Germany is apparently over, and yet the war against the Russian people still continues. Why? The reason is not far to seek.

The workers and peasants in Russia have done what your rulers fear you will do; they have swept the whole-class of parasites, courtiers, landlords, and capitalists out of power, and have taken possession of the land and the means of production for the use of the whole people. The Russian people refuse to be the slaves of an idle class any longer. They are constructing a new order of society in which the products of the labor will go to those who work. The spirit which animates the Russian people has spread westward, and now the Austrian, Hungarian, and German people have overthrown their rulers, and are rapidly traveling along the same lines as the workers of Russia. It is the awakening of the real democracy that we are witnessing today. The common workers in field, factory, and mine are asserting their right and power to rule, and be masters of their own destiny.

Your masters see that the spirit of revolt is spreading to your countries. In both England and America the idea of Bolshevism is making rapid headway. Great labor demonstrations frequently take place at which the workers demand that the means of wealth production shall be taken over by the workers. At these meetings strong protests are expressed against the invasion of Russia. Your masters know that the source and center of the revolutionary world movement is Russia, and they are determined therefore to crush it out, and remove the menace to their power. That is why you are here. That is why your masters will not permit you to rejoin your loved ones who are eagerly looking forward to your return.

You see that the war has now been converted into a gigantic conflict between labor and capital. It is a conflict between progress and reaction. A conflict between those who are inaugerating a new area of social and economic liberty for the toiling masses, and those who desire to retain the present sordid commercial system, with its sweating, poverty and war. And you who obey the orders of your governments are fighting to maintain the old order, you are fighting on the side of reaction against the forces of labor and progress.

Is this worth dying for? Do you really desire to bleed and die in order that capitalism may continue? Say no!

Form Soldiers' Councils in each regiment, and demand of

your governments, demand of your officers to be sent home. Refuse to shoot your fellow workers in Russia-refuse to crush our workers' revolution.

THE GROUP OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COMMUNISTS.

III. PARLIAMENT OR SOVIET

To American and British Soldiers:

You are told that you are fighting for democracy. But what kind of democracy are you fighting for? On one side is the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, on the other side. the capitalist" democracies" of England, France and the United States.

The fact is clear, and you have to choose between two existing systems of management of public life by the workers for the workers; or by the workers and the capitalist for the capitalists. The political system under which you live appears to give the right to control public affairs to the people. But who actually controls affairs in your countries? Is it not the Morgans and Rockefellers, the Devenports, Rhondas or men like these; big business men, capitalists and financiers. At elections they make fine promises, but when they are returned do nothing, and when some petty reform is demanded they wonder where the money is to come from. If the workers get more insistent in their demands these so called representatives of the people will call out troops to shoot the people down, as they did at Ludlow, Colorado, Tonypandy, Wales, and Dublin.

In our democracy only the workers have a voice, only those that produce the useful things decide how to enjoy the results of their common efforts. We are a commonwealth of fellow-workers and we don't want parasites and their supporters to interfere with our affairs.

This kind of democracy is not to the liking of those who wish to live upon the labor of others. Being a minority they want a democracy that secures the rule of the few over the many and you are made to fight for this kind of "democracy."

You may argue since we have general suffrage it is our own stupidity if we elect the wrong representatives to Parliament and we are going to change this gradually.

But even if it was possible to secure a majority of the right people in Parliament, this would not help you out since Parliament is only one of the institutions of capitalist power and not

the most important either. There is the government with its bureaucratic machinery, the police, the judges, the army. In the Parliaments the representatives were allowed to talk, but it is the executive power, the government that acts. And this government in all countries is becoming more and more powerful, whereas the influence of the Parliament is on the decline. It would be absurd to believe that it will be possible to vote the capitalists out of power, out of their privileges. Parliament is a capitalist institution to further capitalist interests and if it ceases to further those interests it will be simply reorganized or abolished altogether.

More than that, political control is useless if it does not carry with it control of the means of life; in your country Parliament has only a very limited control of industry. The means of production are owned and controlled almost exclusively by capitalists. Those who own the means of life, own every thing. In Russia the means of life are owned by the whole nation, and the control is vested in the local and National Soviets. The Soviets are elected from the workers in the factories, mines or railroads as the case may be. We have thus direct and exclusive labor representation. Ours is a real labor republic, and when you come against us to overthrow the Soviets and establish the kind of democracy that exists in your countries, you are attempting to overthrow the rule of the workers and re-establish the rule of kings and capitalists.

