Bhagat at age of 21
Born to a Sikh family which had earlier been involved in revolutionary activities against the British Raj in India, Singh, as a teenager, had studied European revolutionary movements and was attracted to anarchism and communism. He became involved in numerous revolutionary organizations. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and became one of its leaders, converting it to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Singh gained support when he underwent a 64-day fast in jail, demanding equal rights for Indian and British political prisoners. He was hanged for shooting a police officer in response to the killing of veteran freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai. His legacy prompted youth in India to begin fighting for Indian independence and also increased the rise of socialism in India.
Following is the Diary he wrote when he was behind bars:
Page 1
{ This note book was received on 12 Sep 1929 when the agreement was made between the hunger strikers and Special Jail committee. This is first page of the Note Book -- editor }
For Bhagat Singh
Four hundred & four pages
[ 404 Pages]
Sd/- {jail Superintendent}
12/9/29
Sgnature of Bhagat Singh {two}
Initials {two}
Page 2 { Blank}
page 3
"Lover ,lunatic and poet are mad of the same stuff"
----------------------------------------------------------------
Inductive = from particular to general
Deductive = frpm general to pticular
Centrifugal = tending from the centre
Centripital = tending to the centre
__________
" My strength is the strength of
oppressed , my courage is the courage of desperation "
_________
URDU
Kureh Khak hai Gardash main Tapash sai Meri ,
Main Voh majnu huan Jo Jindan main Bhee Azad Raha
{ Every tiny molecule of Ash is in motion with my heat
I am such a Lunatic that I am free even in Jail }
" Money is the honey of mankind "
Dostoevsky
Page 4
Currency rates of various Countries :-
Rouble (Russian Coin) [Silver ] = 100copeks=2sh 1- 1/2d
Crown silver = 5shilling
1Lira (Italian) = 1france [Divided into 100 centesian)=9 1/2d
Mark [English coin now quite out of use was worth 13sh.4 d]
Mark [German coin existing and in use } =1sh 4d
Drachma = Greek Coin
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
Agnosticism = the idea that we can know nothing of God
Agnosticism might be tolerated , but materialism
is utterly inadmissible ; ( in England)" " Engels"
page 5
Land measurements :-
German 20 Hectares = 50 acers i.e 1 hectare= 2 1/2 acres
page 6
Freedom from Property
The "freedom from property" ...............as far as the Small capitalist and peasant’s properties are concerned become "freedom from property."
Marraige itself remained as before , the legally recognized form , the official cloak of prostitution...............
[ Sism Scientific and Utopian] *
Mental Bondage
" An eternal being created human society as it is today and submission to ‘superiors’ and ‘authority’ is imposed on ‘lower’ classes by divine will ." this suggestion , come from pulpit , platform and press, has hypnotised the minds of men and proves to be one of the strongist pillars of exploitation ."
{ Translator’s preface to Origin of The Family } **
* Socialism , Utopian and Scientific by Federick Engels
** The Origin of the Family ,Private Property and the State by Federick Engels
page 7
The origin of The Family by Engels
Morgan was the first to make an attempt at
introducing a logical order into the history of
primeval society.
He divided it into three main epoches
1. Savagery 2. Barbarism 3. Civilization
1. Savagery redivided into three stages
1. Lower 2. middle 3. Higher
1. Lower Stage of savagery :-
Infancy of human race ". Living in
Tribes ( 2 ) Fruits ,nuts and roots serving as food
(3) the formation of articulated speech is the principal result of that period
2. Middle stage :-
venison.=animal flesh taken 1. Fire discovered 2. fish being used (as) food
by hunting (3) Hunting stone implements invented
(4) caninbbism comes into existance
3. Higher stage :-
1. Bow and arrow no pottery 2. village settlement
(3)Timber used for Gevil Ineg
4. Cloth weaver
Bows and arrows were for the stage of Savagery what the vision
Sword was for barbarism and the firearm for civilization
the weapon of supermcy.
Page 8
Barbarism
1. Lower Stage :-1. Introduction of pottery. At first wooden pots were
covered with layers of earth , but afterwards earthen pots were discovered 2. Human races divided into two distinct classes 1. eastern who taimed animals and had grain 2. western who hd only ‘corn’
2. Middle Stage :-
(a) Western hemisphere i.e in America they grew food plants
(Cultivation and irrigation and baked bricks for house building
(b) Eastern They domesticated animals ; for milk and flesh . No cultivation in this stage yet.
