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Class Warrior: On the Bolshevik Revolution. 1918

Class Warrior
On the Bolshevik Revolution. 1918

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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Foreword
  3. Introduction
  4. Part I: Selected Writings of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1900   On Washington State’s Primary Law
    2. 1903   On Political Action
      1. On Reformism and Electoral “Fusion”
      2. On Trade Unions
    3. 1905   On the Single Tax
      1. On a Journey to Seattle
    4. 1906   On the Arrest of US Labour Leaders and State Power
    5. 1908   On the Socialist Movement and Travels across Canada
    6. 1909   On War
      1. On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    7. 1911   On Property
      1. On the Workers’ Awakening
      2. On Economic Organization
      3. On the Capitalist State
    8. 1914   On the Causes of the First World War
    9. 1916   On Carnage
    10. 1917   On Slavery and War
      1. On War Finance
      2. On the War Effort
    11. 1918   On the Bolshevik Revolution
      1. On Capitalism Getting Rich Quick
    12. 1919   On Control of the State by the Working Class
      1. On Reconstruction
      2. On Collaboration between Labour and Capital
      3. On Wealth
      4. On Gold
      5. On Class War
      6. On the Paris Peace Conference
      7. On Capitalist Civilization
    13. 1921   On the 1921 Canadian Parliamentary Election
  5. Part II: Selected Speeches of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1895   On the Aims of Socialism
    2. 1896   On Socialism and the Economy
    3. 1899   On American Imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines
    4. 1903   On the Labour Problem
      1. On the Political Organization of Miners in Cumberland
      2. On Stirring the Emotions of His Audience
      3. On Wages, Profit, and Capital
      4. On the 1903 British Columbia Election
    5. 1905   On the 1905 Russian Revolution
      1. On Workers and Rockefeller
      2. On the Mission of the Working Class
    6. 1906   On the Paris Commune
    7. 1908   On Labour and Its Economies
      1. On the Working Class Using Clubs If Necessary
      2. On Working-Class Political Power
    8. 1912   On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    9. 1913   On the Vancouver Island Miners’ Strike
    10. 1914   On the Komagata Maru Incident
    11. 1917   On Conscription
      1. On Working-Class Opposition to Conscription
      2. On Conscription and Wiping Out Ruling-Class Laws
      3. On the 1917 Conscription Election
    12. 1918   On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party
      1. On Laws
      2. On Reconstruction
      3. On the Armistice and Postwar Moment
      4. On Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
    13. 1919   On Lenin and Trotsky
      1. On the Belfast General Strike, Unemployment, and the Postwar Challenge to Capitalism
      2. On the Bolshevik Revolution
      3. On the One Big Union
      4. On the Class Struggle
      5. On the Machine
      6. On Capitalism
      7. On the Defeat of the Winnipeg General Strike
      8. On the Machinery of Slavery
      9. On Civilization
    14. 1920   On Mechanization of Production
      1. On the Paris Commune
      2. On the Collapse of Civilization
      3. On the Bankruptcy of the Capitalist System
  6. Part III: The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery
    1. 1916   The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery: Showing How the Chattel Slaves of Pagan Times Have Been Transformed into the Capitalist Property of To-day
  7. Part IV: On the World Situation
    1. 1919   On the World Situation
  8. Appendix
  9. Kingsley’s Speeches
  10. Index

On the Bolshevik Revolution 1918

This article by Kingsley examining the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was published in the Australian Worker newspaper in Sydney in February 1918, demonstrating the international reach of his ideas and writings. The original article had appeared as an unsigned editorial in the British Columbia Federationist. More than three dozen articles with Kingsley’s writings appeared in the Australian labour press between the 1910s and 1940s.

