Heimin Shimbun’s internationalist, anti-war statement of solidarity and Iskra’s response are both below, exchanged at the outset of the Russo-Japanese war several months before Katayama and Plechanov’s historic handshake at 1904’s Socialist International Congress in Amsterdam.

‘International Solidarity: Japanese and Russian Socialists Exchange Greetings’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 14 No. 13. Junes 26, 1904.

Amid Capitalist Jingoism, Thinking Workingmen Are Brothers–Russian Socialist Organ, in Returning Greeting, Makes Friendly Criticism.

In our issue of April 24 we reproduced from “Heimin Shimbun,” a Socialist paper of Tokyo, the manifesto addressed by the Socialists of that country to the Socialists of Russia. We are now able to give to our readers the reply of the Russian comrades, as presented in an editorial of the party organ “Iskra.” In doing so we first reprint the Japanese manifesto, which ran as follows:

JAPANESE MANIFESTO.

“To the Socialists in Russia:

“Dear Comrades: For many years we have been hearing of you and thinking of you, though we have not yet had an opportunity to shake hands and talk cheerfully with you, being separated from you by many thousand miles. Twenty years have already passed since you began to preach the principles of humanity in 1884 under the banner of Social Democracy. During that time, the persecutions of a despotic government and the cruel action of detectives have been such as has never before been seen. Your predecessors passed through the bitterest trials, having forsaken fame and fortune; and those who were shut up in prisons, exiled in desolate Siberia, or who perished on scaffolds were numberless. In spite of this your agitation was not checked even in the slightest degree, but your courage always increased a hundred-fold after each persecution. It was last year that the several bodies of Socialists throughout Russia, were united in strong organization and since then Socialism has become an immense power We express our hearty sympathy for you in your hard situation and at the same time admire your abiding faith in principle.

“Dear comrades, your government and our government have plunged into fighting at last in order to satisfy their Imperialistic desires, but to Socialists there is no barrier of race, territory or nationality. We are comrades, brothers and sisters and have no reason to fight each other. Your enemy is not the Japanese people, but our militarism and so-called patriotism. Nor is our enemy the Russian people, but your militarism and so-called patriotism. Yes, patriotism and militarism are our common enemies: nay, all the Socialists in the world, look upon them as common enemies. We Socialists must fight a brave battle against them. Here is the best and the most important opportunity for us now. We believe you will not let this opportunity pass. We, too, will try our best.

“But permit us to say a few words more. We are neither Nihilists nor Terrorists, but Social Democrats, and are always fighting for peace. We object absolutely to using military force in our fighting. We have to fight by peaceful means; by reason and speech. It may be very difficult for you to fight with speech and produce a revolution by peaceful means Russia, where there is no constitution, and consequently you may be tempted to overthrow the government by force. But those who are lighting for humanity must remember that the end does not justify the means.

“We cannot foresee which of the two governments shall win in fighting, but whoever gets the victory, the results of the war will be all the same–general misery, the burden of heavy taxes, the degradation of morality and the supremacy of militarism. Therefore the most important question before us is not which government shall win, but how soon can we bring the war to an end. The determination of the International Workmen’s League in its agitation in the time of the Franco-Prussian war gives us a good lesson. We are comrades, brothers and sisters; and have no reason why we should fight. The fiend, our common enemy, is now breathing poisonous fire in order to torment millions of people. As Karl Marx said: “Workmen of all nations! Unite!’ so we Socialists must Join our hands in order to do our best.

“Dear comrades, when you suffer under the oppression of your government and the pursuit of cruel detectives, please remember that there are thousands of comrades in a distant land, who are praying for your health and success with the deepest sympathy.”

RUSSIAN REPLY.

In acknowledgement of this International greeting “Iskra” says:

“This manifesto is a document of historic significance.

“If we Russian Social Democrats know only too well with what difficulties we are confronted in time of war, when the whole machinery of government is working to the utmost to ex-cite ‘patriotism’–difficulties which we meet at every step, notwithstanding the utter unpopularity of the present hazardous career of the despairing absolutism–we must bear in mind that far more difficult and embarrassing is the position of our Japanese comrades who, at the moment when national feeling was at its highest pitch, openly extended their hand to us.

“In the time of the Franco-Prussian war, Liebknecht and Bebel, by protesting against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, rendered an immortal service to the cause of international Socialism–a service for which they paid the penalty of imprisonment. Not less valuable and significant is the service rendered to the same cause by these advanced representatives of the Japanese working class.

“Amid the jingoistic chorus of both countries their voice sounds as a herald from that better world which, though it exists to-day only in the minds of the class-conscious proletariat, will become a reality tomorrow. We do not know when that tomorrow will come. But we, the Social Democrats the world over, are all working to bring it nearer and nearer. We are digging a grave for the miserable today–the present social order. We are organizing the forces which will finally bury it.

“Force against force, violence against violence! And in saying this we speak neither as Nihilists nor as Terrorists. The Nihilist is merely a product of the vivid imagination of the novelist Turgenleff and the fears of the European bourgeoisie. Against Terrorism, as an improper method of action, we have never, since the establishment of the Russian Social Democratic Party, ceased to fight. But, regrettable as it may be, the ruling classes have never submitted to forces of reason and we have not the slightest ground for believing that they ever will.

“But in the present Instance this question is of secondary importance. What is important for us is the feeling of solidarity which the Japanese comrades have expressed in their message to us. We send them a hearty greeting. Down with militarism! Hail to the International Social Democracy.”

[We are indebted to J. Loopoloff for the translation-Ed.]

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/040626-worker-v14n13.pdf