The Third International to the Workers of all Countries Concerning the Polish Question/To the Workers of all Countries Concerning the Polish Question
To the Workers of all Countries.
Concerning the Polish Question.
The governments of France, England and America who are alleged to have been waging a bloody war for the last four years in the name of democracy, liberty and the establishment of a stable and lasting peace between nations, are now egging on Poland to fight Soviet Russia; this same Poland who has received her freedom and independence not out of the hands of the imperialist governments but as a result of the Russian and the German revolutions.
Before his retirement the following is the resolution that Celemenceau made at the last political conference: War with Soviet Russia to the last drop of blood of the last Polish soldier. The poor section of the Polish population arrayed in the Scotch uniform presented to them by the charitable English are carrying on a bloody battle with Russian workers and peasants along the whole length of the front with which the Poles have cut into Lithuania, White Russia and the Ukraine, utterly disregarding the will of the wide masses of the population.
Now after the conclusive defeat of Udenich, Kolchak and Denikin the Polish war against Russia seems at first sight scarcely a probability. Considering that the white generals who had mobilised under their banner of the «great and indivisible Russia» not only all the forces of the Russian bourgeoisie, and not only all that was left of the feudal-tzarist, regime; considering that the white generals who depended not only upon the support of international capitalism but also upon the fierce hatred of all the bourgeois elements of old Russia—failed to resist the mighty pressure of the Red Army, is it at all likely that a country like Poland, weak and left to its own resources should decide to throw itself into a battle against the Russian Workers and Peasants Republic? This would indeed be an absurd and suicidal adventure on the part of the Polish Government.
Nevertheless, comrades, let us face the truth boldly,—such an adventure is possible, and it is the duty of the workers of the whole world to do everything to prevent it.
It is the Allies in the first place that are attempting by main force to compell Poland to take this desperate step.
At Versailles they made every endeavour economically and forever to destroy Germany and to split up Central Europ into small States—to dismember it so that the sharks of international capital may the easier swallow the peoples of Germany, Austria and the Bakans piece by piece. But the peoples of Europe are neither Hindoos nor Negroes, and knowing this, the knights of French capital tremble with fear before the consequences of their own policy. The French capitalists do not beleive that the German people with its neck in the Versailles noose will calmly and patiently bear the yoke of an ignominious slavery. Just us after the defeat of France in 1871 Bismark lived all the time under the fear of the possibility of a Franco-Russian Alliance against Germany, just so the present rulers of France are constantly faced with the threatening vision of the nations of Central Europe rising against them. And more especially do they quail before the idea that the Russian people who had now settled its countless enemies will form a fraternal alliance with the German nation which had also emancipated itself from the yoke of capital and younkerdom and the two will subsequantly afford a powerful susport to the French and the British workers against their exploiters.
The French bourgeoisie has other fears besides, It is in no small degree afraid of a strong «great» landlord, capitalist Russia. Should the Russian reaction, with the aid of the Allies, have succeeded in gaining a victory over Worker Peasant Russia,—it would then, in alliance with the defeted imperialist Germany, be compelled to fall upon its saviours for the express purpose of forcing from them a portion of the booty which the capitalists of France, England, of America and Japan have divided amongst thems2Ives. For the only Way in which it were possible for the Russian reaction further to fool the labour and peasant masses is by the glitter of foreign conquest, by a mirage of «Great Russia». This fear, on the one hand, of an approaching alliance between the revolutionary proletariat of Russia with the revolutionary proletariat of Germany and on the other hand of a possible coalition of reactionary Germany with reactionary Russia is what dictates the entire policy of the Allies in regard to Poland; this primarily applies to bourgeois France.
Formerly French capital was an indifferent onlooker of the manner in which the Tzarist Government dealt with Poland; the French bourgeois press systematically maintained silence regarding the brutalities committed by the Tzarist satraps in Poland. Whereas now, so soon as Beseller's military heel was removed from the neck of the Polish people, France began to evince a particular interest to the young Polish Republic, supplying it from the first day of its establishment with articles of military equipment. Having driven Poland as a wedge betwen Russia and Germany, French capital resolved to convert her, Poland, into a fortress against Germany, into a base for mainitaining in the East a new European political equilibrium favourable to the French bourgeoisie.
