Comrade workers! The day of the great holiday of the workers of the whole world is approaching. On May First, they celebrate their awakening to light and knowledge, their unification into one fraternal union for the struggle against all oppression, against all tyranny, against all exploitation, for the socialist organization of society. All who labor, who feed the rich and noble with their labor, who spend their lives in backbreaking work for meager wages, who never enjoy the fruits of their labor, who live like beasts of burden amidst the luxury and brilliance of our civilization, all of them extend their hand for the struggle for the liberation and happiness of the workers. Down with enmity between workers of different nationalities or different religions! Such enmity is only beneficial to the plunderers and tyrants, who live by the darkness and disunity of the proletariat. Jew and Christian, Armenian and Tatar, Pole and Russian, Finn and Swede, Latvian and German – all, all go together under one common banner of socialism. All workers are brothers, and in their strong union is the only guarantee for the welfare and happiness of all the working and oppressed humanity. On May First, this union of workers of all countries, international Social-Democracy, reviews its forces and rallies for a new, tireless, unwavering struggle for freedom, equality, and brotherhood.

Comrades! We now stand in Russia on the eve of great events. We have entered into the last desperate battle with the autocratic tsarist government, we must bring this battle to a victorious end. Look at the misfortunes to which this government of fiends and tyrants, a government of venal courtiers and lackeys of capital, has brought the entire Russian people! The tsarist government has thrown the Russian people into a senseless war against Japan. Hundreds of thousands of young lives have been torn from the people and destroyed in the Far East. There are no words to describe all the calamities that this war brings. And what is it being waged for? For Manchuria, seized from China by our predatory tsarist government! Russian blood is being spilled for foreign land, and our country is being ruined. The life of the worker and peasant becomes harder and harder, the capitalists and officials tighten the noose around them – and the tsarist government sends the people to plunder foreign land. Inept tsarist generals with venal officials have destroyed the Russian fleet, squandered hundreds and thousands of millions of the people's wealth, lost entire armies – and the war continues and brings new sacrifices. The people are being ruined, industry and trade are coming to a standstill, famine and cholera are looming, and the tsarist autocratic government, in wild blindness, is following the old path; it is ready to destroy Russia, just to save a handful of fiends and tyrants, it is starting, in addition to the war with Japan, a second war – a war with the entire Russian people.

Never before has Russia experienced such an awakening from sleep, oppression, and bondage as now. All classes of society have stirred, from workers and peasants to landowners and capitalists, voices of indignation have risen from everywhere, in St. Petersburg and the Caucasus, in Poland and Siberia. The people everywhere demand an end to the war, the people demand the establishment of a free popular government, the convocation of deputies from all citizens without exception in a constituent assembly, to appoint a people's government, to deliver the people from the abyss into which tsarist autocracy is pushing it. The St. Petersburg workers, numbering up to two hundred thousand people, went to the Tsar with the priest Georgy Gapon on Sunday, January 9, to present these popular demands. The Tsar received the workers as enemies, the Tsar shot thousands of unarmed workers in the streets of St. Petersburg. The struggle is now raging throughout Russia, the workers are striking, demanding freedom and a better life, blood is being shed in Riga and in Poland, on the Volga and in the South, the peasants are rising everywhere. The struggle for freedom is becoming a nationwide struggle.

The tsarist government has gone mad. It wants to borrow money to continue the war, but it is no longer trusted with credit. It promises to convene popular representatives, but in reality everything remains as before, the same persecutions continue, the same tyranny of officials, there are no free popular assemblies, there are no free popular newspapers, the prisons where the fighters for the workers' cause languish are not opened. The tsarist government is trying to incite one people against another, it organized a massacre in Baku, slandering the Tatars against the Armenians, it is now preparing a new massacre against the Jews, stirring up hatred towards them in the ignorant masses.

Comrade workers! We will no longer allow the Russian people to be so abused. We will stand up for the defense of freedom, we will rebuff all who want to divert popular anger from our real enemy. We will raise an uprising with weapons in our hands, to overthrow the tsarist government and win freedom for the entire people. To arms, workers and peasants! Organize secret meetings, form squads, stock up on whatever weapons you can, send trusted people to consult with the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party! Let May First of this year be for us a holiday of popular uprising – let us prepare for it, wait for the signal for a decisive attack on the tyrant. Down with the tsarist government! We will overthrow it and appoint a provisional revolutionary government to convene a popular constituent assembly. Let the people's deputies be elected by universal, direct, equal, and secret ballot. Let all fighters for freedom be released from prisons and return from exile. Let popular assemblies be openly organized and popular newspapers be printed without the supervision of accursed officials. Let the entire people be armed, let a rifle be given to every worker, so that the people themselves, and not a handful of plunderers, decide their own destiny. Let free peasant committees gather in the villages to overthrow the serf-owning landowner power, to deliver the people from official tyranny, to return to the peasants the lands taken from them.

This is what the Social-Democrats want, this is what they call for fighting for with weapons in their hands: for complete freedom, for a democratic republic, for an 8-hour working day, for peasant committees. Prepare for the great battle, comrade workers, stop factories and plants on May 1st, or take up arms in accordance with the advice of the committees of the Social-Democratic Labor Party. The hour of insurrection has not yet struck, but it is not far off. The workers of the whole world are now watching with bated breath the heroic Russian proletariat, which has made countless sacrifices for the cause of freedom. The St. Petersburg workers have already proclaimed on the famous day of January 9: freedom or death! Workers of all Russia, we will repeat this great battle cry, we will not stop at any sacrifice, we will go through insurrection to freedom, through freedom to socialism!

Long live May First, long live international revolutionary Social-Democracy!

Long live the freedom of the working and peasant people, long live the democratic republic and down with tsarist autocracy!

1905

Written before April 12 (25), 1905

Printed in 1905 as a separate leaflet

Printed according to the text of the leaflet