“On Lenin and Trotsky. 1919” in “Class Warrior”
On Lenin and Trotsky 1919
Report of a speech by Kingsley at a meeting of the Federated Labor Party in Victoria’s Columbia Theatre on 26 January 1919, countering statements made by FLP Member of the Legislative Assembly James H. Hawthornthwaite the previous week condemning the the leaders of the Russian Bolsheviks. Kingsley’s statements at this meeting prompted a resolution by Victoria City Council calling for the suppression of “seditious” meetings and the deportation of foreign-born radicals such as Kingsley.
Hawthornwaite Replied to in Victoria
E. T. Kingsley Exposed the Weakness of Statements Made. Draws Comparison between Press at Time of Paris Commune and Now.
It was indeed an invigorating and refreshing experience for the large audience which filled the Columbia Theatre on Sunday evening, to listen to the address of Mr. E. T. Kingsley, after what they had undergone the previous Sunday, when J. H. Hawthornthwaite, the modern exponent of the Nicene creed, (whose main foundation is, “I believe”) was on the platform. Mr. Kingsley showed in no uncertain manner that he was in thorough touch with his subject, and that hearsay stories from venerable old ladies of seventy-five, whose motives are open to doubt, did not have any place in the philosophy of scientific Socialism. The speaker’s remarks were greeted with round after round of applause from the audience, which practically packed the theatre.
Mr. R. Donachie was chairman, and read a resolution of the Vancouver Federated Labor Party, condemning the action of J. H. Hawthornthwaite in his anti-Bolsheviki speech of the previous Sunday, and also a challenge from No. 1 local, Socialist Party of Canada, to debate the question of Bolshevism, with the most prominent anti-Bolsheviki in the province and J. H. Hawthornthwaite in particular.
Mr. E. T. Kingsley, in his address, said the grand culmination of centuries of slave civilization had just been realized in a four years war, the results of which was eleven millions of men slain, double that number maimed and crippled, and none can accurately tell the number who died of disease and starvation, and after all the suffering and misery we, the working class, have nothing to show for the tremendous holocaust; there was nothing in the struggle which involved the freedom of the people. The struggle was entirely between conflicting interests of the master class, and as regards payment of the bill, the only people who could and did pay were the working class, and they pay every day of their lives.
For four years the Kaiser had been the goat. Another goat had now sprung up, and the Kaiser got a rest. The bogey was now discovered in another direction, the Bolsheviki. (Cheers.) Mr. Kingsley drew an interesting analogy between the attitude of the press, in the days of the Paris Commune and their expressions at the present time regarding the Bolsheviki. After the Communards had established themselves in Paris, all the capitalist press of the world raised one long, unending howl of despair, and the working class of Paris, were pictured as unkempt, bloodthirsty ruffians, running around cutting throats just for fun. The women were bedraggled, wild eyed, debauched specimens of humanity, running about with cans of kerosene setting fire to the sacred bourgeois treasures of art and science, and the cry went up from the capitalist class of the world, “If these terrorists win out in France, it will be our turn next!”
It was only years afterwards that the horrible truth was revealed by the archives and the writings of men who had been there. Elihu Washburn stated that Paris was never so safe as during the two months when the Communards were in power, that they did not destroy a building or cut a throat; that they never laid a finger on the archives or records, in fact it was all one gigantic tissue of lies. But when the truth leaked out years after, what was the horrible tale? Fifty thousand men, women and even children butchered in the streets of Paris to gratify the cowardly bloodthirsty, all blinding desire for murderous revenge of the capitalist class of France, when the French bourgeoisie (ready to join hands with their erstwhile enemies, the Prussians) slaughtered in cold blood those humble members of the working class after they had thrown up their hands in surrenders.
We of the working class should not worry about the doings of the Bolsheviki, for if they hung every Grand duke and every general without an army, and all the rest of tyrannous ruling class outfit of Russia, they could never attain to one ten-thousandth part of the atrocities practiced under the Czar. We could rest assured that all the stories of Bolsheviki atrocities were 99 per cent. falsehood and the rest a lie! Such men as Col. Thompson, Raymond Robbins, John Reed and Arthur Ransome tell an entirely different tale from what we read daily in the capitalist press. Russia was never so orderly and free from atrocities, and all who were going to Siberia with the intention of beating up the Bolsheviki would be well advised to think twice before they tackled that job.
Even the tyrannous land barons had not suffered any violence from the Bolsheviki, unless when they offered resistance. These barons received the same quota of land as the peasants, and so long as they were industrious they were perfectly safe. It was only those Russian barons without land and Russian generals without armies who were now in Paris raising such a cry against the Bolsheviki, and saying it would be dishonorable to meet them. Touching on the peace conference, Mr. Kingsley said they were certainly a nice bunch. All this talk of league of nations, no wars, etc., was just so much hypocritical bunk. The United States and Great Britain were making bigger guns than ever, the British navy was to be maintained, so that freedom of the seas might be insured. How did navies originate?
The precursor of the present gigantic fleets of lighting machines was the pirate of the high seas. In earlier days it was a regular means of getting revenue, by equipping a fleet and setting out on a marauding expedition, robbing merchantmen, until eventually it became a permanent institution in every capitalistic country, and while a single fighting ship was left there could be no freedom of the seas. As for no more war, we might as well forget it, for while the exploiting system lasted there would be war after war, each one more fierce and terrible than the previous one. Never in history had there been such a conflict as had just been finished in Europe.
The rulers had conjured up a spectre that would not down and that was not confined to Russia alone. The working class is not infallible and make mistakes. Anyone, however, who says the Bolsheviki are killing and burning, speaks falsely; no man can read the record of Trotsky and Lenin and think of them otherwise than as truthful and courageous men, valiant in the cause of working class emancipation.
Kerensky wished to form a bourgeois republic the same as the United States, than which there was no more reactionary or backward country, no country with such an apology for a labor movement, bourgeois to the core, with scarcely a grain of revolutionary thought. We in Canada do not want any rough stuff if it can be avoided, but just now there was a military shebang in Canada; our literature was banned, our correspondence scrutinized; but we had still some semblance of political rights. The time would come when we would be able to express our will at the polls, and woe to him who would attempt to thwart the will of the majority. (Loud cheers.)
A collection of $50.60 was taken.
—“Hawthornthwaite Replied to in Victoria,” British Columbia Federationist, 31 Jan. 1919, 1; see also “Speaker Who Finds World Out of Joint,” Victoria Daily Colonist, 28 Jan. 1919, 5.
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