Fellow workingmen, refuse to be the suppressors of your own class. Strive rather to establish your rule in your countries. Form soldiers' councils in your regiments. Send your representative to your officers and demand to be sent home. And when you get home remove the sham capitalist democracy reigning there, and establish true republics of labor as we have done in Russia.

THE GROUP OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COMMUNISTS

BOLSHEVIST PROPAGANDA

(Distributed among British and American Soldiers in North Russia)

IV. THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AND PEACE

To British and American Soldiers:

Comrades-Now that the war with Germany is over, you no doubt, in common with your fellow-countrymen in France and at home, are demanding to be discharged from further military serv

ice, and to be allowed to return to your dear ones. Do you know that your comrades in France and at home are practically "raising hell" because demobilization is not proceeding quickly enough? Why are you not being sent home?

You are probably being told that peace cannot be restored in Europe until peace is restored in Russia, and that you are still required for that purpose. But who stands in the way of peace in Russia? Not the Soviet government.

The Soviet government has made repeated offers to the Allied governments no discuss peace. In November last through the medium of neutral governments it informed the Allies of its readiness and willingness to open negotiations. On the occasion of the departure of the Swedish consul from Russia the Soviet government requested him to convey to the Allied governments its desire to discuss peace. At the last All-Russian Convention of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, the supreme parliament of Russia, a resolution was carried instructing the Soviet government to offer to negotiate peace with the Allies. This resolution was telegraphed far and wide. Finally a letter was sent to President Wilson personally when he arrived in Europe, to the same effect. No reply was received to any of these offers. Towards the end of December Reuter's Agency sent out a message to the effect that the peace offers of the Soviet government had been received, but as the Allies did not recognize the Bolsheviks, no reply would be

sent.

In the meantime, however, the workers and soldiers in your home countries had discovered the real reason for the Allied armed intervention in Russia. They saw through the lies and calumny spread by the capitalist press about the Bolsheviks. They know that intervention was undertaken for the purpose of overthrowing the working class government, and restoring the reign of monarchy and capitalism. There is now a tremendous agitation which is taking on a revolutionary character in your home countries against the war on Russia. Huge protest meetings of workers are held in the big cities under the motto " Hands off Russia!" Strikes have broken out in the mines and railroads, and in some places riots have taken place in which workers and police have been injured. The strongest agitation against the continuation of the war on Russia is carried on by the soldiers. Discipline in the army at home has completely gone. Soldiers are parading the streets demanding immediate demobilization. In

Aldershot, the largest military camp in England, there were huge demonstrations of soldiers shouting: "You want to send us to Russia, but we won't go!"

In order to allay the storm of popular indignation the Allied governments sent out a statement in which they expressed their deep concern and sympathy for the sad plight in which the Russian people found themselves. They expressed their keen desire to assist Russia to get out of its difficulties. They had no wish to interfere in the internal politics of Russia, they said, nor endeavor to impose any particular kind of government on the Russian people. They definitely declared that they recognized the Russian revolution, and would under no circumstances support any counter-revolutionary attempts. They invited all the political groups which had achieved or were striving to achieve governmental power in Russia to meet Allied representatives on the Prince Islands in the Sea of Marmora in order to submit their claims. They suggested in the meantime that any armistice should be arranged between the warring sections, and demanded that the Soviet government should withdraw its troops from those territories outside of European Russia.

If this were a sincere offer of peace it would have been communicated to the Soviet government through the usual diplomatic channels. But it was not even addressed to the Russian government, but sent out by wireless for anybody to read who cared to take notice of it. The Allies still refuse to recognize the Soviet government. The other political groups referred to are the counter-revolutionaries Tchaikovsky, Admiral Kolchak, and Generals Denikin and Krasnoff. In inviting them the Allies place them on the same level as the government of Russia. The Allies have been, and are still, helping the counter-revolution. That is what you American and British soldiers are here for. In demanding an armistice with these, and the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the Allies demand that the Red Army give up the fight just when it is beating the Tsarist counted-revolutionaries hands down. It is not a peace offer, but a demand to the Bolsheviks to surrender. These conditions were attached to the invitation, as the London "Times" frankly stated, with the expectation that the Soviet government would refuse it. The Allied governments would then be able to say to their people: "You see, we have offered peace to the Bolsheviks, but they refuse. There is nothing else for us but to go on with the war."

But it does not say much for the cuteness of the Allied govern