The text from Siberian Bolsheviks of a leaflet denouncing the imperialist war at the beginnings of 1917’s revolution printed here for the tenth anniversary.

‘Down with the War! Up with the Civil War!’ (1917) from The Daily Worker Magazine. Vol. 4 No. 62. March 26, 1927.

“Down with the War! Up with the Civil War!” Verbatim text of a printed proclamation distributed in Siberia at the beginning of February, 1917.

Comrades!

THE most infamous of all wars known to history has, for the last two and a half years, been devastating a large part of the earth. This war is destroying the most valuable inheritance of mankind; it is threatening to bury under its ruins everything of which Europe boasted at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Why are those people suddenly beginning to speak of peace, who had dreamed of trampling the whole of Europe under the iron heel of their armies? Germany and her allies are not speaking of peace because a conscience has awakened in the mind of the German Ministers, nor even because their forces are exhausted.

No! Nothing has changed in the mind of the Ministers who have condemned the flower of their nation to death only that they may conquer new territory, only that they may rake in new profits for the capitalists of their country.

Not a love of peace and not weakness have forced the governments of Germany and Austro-Hungary to make offers of peace. It is the threat of revolution, which is growing beyond their control, that has decided them to take this step.

Our comrades, the proletariat of Germany and Austro-Hungary, have long ago taken up the fight against the devastations of war. They were the first to inscribe on their banner the slogan dear to us: “Down with the war!”

For two years they have fought bravely and tenaciously under this banner. The German government has thrown them into prison and has fired on the crowds in the street. The blood shed for the cause of freedom, for the cause of mankind, will not be absorbed in vain, not without fertilizing the barren soil, as is the blood of those who die on the battlefield. In Germany, the army of the proletariat, which has risen to fight for the restoration of peace, is growing from day to day, despite all violence.

The voice demanding that the war be stopped, is heard more and more distinctly, sounds more and more threatening. The waves of the people’s wrath are dashing, with greater and greater violence against the walls of the palaces. This angry sea is causing thrones to totter.

The governments of the countries fighting against us are beginning to speak of peace. It is not difficult to see on what they are reckoning. They are making proposals of peace to their opponents. If their enemies reject the peace negotiations, they will say to their nations: “We have done everything in our power to put an end to the shedding of blood. You see for yourselves that the possibility of putting an end to the war is out of our hands. We are being attacked, we must defend ourselves.”

The success of this manoeuvre would be a death- blow to the movement of the German workers against the war. The flames of war are flaring up with fresh vigor. New streams of blood, new piles of corpses, more victims called to the colors! How will it all end? When will this madness cease?

The whole manoeuvre of the German government is based on the presumption that the German proletariat is alone in its struggle for peace. The German government has staked everything on the hope that the workers of Russia, England and France will not support the workers of Germany in their demand: “Down with the war!”

It is the popular movement alone which has compelled the governments of the countries fighting against us to make offers of peace. Only the people can compel the governments of Russia, England and France to accept these offers of peace. Will the call of our brothers, the German workers, find an echo among the Russian workers? Will the Russian workers support them in their great and difficult struggle for peace?

The moment has come when the fate of Europe is to be decided. The question is to be decided as to whether the offer of peace made by the governments of the countries which are fighting against us, is to be a step towards peace or towards a further intensification of the fury of war. This question is on the point of being decided, and no one can keep aloof from this decision in whose breast a heart still beats, whose brain has not ceased to form clear thoughts, whose conscience is not dead.

Comrades! Which of you has not in his mind cursed this present, futile, inhuman war? Any cry emitted between four walls is useless, when what is needed is action.

Every day of the war costs 25,000 human lives. Every hour the war continues demands the lives of thousands of human beings and destroys the happiness of thousands of families. Every hour by which we hasten an armistice, will save hundreds of comrades and brothers from perishing.

It is a crime to keep silent at such a time. He who holds his tongue today, shares the responsibility for the continuation of the war What are we to do? What must we get accomplished?

We will tear the mask from the faces of the hypocrites who speak of peace whilst at the same time they feed the flames of the world war.

What we desire is that the solution of the question of peace or war be taken out of the hands of the secret cabinets of diplomacy, where all questions are solved by intrigue, corruption and treachery, and entrusted to the peoples.

Peace negotiations must be commenced at once.

All proposals made by the governments of the countries fighting against us must be made public and discussed by the whole nation.

When the proposals of both parties have made known, we and our comrades in Germany and been Austro-Hungary will be faced by the same tasks.

We shall resist the lust for conquest of our ruling classes. Our comrades on the other side of the front will continue their courageous fight against the plans of conquest of the capitalists of their countries.

Together we shall fight for peace on the basis of the recognition of the rights of the peoples. We cannot, however, entrust the peace negotiations either to our government or to our National Duma.

We declare that the voice of Russia, is not the voice of the people. In the hour when the fate of the people is being decided, it must not be left to a handful of sycophant courtiers of Nicholas II and Grigori Rasputin.

In no case can the Duma, which was elected by the landed proprietors on the basis of the law of June 3rd, speak in the name of the people when that hour comes; the Duma which consented to the condemnation of the labor deputies and which drove from its meetings the deputies of the social democratic fraction, the only fraction whose hands are not stained with the blood of those murdered in the war, the only fraction in which the people has faith.

The government and the National Duma are equally responsible for the present war. The government and the Duma have led the country to the edge of an abyss, and the people cannot entrust its fate to them. The decision as to the question, war or peace, must be placed in the hands of the people itself. Forces will arise from the midst of the people, which will heal the wounds it has suffered through the war. Once more our cry echoes through-out the country demanding a constituent assembly.

Our country is at the parting of the ways. The whole of Europe is at the parting of the ways. Only the united forces of the proletariat of all countries can quench the fire of the world war.

Our comrades in Germany have raised the banner of the fight against war. Across the trenches they are reaching out their hands to us; they are prepared to cast away their blood-stained weapons.

It is now our turn. What shall we say? What answer shall we give to their appeal?

We greet them heartily! We will say to them: “Your banner is our banner, your cry is our cry.” Down with the war!

Peace negotiations must be started at once.

All civil liberties for the free discussion of the terms of peace by the people must be established without delay.

A Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of general, equal and secret franchise should be summoned at once to conduct the peace negotiations, to conclude peace and to regulate the life of the country.

These are our demands. In the struggle to have these demands fulfilled, the proletariat of Germany, Austro-Hungary, England and France are our allies. Let our old cry: Proletarians of all countries, unite! echo throughout the whole world which is looking to the working class to save it and to set it free! Down with the war for the subjugation of other nations!

Hurrah for civil war and the liberation of the whole of mankind!

Down with arbitrary rule! Long live the Constituent Assembly!

Down with all the enemies of freedom!

Long live the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party!

January, 1917.

The Committee of the Labor Union.

The Saturday Supplement, later changed to a Sunday Supplement, of the Daily Worker was a place for longer articles with debate, international focus, literature, and documents presented. The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n062-new-magazine-mar-26-1927-DW-LOC.pdf