listen to them. Attend the meetings, boldly, fearlessly. Read the proclamations, Resist your enemies!

“Comrades, the power lies with ourselves, with our class. Let us join. hands and work together, and we shall soon be freed from our oppressors and their master- he who is red with the people’s blood- the Tear!

“Down with masters! “Hail to the Republic!

“Hall to Socialism!”

The Worker, and its predecessor The People, emerged from the 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America led by Henry Slobodin and Morris Hillquit, who published their own edition of the SLP’s paper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their ‘The People’ had the same banner, format, and numbering as their rival De Leon’s. The new group emerged as the Social Democratic Party and with a Chicago group of the same name these two Social Democratic Parties would become the Socialist Party of America at a 1901 conference. That same year the paper’s name was changed from The People to The Worker with publishing moved to New York City. The Worker continued as a weekly until December 1908 when it was folded into the socialist daily, The New York Call.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-the-worker/050708-worker-v15n15.pdf