Liquidation of the Revolt

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Official communiqué

The crazy revolt of the so-called Left SRs has been liquidated. The judicial investigation authorities will in the next few days clarify the precise factual picture of this unprecedented adventure and establish the degree of responsibility borne by individual participants. But the political significance of the Moscow events of July 6-7 is already quite clear.

Bending to the pressure of the bourgeois classes of society, the Left SRs made in recent weeks increasingly persistent efforts to draw Russia into war with Germany. These efforts of theirs found expression not only in pointing to the exceptionally burdensome conditions of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, but also in fabricating and spreading monstrous rumours and suspicions, calculated to have a disturbing effect on the people’s imagination. Conscious workers and peasants are, of course, well enough aware of the heaviness of the conditions of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. But they are no less clearly aware what the consequences would be if Russia, exhausted and bled white, were to be drawn into the imperialist slaughter. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of the workers and peasants consciously rejected that tearing up of the Brest treaty which is frenziedly called for by the Cadets, the Right SRs, the Mensheviks and the Left SRs.

The failure of their demagogic agitation in favour of war impelled the Left SRs to take the road of senseless and dishonest adventure: they decided to draw Russia into the war by means of an act of terrorism, against the will of the workers and peasants. After the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets had categorically approved the foreign policy of the Council of People’s Commissars, a certain Blyumkin, acting on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Left SR party, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach.

In carrying out this provocative act the Left SRs relied not so much on their Party apparatus as on the official position they occupied as a Soviet party. With this Party’s backing, Blyumkin became a member of the staff of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution. Utilizing his official status, he took possession of some documents and forged others, gained entry, under cover if his official status, into the German Embassy, and there carried out the assassination he had been ordered to perform by the Central Committee of his party.

At the same time the Left SRs openly proceeded to acts of rebellion, which had the aim of forcibly transferring state power from the hands of the All-Russia Congress of Soviets into those of a party which had proved to be in the minority in the Congress. Members of the Left SRs’ Central Committee tried to develop the revolt, relying on part of a unit of the Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution. This unit was commanded by the Left SR Popov. The part of Popov’s unit which became involved in the conspiracy, reinforced by demoralized elements from the personnel of the Black Sea Fleet, sent out street patrols and posted sentries, arrested representatives of the Soviet power, and disarmed and fired on certain groups of Red Army men. The rebels had machine-guns, cannon and armoured cars.

In this way there developed, on July 7, the revolt of a Soviet party which had proved to be in the minority, against the power of the Soviets.

Had this revolt succeeded (assuming that such an adventure could have succeeded) it would have meant immediate war with Germany and the downfall of the Soviet power, since nobody with any common sense could, of course, suppose that the Left SRs would be able to keep hold of the power torn from the hands of the workers’, peasants’ and Red Army men’s soviets. By the essential nature of the whole situation, the Left SRs revolted on July 6-7 exclusively as a fighting squad in the service of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, for which it was clearing the road.

Under these conditions there was only one decision that the Council of People’s Commissars could take: to put down as quickly as possible a revolt in which frivolity, perfidy and provocation were combined in one disgusting whole.

Vigorous action brought results within a few hours. The Left SRs abandoned the post and telegraph office where they had been in command for two hours. Disintegration began in Popov’s unit after the first shots they received from the Soviet forces. A considerable part of the unit reacted indignantly to the adventure and came over entirely to the side of the representatives of the Soviet power whom the rebels had taken prisoner – Comrades Dzerzhinsky, Latsis and Smidovich. It was only thanks to this that these comrades were preserved from the danger of losing their lives.

The liquidation of the revolt was fully worthy of its original conception and of the entire course of this shameful adventure. Utter confusion at the rebels’ headquarters and demoralization in the rebel unit developed together. In setting themselves such an aim as the seizure of state power, the leaders of the Left SRs apparently quite failed to appreciate the scope and significance of this task which was utterly beyond their strength. After insignificant attempts to resist, the rebels began to send out flags of truce in various directions, and then retreated in disorder.

Pursuit of the fugitives is now proceeding with complete success. The number of prisoners taken is already numbered in hundreds. Details will be given by the Government at the next session of the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, which will speak its decisive word regarding both the revolt of July 6-7 and the entire fate of the so-called Left SR party.