3. Higher Stage :-
1. melting of iron ore
2. Invention of letter script and its utilization for writing records.
This stage is richer in inventions. This is the period of greek heroes.
3. iron ploughshare drawn by animals to grow orn on larger scale.
4. Clearing forests; and iron axe and iron spade used.
5. Great attainments :- (1) Improved iron tools (2) the bellows (3)hand mill (4) potter’s wheel (5) Prepration of oil and wine (6)fashioning metals (7) wagons and chariots (8) ship building
Page 9
9. Artistic Architecture (10) Towns and fort built
11. Homeric Epochs and Entire mythology.
with these attainments Greeks enter the third stage of ‘Civilization’;
To Sum up
1. Savagery - time of predominating appropration of finished natural products;
human ingenuity invents mainly tools useful in assisting this appropriation .
2. Barbarism :- Time of acquiring knowledge of cattle raising ,of agriculture and new methods for increasing the productivity of nature by human agency.
3. Civilization :- Time of learning a wider utilization of natural products , of manufacturing and art.
_______________ : 0 : _____________
We have ,then ,three main forms of the family corresponding in general to three main stages of human development .
1. For savagery ; "group marriage
2. For Barbarism the pairing family
3. For Civilization , monogamy , supplemented by adultry and prosititution. Between the pairing family and monogamy , in the higher stage of barbarism , the rule of man over female slaves and polygamy is inserted.
PP 90
page 10
Defects of marriage
Especially a long engagement is in nine cases out of ten a perfect training school of adultry
PP 91
Socialistic Revolution and Marraige Institution
We are now approaching a social revolution , in whcih the old ecoomic foundations of monogamy will disappear first as surely those of its compliment prostitution. Monogamy arose through the concentration of considerable wealth in one hand-a man’s hand -and from the endeavour to bequeath this wealth to the childrens of the man to the exclusion of all others. This necessiated monogamy on the women , but not on the man’s part. Hence monogamy of women is no way hindered open or secret polygamy of men.
Now the impending social revolution will reduce this whole case of inheritance to a minimum by changing at least the over whelming part of permanent and inheritable wealth --- the means of production -- into social property . Since monogamy was caused by economic conditions , will it appear when these causes are abolished ?
pp91
page 11
" Ah my beloved ,fill the cup that clears
Today of past , Regrets and future fears--
Tomorrow ? --- Why ,Tommorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s sins Thousand Years.
------------------------- : 0 ; -------------------
Here with a loaf of bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine , a book of verse -- and Thou
Besides me singing in the Wilderness --
And wilderness is paradise now
" Umar Khayyam"
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State ;- The state presupposes a public power of coersion separted from the
aggregate body of its members . (Engels ) Pp116
Origin of State :- ........... Degeneration of the old feuds between tribes regular mode of existing by systematic plundering on land and sea for the purpose of acquring castles , slaves and treasures. In short wealth is praised and respected as the highest treasure , and the old gentile institutions are abused in order to justify the forcible robbery of wealth.
Only one thing was missing; an institution that not only secured the newely acquired property of private individuals against the communistic traditions of the gens that not only declared as sacred the formerly so despised private property and represented the protection of this sacred property as the highest purpose of human society; but that also stamped the gradually developing new forms of acquiring property of constantly increasing wealth with the universal sanction of the Society. An institution
pp ....
[Page 12Origin of State ] that lent the character of perpetuity not only to the newly rising division into classes but also to the right of possesing classes to exploit and rule the non-posessing classes .
And this institution was found . The State arose.
pp 129-130
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Definition of a Good Government
" Good goverment can never be a substitute for self government. "
" Henery Campbell Bannerman"
" We are convinced that there is only one form of Goverment , whatever it may be called, namely , where the ultimate control is in the hands of the people."
" Earl of Balfour"
Religion
" My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it a disease born of fear , and as source of untold nuisancy to the human race.I cannot however deny that it has made some contribution to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calander and it caused the Egyptian priest to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they become able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I donot know any other."
