Leaflet of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP (b) about the "Freedom Loan".

A source: The economic situation in Russia on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution Part 2 - M.-L .: 1957 P.399

Archive: Gas. Sotsial-Democrat, No. 31, April 15, 1917; Sat. "Leaflets of the Moscow organization of the Bolsheviks", 1914-1925 M., 1954, p. 46.

April 14, 1917

The so-called "Freedom Loan" is mainly a war loan.

The working class must fight the attitude of the present government to war in the same way as it did to the attitude of the old government to war, because both then and now the war is imperialist in nature.

Having formally, in words, refused annexations, the Provisional Government has not yet published the obligations given by the tsarist government to the allied governments.

The very acquisition of the funds needed by the state for waging the war with the help of loans, and not with the help of special taxes on the profits of the capitalists, is a new tax on the poor.

By means of loans, the bourgeoisie converts into interest-bearing capital money that could be confiscated from it without being refunded in taxes.

In addition, a loan is a redemption of previously issued paper money. By taking them out of circulation, the loan clears space for a new issue of credit cards. Issuing paper money increases the cost and saves the bourgeoisie from taxes.

We find that at the present moment, when the German Social Democrats voted unanimously against loans and adopted a resolution on the struggle against government chauvinism, any, even disguised support for the proposed loan would be a betrayal of the cause that we began by appealing with an appeal to the working people of all countries ...

The bourgeoisie does not need workers' money, but the sanction of a loan as a guarantee of the state's fulfillment of its loan obligations, a guarantee that we cannot give.

Under such conditions, we strongly oppose any support for the so-called "Loan of Freedom".