In the forthcoming conflict with Germany, the phantom of which is depriving the French Stock Exchange kings of their rest, capitalist France cannot count upon the assistance of her former Allies. American capital is leaving petty European intrigues, concentrating its attention on the Pacific Ocean, on the conflict with Japan, which it is expected will give the American bourgeoisie an apportuniy of arousing once again the popular masses to fight for the interests of capital, to fight for new sources of capitalist profits. The position of British imperialism is growing more difficult daily. In England herself, the dissaffection of the wide masses of the population is constantly increasing; a dissaffection due to economic disorganisation and new taxes which fall, a heavy burden, not only upon the working masses but also upon the middle classes. Ireland is on the eve of revolution. Mass disturbances threatening to take the form of a revolution against British domination are prevalent in Egypt and India…. In the event of war with the German workers or the German capitalists the only hope left to the French bourgeoisie is Poland. This country must at all costs be fully adapted to the role of watch dog of French capital in the East.
But bourgeois France intends to make use of Poland not only in the presumed coming war with Germany..France intends to force upon her the duties of executioner of Soviet Russia, to compell her to stifle that country with her own hands, and the sooner the better—at all events, if possible, before the victory of the working class in Germany. If by the time of that victory Soviet Russia is wiped off the face of the earth Marshal Foch will occupy, unimpeded, the Rhine coal basis with black and yellow troops, cutting off the proletarian German revolution from its most important source of life and of power. Once the Russian and the German revolutions are severally settled the French exploiters calculate that to put an end to the insurrection of ther own proletariat will be a comparatively easy matter.
This is the reason why France is so persistently, so anxiously encouraging Poland to fight Soviet Russia. The reason for the impatience evinced by France is the apprehension lest the Worker Peasant Government in Russia gather sufficient strength to impress Poland of the hopelessness of her, Poland's, undertaking, and lest the movement of the Polish Working masses, which is growing from day to day compell the ruling classes of that country to repudiate this military adventure.
What is the attitude of capital, which his a presentiment of its inevitable ruin, towards the adventurous policy of independent Poland? Independent Poland did not arise as the result of the insurrection of the wide Polish misses. The wide masses of Poland submissively bore the yoke of national oppression, mutely dying for their several «fatherlands» at once in the war, or, in the person of the leading Polish proletariat, closing its ranks under the banner of socialism, bravely fought against the war. The ruling landlord and capitalist classes of Poland made use of the banner of independence to carry on during the war an auction with the three governments with whom they wore historically connected. The Polish landlords in Galicia clamoured for Polish «independence» under the sceptre of the Hapsburgs, giving up all idea of the liberation of the Poles groaning under the yoke of the Hohenzollerns—for the simple reason that Wilhelm Hohenzollern was the friend and the ally of that same Carl Hapsburg who was the Polish landed gentry's nominee for the throne of the future independent Poland. On the other side of the trenches the Polish capitalists and landlords hoped that with his victory over imperialism the Russian Tzar would with the assistance of the sharks of the French Stock Exchange establish an «independant» Poland under his protecorate. All the plans for the establishment of an independant Poland with the assitance of Austrian and German Imperialism ended in that the champion of these plans, the Polish social compromiser who was a revolutionary once upon a time but who during the war had become the leader of the Polish legions, Joseph Pilsudsky, has found himself behind the burs of the Magdeburg fortress. Poland has attained a certain degree of independace only owing to the fact that under the pressure of the wide masses of Russia and Germany imperialism gave way in these countries. The Polish ruling classes were at the head of the government and being under the domination of the victorious countries, hoped that these will not only assist them to suppress the Polish revolutionary movement and put the Lithuanians, White Russians and the Ukrainians completely under their domination, but will also render every aid for the revival of Polish capitalism.
