Vote for the Bolsheviks!

September 1917

Comrades!

The elections to the district councils are approaching. Everyone chooses: workers and soldiers, men and women, are elected on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret ballot.

Get ready for the elections and take an active part in them.

The former bosses of the city, known to all the moneybags, left us a disorganized and plundered city economy.

Your task is to take this economy into your own hands and rebuild it in a new, democratic way.

Lack of clean drinking water, lack of gratuitous medical care, lack of tolerable sanitary supervision, lack of necessary living quarters, burdening the poor with city taxes, lack of schools and other cultural institutions, unrelenting exploitation of workers employed in city enterprises, and, finally, an ever-increasing lack of bread and other necessary food, endless tails, overcrowded trams - this is the now unattractive picture of city life.

It is necessary to rebuild all city life from top to bottom in the interests of the working population.

It is necessary to immediately put in order the city water supply system and provide the population with free clean drinking water.

An immediate restructuring of the entire medical business is necessary in order to fully provide the urban poor with free medical care.

It is necessary to introduce a democratically established sanitary supervision, which provides the population with hygienic living and working conditions.

A complete abolition of all and all city taxes that burden the urban poor is required.

Immediate introduction of a progressive income tax on income, property and inheritance is necessary.

It is necessary to implement free general education, develop a network of democratically established public schools, organize folk theaters, universities and other cultural and educational institutions.

What is needed is labor protection and insurance against unemployment, etc., the organization of proletarian labor exchanges headed by trade unions, and a radical improvement in the situation of workers and women employed in urban enterprises.

The widest possible development of urban railways is necessary, with particular attention to the suburbs and outskirts, the construction of a ring railway and the establishment of cheap morning, lunch and evening work trains.

The most decisive measures are needed, including the requisition of residential premises and the establishment of compulsory apartment prices in order to meet the housing needs of the many thousands of urban poor.

The most decisive measures are required, up to the requisition of food supplies, the organization of city food warehouses, shops, bakeries, public canteens, warehouses for firewood, coal, etc., in the interests of providing the population with bread and other necessities.

Finally, it is necessary to curb the speculators who profit from the people's need and the banks helping them by taking the most decisive measures against them.

All this is needed like air and water.

But none of these reforms can be fully implemented as long as the government is in power, protecting the profits of capitalists and homeowners, while the enemies of the revolution have the opportunity to restore, under the guise of militia, the old police cut off from the population.

If you want to resolve the food crisis, provide the population with bread and destroy the tails, then refuse to support the predatory war that caused this crisis, because any support for the war is its delay, and the delay of the war threatens with hunger.

If you want to alleviate the housing needs of the population, if you want to impose taxes only on the rich strata, then refuse to support the government that protects the profits of the rich, because housing, tax and other reforms are unthinkable without encroaching on the profits of the capitalists and homeowners protected by the government.

You want real, not paper-based implementation of reforms - then fight against those who are trying to restore the old police, seek a democratically organized and responsible general militia, because only such a militia can ensure the implementation of reforms in practice, because only with such a militia can you count on, that reforms will not degenerate into an empty sound.

Those who, promising reforms, call at the same time to support the war, are deceiving the people, for they are feeding them empty and false promises. Such are the party of Milyukov and Co., such are all these newly-made “republicans for an hour,” such are, finally, the defencists of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (Socialist-Revolutionaries).

Those who, promising reforms, call at the same time to support the government of capitalists and homeowners, in every possible way hindering the conduct of the people's militia - they are deceiving the people, because they are feeding them with false promises. Such is the party of Milyukov and company, such are all these newly-made "republicans for an hour," such are, finally, the defencists from the Mensheviks and social revolutionaries.

No confidence in these gentlemen, not a single voice in these gravediggers of the revolution.

Comrades! Elections to regional councils are approaching. Get ready for the elections and take an active part in them.

In close-knit rows, go to the ballot boxes.

Vote in an amicable and orderly manner for the lists of the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks).

Against a predatory war, against the government of the rich, against the restoration of the police, for the people's militia, for the democratization of the city economy, for decisive measures to help the poorest population - this is our password.

Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

Подробнее: http://comstol.info/2012/11/biblioteka/5120