Page:The Red Dawn (George).pdf/13

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RED DAWN
11

and military insurrection; (2) organization and education of all forces for the actual fight; (3) the party to lead the people at all times in revolutionary actions but without compromise with petty bourgeois and peasant elements whose interests make them the natural but unreliable ally of the proletariat in the fight upon Tsarism.

At this point it is necessary to bring to light the industrial origin of the Bolsheviki program, past and present. The short history of actual, open unionism in Russia begins about 1904. Prior to that time, labor organizations were taboo to such an extent that they "camouflaged" themselves as insurance societies, benefit associations etc. and, to the extent that they used pretension, they lost industrial force by becoming what they pretended to be. In 1904, the government, to its own notion planning wisely, sent out government secret service men, and organized unions that were semi-official at Moscow, Odessa and elsewhere. Much to the disgust of the government, organization was followed by strikes and the government seeing its mistake broke up both strikes and unions with the convenient Cossacks. Then came Father Gapon who builded on the sentiment remaining and, after organizing Moscow, went to Petrograd, where he was highly successful in starting economic organizations. These unions, however, were scrupulously loyal to the Tsar and fought, as does the A. F. of L., any revolutionary worker who dared raise voice against the government. But the "Bloody Sunday" of Jan. 22nd, 1905, when Gapon's loyal slaves were slaughtered by thousands under the windows of the Tsar's winter palace, cured this loyalty completely throughout Russia and the workers were thereafter not so prone to turn over to the "third section" (secret police) any revolutionary