What Capitalism Fears in Russia

One needs but give ear to the alarm of cry ascending to high heaven from the servile throats of the paid henchmen of capitalism, in their references to the Russian situation and especially to the outstanding influence of the Bolsheviki in shaping the affairs of that country, to realize the rulers of all lands are becoming thoroughly frightened over the way things are going. The frenzied denunciation being heaped upon the Bolsheviki by the lickspittles and sycophants of class rule is all that should be required to convince intelligent persons that ruling class interests must be gravely threatened by the policy of the Russian revolutionaries and, therefore, the interests of the producing class must be in the ascendant. For it may be readily understood that no squawk of distress would issue from the lips of capitalists and their servile tools, if capitalist interests were not being threatened. Whatever may be condemned by the agencies of capitalism may safely be accepted as in the interest of the producing class, and that which receives approval at the hands of such agencies should be shunned as a pestilence by the wealth producers. And by the same yardstick may the worth or otherwise of all who profess to be disciples and defenders of labor be determined. Those who receive praise at the hands of those interests in human society which sap the life blood of the producing class may unmistakably be set down as traitors to the class they so volubly profess to serve. And those who are condemned and vilified by the tools and agencies of the master class may safely be avouched as true and loyal to the cause they champion and serve.

That noble of champion of truth and righteousness, the daily press, uses column after column in vilification and abuse of the Russian revolutionaries. Just as it heaps falsehood and slander upon the real Labor Movement of all other countries, so especially does it vent its spleen upon the Russian Bolsheviki by the most scurrilous lying that can be coined from chronic moral turpitude. Every effort is being put forth to lead the world to believe the Bolsheviki is capable of nothing and bent upon nothing but destruction. While it is quite true that the Russian revolutionaries are bent upon destruction, it is only that destruction of that rule and robbery that has for a hundred centuries made life a miserable burden and a long drawn out torture for the enslaved victims of class rule and class robbery throughout the earth. And that they are bent upon the destruction of that accounts for the affrighted squawks of that delectable gang of ruling class pirates that still have their foul clutches upon the throats of the wealth producers of all the earth. And their affrighted squawks are as sweet music to the ears of all decent and honest persons everywhere, because it brings hope to the hearts of all who long for liberty and a decent civilization.

The Maximalists, the Social Revolutionaries of the Left, and the Minimalist internationalists have arrived at an agreement concerning the political organization of Russia. The lands and industries of Russia are to be dedicated solely to the purpose of providing the Russian people with the requisites to a free and satisfactory existence. Production for profit is to be discarded, and great is the howl of distress coming up from the camp of tyrants, despots and plunderers of the earth thereat. The glorious era of plunder, trade and profit that has filled the hearts of rulers and thieves with exceeding great joy and has so intoxicated their sordid souls with the wine of pomp, glory and bloody magnificence as to make of them objects incapable of exciting anything other than disgust in the minds of all decent people, is to be brought to an end, as far as Russia is concerned. And that this will sooner or later be followed by the workers of all countries is a foregone conclusion. Right well do the rulers and robbers of the earth know it. That is the reason lying behind the frantic squawks of alarm now issuing from their craven throats.

As Leon Trotsky, the Bolsheviki Foreign Minister, said recently, “The Russian revolution has placed its heel on all the propertied classes of Europe.” The swift and new alignment of political and economic forces is now shaping itself in all countries of the earth. The slaves of production are setting their faces against their masters and their thieving schemes of world rule and world robbery. The dawn of a new dispensation is breaking. The sun of social revolution is piercing with is beneficent and life-giving rays the dark cloud of ignorance and reaction that has so long engulfed the world in the black night of slavery, superstition and human misery. The hour for human liberty has struck. All hail to the Russian revolutionists who by their gallant actions have given cheer to their comrades of other lands and struck terror to the hearts of rulers and robbers of every clime. And indeed they may be proud of having made their appearance in the sheepfold of the ruling class, and to have frightened the shepherds out of their poor wits and set them to squawking raucously.

E. T. Kingsley

—Kingsley, “What Capitalism Fears in Russia,” 17.

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