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Its meaning to German democracy was thus stated: "Germany has been taught to believe that the European war was inaugurated by Russia for aggressive purposes. Germany's democratic leaders repeatedly pointed to Czarism as the evil spirit dominating the Entente. The object of the Central Powers was proclaimed to be the overthrow of the Russian autocratic menace.
Passages from the speeches and writings of Bebel, Liebknecht and others were quoted to show the fiendishness of Russian policy, and the justice of every German doing his utmost to smash Czarism and deliver millions of fellow workmen from its thrall. Even a blood-and-thunder story of the Russian police was turned on as a serial story in their daily papers.
But all the illustrious classes of Russia were enemies of that tyranny and were protesting against it. Where in Germany were the intellectual enemies of Prussian Czarism?
The Red Guard fired without warning, something that never before happened, even in the time of Czarism. The police always began by inviting the participators to disperse. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov.
But the Central Committee declared that it would continue to fight against violence and that in an open manner; it continued to issue a daily paper, only changing its title, as in the time of Czarism, and thus continued its propaganda in the factories, and helped to form public opinion, etc.
Hence, in this struggle, the capitalist class, as yet too weak to accomplish the overthrow of autocracy and Czarism, and the proletariat, equally dependent for success upon the overthrow of autocracy and Czarism, and equally too weak to accomplish it unaided, had to face the fact that historical development had given the two classes which were destined to wage a long conflict an immediate unity of interest.
These elements, which by their earning capacity belong largely to the downtrodden class of society, align themselves with the bourgeois class by the conditions of their life and by their general psychology. They had sincerely and faithfully served the government and its institutions when it was headed by Czarism.
The basis of the society was the conviction that Russia needed an economic revolution; that only an economic revolution, starting with the producers, could overthrow Czarism and establish the ideal state of society. The members of this Land and Freedom Society divided their work into four main divisions: Agitation passive and active.
The methods employed have been very similar and in not a few instances the same men who acted as the agents of espionage and tyranny for the Czar have served the Bolsheviki in the same capacity. Just as under Czarism there was alliance with the Black Hundreds and with all sorts of corrupt and vicious criminal agents, so we find the same phenomenon recurring under the Bolsheviki.
"We are Russians, and for that very reason we want Czarism to be defeated," was the cry. In his paper, the Social Democrat, published in Switzerland, Lenine advocated Russian defeat, to be brought about through treachery and revolt in the army, as the best means of furthering revolutionary progress.
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