Appeal from various parties in the internationalist camp, 3 - 4 November 1917

Workers, soldiers and peasants, the revolution is in danger

3 - 4 November 1917

The government created by part of the Congress of Soviets on the basis of a seizure of power which had already taken place in Petrograd is exclusively Bolshevik. It cannot find support among the whole organised democracy, and recognised by only one party, does not have a sufficient basis in the country.

The split in the ranks of democracy is pushing its right-wing elements, despite the long-evident complete bankruptcy of coalition politics, to a new rapprochement with the property-owning classes.

All this facilitates the work of counterrevolution which, under the guise of suppressing the Bolshevik rising, is mobilising its forces to smother the revolution itself.

The civil war threatening the country with untold upheavals and bloodshed is leading to the enfeeblement of democracy and the demise of the revolution.

In these conditions, only a revolutionary-democratic government, created and recognised by all sections of organised democracy, can deal with the economic collapse, bring the country to peace, resolve the land question and ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

We appeal to both camps of the revolutionary democracy with a firm demand to find a way to compromise and create a homogeneous democratic government, capable of giving a rebuff to the counterrevolutionary coalition of the property-owning classes.

We appeal to both camps of the revolutionary democracy with a firm demand to restore a united revolutionary front so that the revolution itself does not choke in the blood of soldiers, workers and peasants.

Menshevik-Internationalists
Left Socialist-Revolutionaries
United Social-Democrat Internationalists
Polish Socialist Party (Lewica)
Jewish Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Poalei-Zion)

[First published in Iskra, 5 November 1917. Source: Yuri Fel'shtinsky (compiler), Men'sheviki, Chalidze Publications, Benson, 1988, p. 115.]