Bernard Russell
Page 13
Benevolent Despotism :-
Montague Chelmford called the British Government a ‘benevolent despotism ‘ and according to Ramsay Macdonald ,the Imperialist leader of British Labor Party , in all attempts to govern a country by a ‘benevolent despotism’ the goverments are crushed down. They become subjects who obey, not citizens who act.There literature , their act , their spiritual expression go"
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Gov’t of India
Rt. Hon’ble Edwin S. Montague Secretary of State for India , said in the house of commons in 1907 :---
" The Goverment of India is too wooden , too iron ,too inelastic ,too antidiluvian to be of any use for modern purpose. The Indian Government is indefensible."
British Rule in India :-
Dr. Ruthford’s Words :-
"British Rule as it is carried on in India is the lowest and most immoral system of government in the world--- the exploitation of one nation by another ."
Liberty and English Life .
The English people love liberty for themselves .They hate all acts of injustice , except those which they themselves commit. They are such liberty - loving people that they interfere in the Congo and cry ‘Shame’ to the Belgiam .But they forget their heals are on the neck of India.
An Irsih author
Page 14
Mob Retaliation
.... Let us therefore examine how men came by the idea of punishment in this manner.
They learn it from the Governments they live under , and retaliate the punishment they have been accustomed to behold. The heads struck upon spikes, which remained for years upon Temple Bar, differed nothing in the horror of the scene from those carried about upon spikes at Paris; yet this was done by the English Government. It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead ; but it signifies much to the living; it either torture their feelings or hardens their hearts, and in either Case it instructs them how to punish when power falls into their hands.
Lay then the axe to the root, and teach Goverment humanity. It is their sanguinary punishment which corrupt mankind.............. The effect of those cruel spectacles exhibited to the populace is to destroy tenderness or excite revenge ; and by the base and false ideas of governing men by terror instead of reason, they become precedants.
[Rights of Man PP -32 T. Paine]
Page 15
Monarch and Monarchy ;-
It was not against Louis XVI ; but against despotic principles of goverment ,that the nation revolted.
The principles had not their origin in him, but in original establishment; many centuries back; and they were become too deeply rooted to be removed ; and the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleared , by anything short of a complete revolution. When it becomes necessary to do a thing ,the whole heart and soul should go into the measure ,or not attempt it ................... The Monarch and Monarchy were distinct and separate things and it was against the person or principles of former, that the revolt commenced and the Revolution has been carried.
PP 19
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Natural and Civil Rights :--
Man did not enter into the society to become worse than he was before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural right are the foundation of all his civil rights.
Natural rights are those which appertain ro man in right of his existance (intellectual - mental etc )
Civil rights are those that appertain to man in right of his being a member ofa society
PP44
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Page 16
King Salary ;
It is inhuman to talk of a million sterling a year paid out of the public taxes of any country , for the support of one individual , whilst thousands who are forced to cntribute there to, are pining with want and struggling with misery. Government does not consist in contrast between prisons and palaces ,between poverty and pump; it is not instituted to rob the needy of his mite and increase the worthlessness of the wretched.
p 204
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"Give me liberty or death"
" It is invain ,sir, to extenuate the matter , Gentleman , may cry peace, peace ___ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun.the next gate that sweeps from the North to our ears the clash of resounding arms.Our bretherns are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course other may take, as for me, give me liberty or death."
Patrick Henery
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Rights of Labour :--- "Who ever produces anything by weary labour , does not need a revelation from heaven to teach him that he have rights to the thing produced."
Robert G Ingersoll
Page 17
" We consider it horrible that people should have their heads cut off, but we have not been taught to see the hour of life- long death which is inflicted upon a whole population by poverty and tyranny." Mark Twain
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Anarchists " .............. The Anarchist and the apostles of insurrection are also represented ; and if some of the things seem to the readers the mere unchaining of the furies , I would say ,let him not blame the faithful anthologist , let him not blame even the writer ....... Let him blame himself , who has acquiesced in the existing conditions which have driven his fellowmen to extreme of madness and despair"
Upton Sinclair --- Preface 19 Cry for Justice
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The Old Labouror
" ............ He (the old labourer out of employment ) was struggling against age , against nature , against cirumstances ; the entire weight of society ,law and order pressed upon him to force him to love his self respect and liberty .......... He knocked at the door of the farms and found good in man only .............. not in law and order , but in individual man alone ." Richard Jefferies . 30
Page 18
Poor Labourers
"......... And we , the men who braved this task , were out cast of the world . A blind fate , a vast merciless mechanism , cut and shaped the fabric of our existance .We were men despised when we were most useful, rejected when we were not needed, and forgotten when our troubles weighed upon us heavily. We were the men sent out to fight the spirit of the wastes , rob it for all its primeval horrors, and batter down the barriers of its world - old defences. Where we were working a new town would spring up some day ; it was already springing up , and then ,if one of us walked there ‘ a man with no fixed address , " he would be taken up and tried as a loiterer and vagrant ."