Whilst taking an interest in the military strength of Poland, the Allies, however, evinced not the slightest regard as to the revival of Polish industry. They gave the Poles neither machinery, nor raw material, nor corn… The trains that went from Paris via Coblence to Warsaw carried only military freight, instruments for the extermination of man by man. Poland's economic position was driven into an ever growing impass. The masses of the people are starving; speculators and prostitute officials are holding banquets;—a festival in time of plague, it may be called. The wave of public indignation is growing with every day.
The hope entertained, that Poland as a country not loaded with State debt, will be helped by the Allies to obtain a large credit abroad.—was completely shattered. Polish currency is at a lower rate than that of defeated Germany. For all the goods received from the Allies the Poles have to pay at exhorbitant prices; on the other hind French, American and English speculators export unhindered the last remnants of the wealth of devastated Poland.
The result of all this is the growing distrust, irritation and hatred towards the Allies not anly of the mass of the people but even of a part of the bourgeoisie and of the Polish offic1e1rs; unpleasant collisions between the Polish and the Allied officers have become a common occurance.
In the Polish Seim the majority belongs to the politically ignorant profiteering peasants. At the head of the Government at first stood a famous musician, his place has now been taken by a provincial druggist. One of the most influential men is the romantic Joseph Pilsudsky,—whose hatred of Tzarism had made him a revolutionary, and whose hatred subsequently of the labour revolution has turned him into a reactionary general. Now, being part of the Government which is shooting workers wholesale he at the same time belongs to the Polish Socialist Party, who has stated in Parliament (Seim) through Dashinsky that the yoke of the Polish reaction drops a heavier burden on the shoulders of the masses than did Tzarist despotism.
Such are the conditions under which the current events are taking place.
The ruling classes of Poland labouring under this mortal fear and egged on by the Allies are likely at any moment to throw themselves desperately into any kind of adventure. We repeat this is t he reason which makes a Polish war against Soviet Russia an absolute possibility.
We are confident that Soviet Russia has little to fear from this war. We are equally confident that the masses of Worker Peasant Russia who have so heroically resisted the attacks of Ko1chak, Udenitch, Denikin and the like will be able to deal accordingly with the Polish landlords and capitalists, and will not allow the Polish adventurers to revive that interregnum when the Polish landed gentry reigned in the Kremlin…
But the Communist International is averse to the Polish and Russian workers paying with their blood for the adventures of the Polish bourgeoisie. Soviet Russia wants peace. Soviet Russia desires to avoid war so as to be able to put an end to the poverty and ruin called out by the war and to begin a constructive, peaceful life. The Communist International is aware that the workers' government in Poland can only be firm, when the Polish workers and pesants themselves will achieve their victory, and will overthrow the domination of the Polish landlords and capitalists.
Soviet Russia has upon many ocassions offered to begin peace negotiations with the Polish Republic; Soviet Russia emphasised not only her readiness for the complete recognition of Polish independance but also its willingness to solve all disputed questions by the means of peaceful negotiations. Soviet Russia has done all in her power to prevent a new war and new bloodshed.
The rest remains with you, comrades, workers of the world!
The Polish workers have made demonstretions and strikes as a protest against the w2a. All hail to the Polish workers who are doing their duty under the most difficult conditions!
French and British workers! The issue is in your hands; it now depends on your supporting the Polish proletariat in their struggle against the war. Save Poland from the horrors of war. Help the Polish workers to liberate their country, to help Soviet Russia, to prevent a new war.
The Executive Committee of the Communist International appeals to you to take your part in the struggle against the military adventure of the French imperialists.
Workers of France! Put an end to this ignoble incitation of Poland against the Soviet Republic.
Workers of Poland! Force your bourgeoisie to abandon this new adventure, compell them to give up the war with Worker Peasant Russia.
Down with the international robbers!
Long live the international proletariat!
President of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. G. ZINOVIEFF.
February 17th 1920.