The Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 Public Speeches
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Morris “forbade me to make any more The Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 public speeches. But…the sailors and workers,” he said, “responded to the colo- evolution across the Russian Em- nel’s order by a written protest bearing five pire was sparked in 1905, when hundred and thirty signatures.”23 RCzarist troops shot and killed a Trotsky also reminisced that: thousand or more peaceful protesters in St. “prisoners gave us a most impressive Petersburg. In the Russian, Polish, Ukrain- send-off,….sailors and workers lined ian, Finnish, Latvian and Estonian protests the passage..., an improvised band that followed this “Bloody Sunday” mas- played the revolutionary march, and sacre, millions joined general strikes and friendly hands were extended to us from mass rallies. To crush this struggle for jus- every quarter. One of the prisoners de- tice, democracy and labour rights, impe- livered a short speech acclaiming the Russian revolution and cursing the Ger- rial troops killed thousands of socialists man monarchy. Even now it makes me and anarchists, and interned some 300,000. happy to remember that in the very In 1909, Britain’s Parliamentary Peter midst of the war, we were fraternizing Russian Committee, which included an with German sailors in Amherst.”24 Anglican Bishop and two dozen MPs, pub- In 1909, this exiled Russian scientist, The Amherst camp did not close lished The Terror in Russia, by Peter Kro- atheist and anarcho-communist reported until September 27, 1919, almost a year potkin, a Russian geographer, economist, on the Csarist imperial regime’s brutal after WWI ended. Other Canadian prison atheist, evolutionary theorist and anarcho- repression of strikes and mass protests. camps kept operating even longer, until communist.1 Using reports by the Czarist February 1920. Authorities did not want regime, he showed that 2,350 civilians had internal refugees in European Russia. “[I]n to free radicalised, leftwing prisoners of been sentenced to death and executed in consequence of repression after strikes,” the class befriended by Trotsky, because Russia between 1905 and 1908. In addi- said Kropotkin, these people were forced they feared that what Woodsworth called tion, 1,330 civilians were shot without sen- to become “mere outlaws wandering from “extreme” socialism might spread like a tence and hundreds of soldiers were ex- one city to another...without any possibil- disease through Canada’s body politic. ecuted for mutiny. Other state murders in- ity of returning to their native places and cluded those “shot in the streets”2 by Csar- to their previous occupations.”3 References ist forces during huge protests and strikes. As historian Orest Martynowych 1. J.S.Woodsworth, Strangers Within Our Kropotkin also cited official data noted: “the [Ukrainian Canadian] intelli- Gates, 1909, p.156. archive.org/details/strangerswithino00wooduoft on 221,000 Czarist prisoners, and estimat- gentsia were swelled by immigrants from 2. Ibid., p.159. ed that 50,000 to 100,000 others were be- eastern (Russian) Ukraine, who arrived 3. Ibid., p.302. ing held in local “police lock-ups.” The after the revolution of 1905.”4 These “rev- 4. Ibid., pp.299, 321. crackdown also created more than 700,000 olutionary intellectuals,” said historian 5. Terrence Craig, Racial Attitudes in English- Canadian Fiction, 1905-80, 1987, p.34. books.google.ca/books?id=kM3fAgAAQBAJ Racist Roots of Toryism and antiSemitism 6. Ibid., p.35. peaking of immigrants to the US, this reform movement—a devout Method- 7. Woodsworth, Op. cit., pp.158-159. 8. Ibid., p.158 Canada’s Prime Minister Sir John ist. Tories, like Sproule and MacDonald, 9. Roz Usiskin, “Winnipeg Jewish Commu- SA.MacDonald, said in 1890: “Look also shared the Social Gospel’s faith in nity: Its Radical Elements, 1905-1918,” at the mass of foreign ignorance and vice AngloProtestant superiority. Sproule was MHS Transactions, No.33, 1976-1977. which has flooded that country with com- not only a Conservative MP (1878-1915) www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/#thirdseries 10. Harold Williams, Shadow of Democracy, munism, socialism, atheism and all other and Senator (1915-1917), he was also 1 Dispatches from Russia: 1905 Revolution, isms.” Besides being an avid antiCom- Speaker of the House (1911-1915) when 2012, p.445. munist and a devote Christian, Sir John was the War Measures Act was passed unani- books.google.ca/books?id=eo8BB AAAQBAJ an avid white supremacist. In 1885, he mously with Liberal support in 1914. 