From Children of the Dead End
By Patrick Macgill c.j 48
: 0 :
Morality :-
" Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for the means of sustaining life , and crouches behind barrels in the street for shelter from the cutting blasts of winter night " Horace Greeley -128
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Hunger " It is desirable for a ruler that no man should suffer from cold and hunger under his rule . Man cannot maintain his standarad of morals when he has no ordinary means of living." Kenko Hoshi Budhist monk of Japan 14th Century P 135
Page 19
Freedom
Men! whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are you truely free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother’s pain
Are ye not base slaves indeed
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Is true Freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And , with leathern hearts , forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true Freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear ,
And, with heart and hand , to be
Earnest to make others free!
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatered, scoffing and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think:
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or threee
James Russell Lowell (p.189)
Page 20
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is harm to blush unseen
And waste it sweetness on the desert air.
{ far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Gray Eglish poet and scholar 1716 - 1771 ed. reference not in note book }
: 0 :
Invention : ----
Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened day’s toil of any human being.
J S Mill page 199
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Alms : -
" There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than who gives alms .Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them."
Maxim Gorky P 204
Liberty ;- Those corpses of youngmen
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets
Those hearts pierced by the grey lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem , line close
Where with unslaughtered vitality.
They live in other youngmen , O kings !
They live in books again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death -
they were taught and exalted!
Page 21 Not a grave of the murdered for freedom ,
but grows seed for freedom , in its turn to beer seed,
Which the wind carry afar and re-sow , and the
rains and the snows nourish .
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
But it stalks invincibily over the earth , whispring, counselling cautioning.
P 268 "Walt Whitman"
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Free Thought
" If there is any thing that cannot bear free thought let it crack."
Wendell Phillips 271
State :-----
" Away with the state ! I will take part in that revolution.Undermine the whole conception of a state ,declare free choice and spritual kinship to be only all important condition of any union ,and you will have the commencement of a liberty that is worth something. "
Hunrich Adbsen 273
Oppressor’s :--------
" Surely oppresive maketh a wise man mad." P 278
Page 22
Martyrs :-------
" The man who flings his whole life into attempt , at the cost of his own life, to protest against the wrongs of his fellowmen , is a saint compared to the active and passive upholders of cruelty and injustice , even if his protest destroy other lives beside his own.Let him who is without sin in society cast the first stone at such a one . " P 281
Lower Class :-----
While there is a lower class I am in it,
While there is a criminal element I am in it,
While there is a soul in jail I am not free.
Engene B Dabs 144
One against all :- [ Charles Fourier 1772-1837]
The present social order is a ridiculous mechanism ,in which portions of the whole are in conflict and acting against the whole. We see each class in society desires, from interest , the misfortune of the other class , placing in every way individual interest in opposition to public good. The lawyer wishes litigations and suits , particularily among the rich; the physician desires sickness .(The latter would be ruined if every body died without disease, as would the former if all quarrells were settled by arbitration.) The soldier wants war ,which will carry off half his comrades and secure him promotion; the undertaker wants burials;monoplists and forestallers want femine ,to double or treble the price of grain; the architect , the carpenter, the mason , want conflagration, that will burn down a hundred houses to give activity to their branches of business.
p 202
Page 23
New Gospel
" Society can overlook murder , adultry or swindling; it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.
p327 Fredric Harrison
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Tree of Liberty
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson 332
: 0 :
Chicago Martyrs :------
Say them ,that the man erred grievously, if his eror had been ten times as great , it ought to have been wiped from human recollection by his sacrifice.......
Granted freely that their idea of best man of making a protest was utterly wrong and impossible , granted that they want not the best way to work . But what was it that drove them into attack against the social order as they found it? They and thousands of others that stood with them were not bad men nor depressed nor blood thirsty, nor hard hearted , nor criminals nor selfish , nor crazy. Then what was it that worked a complaint so bitter and deep seated...........
