On the 1905 Russian Revolution 1905

Big Meeting in City Hall

About 600 people attended the regular Sunday night propaganda meeting of Local Vancouver, S. P. of Canada, held in the City Hall, Vancouver on Nov. 5. E. T. Kingsley was the speaker of the evening, his subject being “Russian events and their bearing upon the labor problem.”

He prefaced his remarks by referring to the large audience present as one of the many indications of the increasing interest that was everywhere being taken in what was really the only problem confronting human society today, and that was the Labor Problem. He then explained that the overthrow of the autocratic rule of the Czar and his following in Russia, was but a repetition of that which had already occurred in the other countries of Europe where the absolutism of the Feudal autocracy and its church had been broken down in order to give full play and free reign [sic] to capitalist forces and development. This particular epoch in Russia’s history had been delayed because of a somewhat belated economic development. Now that the economic development had reached the point where industry in many lines had already assumed the capitalist garb, the autocratic rule of the Czar and his bureaucrats became no longer compatible with the free development of capitalist production. Hence the revolution, for the purpose of breaking down autocratic rule and substituting constitutional government therefor.

While the Russian revolution possessed the same characteristics, and arose from the same causes, as the French revolution, and the European uprisings of 1848, and while it was attended with the same ruling class brutality and blood-letting, the speaker contended that it differed from those previous affairs most markedly in one respect, and that was in the attitude assumed by the proletariat. In the previous revolutions referred to, the proletariat was merely a tool used by the bourgeoisie to assist in breaking the rule of the old order. It set up no demands of its own of any consequence. The capitalist method of production had not yet advanced far enough to clearly establish the class line between employer and employee, and thus awaken in the latter, that class consciousness that would prompt it to become revolutionary in its own behalf, and break the rule of capital over labor, even as capitalism had broken the rule of Feudalism. In this Russian affair the proletariat is both loud and insistent in its demands. Capitalism has developed far enough, even under Czarism, to create a considerable city proletariat. These workmen have had access to the written and spoken record of the experience of the proletariat of countries much more highly developed industrially than Russia, and they have imbibed the revolutionary ideas that such development germinates in the working class brain. By virtue of this, the Russian revolution is marked by much clearer and more pronounced working class demands than preceding events of similar character.

The speaker felt sure that, though that artfully constructed farce known as constitutional government, should follow the downfall of the Russian autocracy, with a numerous and revolutionary proletariat to deal with at the very outset of its career, it would travel a thorny path, and the span of its existence would be shorter than in the other European countries. At any rate the action of the Russian workingmen during these recent troublous times, should prove an object lesson to workmen everywhere as showing the overwhelming power of the workers once they act in unison. Without the aid of these workmen, the power of Czarism could not have been broken. Once these men laid down their tools, the job was done.