11. Usiskin, Op. cit. told Parliament that Blacks and Asians Sproule was also Grand Master of 12. Hansard, March 15, 1906, p.226. parl.canadiana.ca were a different species from what he the Grand Orange Lodge of British 13. Ibid., p.232. called “the Aryan race.” Clarifying the America (1902-1911) and became Impe- 14.Leon Trotsky, Testament, Feb. 27, 1940. economic basis of his racist xenophobia, rial Grand President of the global Impe- www.marxist.com/testament-of-leon-trotsky.htm 4 15.Leon Trotsky, My Life, 1930, p.217. he said he did not want a “mongrel race to rial Grand Orange Council in 1906. As www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife disturb the labour market.”2 such, he led an ultraright, extremist group 16.Ibid., p.218. Hatred toward nonChristians was of AngloProtestant, Catholic-hating anti- 17.The Commandant also rampant. In 1903, Thomas Sproule, Semites, loyal to the British empire. www.achart.ca/articles/york/album/words.htm 18.Trotsky, Op. cit., p.281. MP, told Parliament that “Canada is...the In 1906, while Csarist forces were 19.Ibid., pp.281, 282. dumping ground for the refuse of every crushing a revolution, Sproule ranted in the 20.Ibid., p.282. country in the world.” Particularly offen- House about “Russian Jews” coming to 21.Ibid., p.282. sive to this Tory were east Europeans, Canada. Calling them a “very undesirable,” 22.Aaron Beswick, “Leon Trotsky forged no- table month at Amherst foundry-turned in- whom he listed as “Galicians” [Ukraini- “filthy looking class” plying their “Jew ternment camp,” Herald, January 2, 2015. ans], “Poles” and “Russian Jews.”3 trade,” he said they “are not the class of 23.Trotsky, Op. cit., p.283. Although Sproule was no Social people likely to elevate...the civilization of 24.Ibid., p.285. Gospeller, he was—like most leaders of the Canadian people.” Such “riff-raff,” he 38 Press for Conversion! (Issue # 68) March 2016 Ross McCormack, soon took on leadership This was one of Camp “N” eight Canadian roles in Canada’s “emerging eastern Eu- Sherbrooke, Quebec ropean socialist movement.”5 prison camps The elites of Canada’s church and where 2,300 Jews state became more openly phobic. For ex- and Communists, ample, in 1911, an official Catholic paper who had escaped “sowed panic... describing Montreal as a Nazi Europe, hotbed of Russian anarchists who” as “vet- were held behind erans of the [1905] mutiny on the battle- barbed wire ship Potemkin,” were “the most danger- between 1940 ous elements of Russian Jewish nihilism.”6 and late 1943. References/Notes From Csarist Pogroms to Canada’s WWII 1. Born a prince, Kropotkin renounced his ti- Internment Camps for Jews and Communists tles and became a scientist. Invited by form- lamed for strikes and protests in er socialist Prof. James Mavor to lecture in 1940, Canada’s Liberals locked up 2,300 Toronto, he toured Canada in 1897, visit- the 1905-1907 revolution, Rus- European refugees, mostly Jews, in eight ing Mennonite communities. Urged on by Bsian Jews were targeted by Czarist POW camps in Quebec, Ontario and New Kropotkin and Leon Tolstoy, Mavor con- forces and attacked by vigilantes. Fleeing Brunswick. Having escaped Nazi Europe, vinced Canadian authorities to allow thou- state terror and privatised progroms, thou- these civilians were put in British and then sands of Russian Doukhobors to create prai- sands sought refuge in Canada. Canadian internment camps, with fascists. rie communes. Many were interned in Canada’s Jewish population rose After July 1941, these Jewish and commu- WWII labour camps for pacifist beliefs. from 16,000 in 1901 to 76,000 in 1911. nist refugees remained captive, but behind 2. Peter Kropotkin, The Terror in Russia, While 2,400 Jews entered Canada per year 1909, pp.34-35. the barbed wire of Canadian “refugee archive.org/stream/2917702.0001.001.umich.edu between 1901 and 1904, the annual aver- camps.” Many were not freed til late 1943. 3. Ibid., pp.7-9. age soon rose to 7,700 (1905-1908). Most Hundreds of the antiNazi refugees 4. Orest Martynowych, Village radicals and were from Russia, just as 85% of Ameri- held in Canada were communists. These peasant immigrants: The social roots of ca’s 1910 Jewish population was Russian.1 factionalism among Ukrainian immigrants POWs were of prime concern to authori- in Canada, 1896-1918, 1978, pp.101-102. Journalist Israel Medres, who came ties. In 1941, over 45% of the 500 intern- (MA thesis, Grad. Studies, University of to Montreal from Russia in 1922, said “a ees in Camp Farnham, near Montreal, were Manitoba.) migration of unprecedented size arrived in Communist supporters. Camp authorities 5. A.Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, the Quebec metropolis following the Rus- reported that inmates had elected “Com- and Revolutionaries: The Western Cana- sian revolution of 1905.”2 They were met munists or Communist sympathizers...for dian Radical Movement, 1899-1919, p.65. books.google.it/books?id=qixxVyYBVVAC by an antiSemitic/antiRed hatred that typi- most of the posts.” When indignant Reds 6. Jacques Langlais and David Rome, Jews fied Canada, especially its elites. In 1907, became “assertive and vocal,” seven of & French Quebecers: Two Hundred Years Liberal MP, Armand Lavergne, decrying their “ring-leaders” were targeted for trans- of Shared History, 1991, p.45.