No one ever contemplated the simple fact that men do not bend themselves together to make a protest without the belief that they have something to protest about and that in any organised state of society a widespread protest is something far garve enquiry.
Charles Edward Russell 333
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Page 24 Will of a Revolutionary
" I also wish my friends to speak ittle or not at all about me , because idols are created when men are praised , and this is very bad for the future of the human race. Acts alone , no matter by whom committed , ought to be studied , praised or blamed.Let them be praised in order that they may be imitated when thy seem to contribute to the commonweal.Let them be censured when they are regarded as injurious to the general
well being, so that they may not be repeated.
I desire that on no occasion whether near or remote , nor for any reason what so ever , shall demonstration of a political or religious character be made before my remains, as I consider the time devoted to the dead would be better employed in improving the conditons of the living most of whom stands in great need of this."
{ Will of Francisco Ferrer , Spanish educator
1859-1909 Executed after the Bacelona riots
by a plot of his clerical enemies.}
: 0 :
Charity:
" Come follow me ." Said Jesus Christ to the rich youngmen.
To stay in his own set and invest his fortune in works of charity ,would have been comparatively easy. Philanthropy has been fashionable in every age. Charity takes the insurrectionary edge off of the poverty. Therefore the philanthropic rich man is a benefactor to his fellow magnates and is made to feel their gratitude; to him all doors of fashion swing. {But jesus issued a veto.} He denied the legitimacy of alm-giving as a plaster for the deep lying sore in the social tissue. ...... Philanthropy as a substitute for justice - he would have none of it. Charity is twice cursed - it harden him that gives and soften him that takes. It does more harm to the poor than exploitaton , because it makes them willing to be exploited . It breads slavishness which is moral suicide. The only thing Jesus would permit a swollen fortune to do was to give itself to revolutionary propaganda in order that swollen fortune might be forever after impossible............
Bonck White Clergyman born 1874 p 353
Page 25
Fight for Freedom
The power of armies is visible thing
Formal and circumscribed in time and space
But who then limits that power shall trace
Which a brave people into light can bring
Or hide ,at will ,- for freedom combating
By just revenge inflamed? No foot may chase,
No eye can follow , to a fatal place
That power that spirit whether on the wing
Like strong wind , or sleeping like the wind
Within its awful caves ----- from year to year
Spring this indigenous produce far and near;
No craft this subtle element can bind,
Rising like water from the soil , to find .
In every nook a lip that it may cheer,
{ W. Wordsworth}
page 26
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
I.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
IV.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
page27
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
{URDU }
Dil De To Iss Mizaaj kai Parwardigar De
Jo Gam kee Ghari Ko Bhee Khushi se Gujar De
Sajaa Kar Mayyiat-e-umeed naakami kePhoolon Se
Kisi Hamdarad ne Rakh di mere toote hue Dil main
Chherh naa ai Farishte ! tu zikre ghame -Jaanaanaan
Kyon yaad dilaate ho Bhulaa Huaa Afsaanaa
page 28
Birth right
We’re the sons of that baffled
crowned and mirtes tyranny,
They defied the field and scoffold,
For their birth - rights - so will we !
[ J Campbell ]
: 0 :
Glory of the Cause
Ah! not for idle hatred , not
For honour , fame , nor self’applause,
But for the glory of the cause,
You did, what will not be forgot.
[ Arthur Chough ]
: 0 :
Immorality of soul : -
For you know if you can once get a man beleiving in immorality there is nothing more left for you to desire ; you can take everything in the world he owns - you can skin him alive if you please - and he will bear it with perfect good humour.
[ Upton Sinclair 403 c j ]
: 0 :
God Tyrants
A tyrant must put on the appearence of uncommon devotion to religion.Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider God - fearing and pious. On the other hand , they do less easily move against him , beleiving that he has the gods on his side.
[ ................. ]
page 29
Soldiers & Thought
If my soldiers were to begin to reflect ; not one of them would be in the ranks.
[ Fredrick the Great ] 502 { 366 new ed}
: 0 :
The Noblest Fallen
The Noblest have fallen , they were buried
Obscurely in a deserted place.
No tears fell over them
Strange hands carried them to the grave
No cross , no enclouser , and no tomb stone tell
Their glorious names.
