V. I.

Lenin

On Sunday, September 7 (August 25, 0. S.), exactly a week
after the police massacre, the Dublin workers organised a huge meeting to
protest against the conduct of the Irish capitalists and the Irish police.

The meeting took place in the same street (O’Connell Street) and at the
same spot where the meeting banned by the police was to have taken place
the previous Sunday. It is a historic spot, a spot where it is most
convenient to organise meetings and where they are most frequently held in
Dublin.

The police kept out of sight. The streets were filled with
workers. There were crowds of people, but complete order prevailed. “Last
Sunday,” exclaimed an Irish speaker, “the police truncheon reigned here
without reason; today reason reigns without the police truncheon.”

Britain has a constitution—and the authorities did not dare
to bring their drunken policemen into action for the second time. Three
platforms were put up and six speakers, including representatives of the
English proletariat, condemned the crime perpetrated against the people,
called upon the workers to display international solidarity, to wage a
common struggle.

A resolution was unanimously adopted demanding freedom of assembly and
association, and calling for an immediate investigation—under the
direction of independent persons and with a guarantee of publicity for all
the proceedings—of the conduct of the police the previous Sunday.

In London a magnificent meeting was held in Trafalgar Square. Groups of
socialists and workers came with their banners. There were many posters
with cartoons and slogans on topical events. The crowd particularly applauded a poster
depicting a policeman waving a red flag with the inscription, “Silence!”

Outstanding speeches were made by Ben Tillett, who showed that the
“Liberal” government of Britain is no better than a reactionary one, and
Partridge, Dublin Secretary of the Engineers’ Union, who described in
detail the shameless acts of police violence in Dublin.

It is instructive to note that the principal slogan at the London and
Dublin meetings was the demand for freedom of association. This is quite
understandable. Britain has the foundations of political liberty,
has a constitutional regime, generally speaking. The freedom of
association demanded by the workers is one of the reforms absolutely
necessary and quite achievable under the present constitutional regime
(just as achievable as, say, the partial reform of workers’ insurance in
Russia).

Freedom of association is equally indispensable to the workers of
Britain and of Russia. And the British workers quite rightly advance this
slogan of a political reform essential to them, perfectly well aware of the
path to be followed for its achievement and of its complete feasibility
under the British Constitution (just as the Russian workers would be right
in advancing the partial demand for amendments to the Insurance Act).

In Russia, however, precisely those general foundations of political
liberty are absent without which the demand for freedom of
association is simply ridiculous and is merely a current liberal phrase
designed to deceive the people by suggesting that the path of reform is
possible in our country. In Russia the fight for freedom of
association—freedom most urgently needed by both the workers and the
entire people—cannot be conducted without contrasting the
impotent and false reformism of the liberals with the consistent democracy
of the workers, who have no reformist illusions.

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