Posted by Adam Quinan on January 27, 1999 at 02:48:22:
The Globe and Mail newspaper of Toronto has been reprinting one front page from the same day in one of the last hundred years every day this year. On January 26th 1999, they printed from The Globe of January 26th 1918. Towards the bottom of the page was a report which I have copied out below.
NO CANNON FODDER THAT ALLIES MAY CELEBRATE
Ensign Krylenko, Commander of Russian Forces, Delivers Remarkable Speech in Petrograd Barracks
By Arthur Ransome (Special Correspondent of the London Daily News)
Petrograd Jan. 25. ----While the anti-Bolsheviki were at the funeral Tuesday of the victims of Assembly day the Bolsheviki were holding meetings. I went to the barracks where Krylenko was addressing a meeting of soldiers with a sprinkling of workmen and two or three women.
I never heard any orator listened to by a Russian audience with such absolute attention as this little elderly Ensign Krylenko, Commander-in-chief of the Russian army. He is a finished artist as an orator, this little genius who could hold an audience of simple Russian soldiers breathlessly interested for an hour and a half while he put before them the whole complex political situation. When he spoke of the shame of the murderers of Shingareff and Kokoshkin he became the murderer, and without interrupting his speech even by a dramatic pause he made the whole audience see in his horrified glimpses some monster holding a pistol at the sleeping man in bed.
A Blot on Revolution
"A blot on the revolution were these killings," said he. "That does not mean there should be no killing in the revolution."
He denounced those who tried to compare the deaths of the demonstrators of last Friday with the deaths of the demonstrators killed by the Czar's Government on January 22, 1905. No such comparison was possible. Friday's demonstrations had as their ultimate object not the workers of the revolution but the death of the workers of the revolution and the return of authority into the hands of the bourgeoisie.
"Remember that this revolution of yours is more dangerous to the propertied classes than any other revolution," he went on.
"In 1871 the French workmen seized power for the moment, but the propertied classes were able to set other French workers to fight against them. They were overthrown and paid for the momentary sovereignty of the working classes with their blood. Yet their's was only a little revolution. The blood that ran in Paris after the Commune was a drop beside the river of blood of Russian workmen that will run here if the rival propertied classes have a chance of taking their revenge. In your blood we shall pay if we fall.
No Cannon Fodder for Allies
"There is no help for us except ourselves. Our allies care nothing about our revolution. When they heard we were breaking off the peace negotiations and forming a volunteer army they pricked up their ears. First the English and then the French came and said to me:
"‘You are going to raise an army?'
"‘Yes.'
"‘Will it fight?'
"‘We hope so.'
"‘What about money?'
"Yes, they were willing to pay us money for our revolution, thinking that, no matter what we fought for, if we fought we should be useful to themselves. But we shall not be cannon fodder so that the allied Imperialists may celebrate a victory. We are against the whole world and we shall fight for the revolution and the revolution alone."