Grass grows over them , a feeble blade
bending low keeps the secret,
The sole witness were the surging waves ,
which furiously beat against the shore
But even they the mighty waves could
Not carry farewell greetings to
The distant home.
[ V N Figner]
: 0 :
Prison
There were no stars , no earth , no time ,
No check , no change , no good , no crime,
But silence , and a stirless breath,
Which neithr was of life nor death.
[ The Prisoner of Chillon}
Page 30
After Conviction
During the moments which immediatly follow upon his sentence , the mind of the condemned in many respects resembles that of aman on the point of death. Quiet and as if inspired he no longer clings to what he is about to leave , but firmly looks in front of him, fully conscious of the fact that what is coming is inevitable.
[ V N Figner ]
: 0 :
The Prisoner
It is a suffocating under the low dirty roof;
My strength grows weaker year by year :
They oppress me , this stormy floor,
This iron chained table ,
This bed of steel , this chair , chained
To the walls , like boards of grave .
In this eternal dumb , deep silence
One can only consider oneself a corpse.
" N . A . Morozov"
: 0 :
Naked walls , prison thoughts ,
How dark and sad you are!
How heavy to tie a prisoner in active,
And dream of years of feedom
" Morozov"
: 0 :
urdu " Tujeh jibah karne kee khushi mujhe marne ka shok
Meri Bhee marji wohi hai jo mere siad kee hai
Page 31
Everything here is so silent , lifeless , pale
The years pass fruitless leaving no trace;
The weeks and days drag on heavily,
Bringing only dull bored in their suite.
[Morozov]
: 0 :
Our thoughts , grow dull from long confinement;
there is a feeling of heaviness in our bone;
The minutes seem eternal from torturing pain,
In this cell , from steps wide.
: 0 :
Entirly for our fellow we must live,
Our entire selves for them we must give,
And for their sakes struggle against ill fate.
[Morozov]
Came to set me Free ;--
At least men came to set me free;
I asked not why and recked not where,
It was at length the same to me ,
Fettered a fetterless to be,
I learned to love dispair.
And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage ---- and all my own.
[The Prisoners of Chillon]
{Ed. by Lord Byron }
Page 32
‘And from on high we have been honoured with a mission !
We passed a severe school , but acquired higher knowledge
Thanks to exile , prison , and a bitter lot,
We know and value the world of truth and freedom!
[ Prisoners of schulesselburg ]
: 0 :
Death and Suffering of a child ;-
A child was born , he committed consciously neither bad nor good actions. He fell ill he suffered much and long , untill he died in terrible agony . Why? Wherefore ? It is eternal riddle for the philosphers.’
: 0 :
Frame of mind of a Revolutionary : ----
He who has ever been under the influence of the life of Jesus , who was borne in the name of an ideal , humiliation , suffering and death; he who has once considered Him as an ideal and his life as the prototype of a disinterested love - will understand the frame of mind of the revolutonary who has been sentenced and thrown into a
tomb for his work on behalf of popular freedom."
[ Vera N Figner ]
: 0 :
Rights : ---
Don’t ask for rights , take them. And don’t let any one give them to you .A right that handed to you for nothing has something the matter with it. It’s more than likely it is only a wrong turned in side out.
Page 33
No Enemies?
You have no enemies you say ?
Alas! my friend the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
of duty , that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
small is the work you have done.
You ‘ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You ‘ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You ‘ve never turned the wrong to right,
You ‘ve been a coward in the fight.
[ Charles Mackey 747 ] {ed. now cry for justice 493(1996)}
: 0 :
Child Labour
No fledgling feeds the father bird !
No chiken feeds the hen,
No kitten mouses for the cat -
This glory is for men.
We are the Wisest , Strongest Race -
Loud may our praise be sung !
The only animal alive
That lives upon its young !
[ Charlotte Perkins Gilman ] { now C F J p442}
Page 34
No Classes ! No Compromise !!
( George D. Herron)
Under the Socialist movement there is coming a time and the time may be even now at hand , when improved conditions or adjusted wages will no longer be thought to be an answer to cry for labour; yes when these will be but an insult of the common intelligence. It is not for better wages, improved capialist conditions or a share of capitalist profits that the Socialist movement is in the world; it is here for the abolition or wages and profits and for the end of capitalism and private capital. Reformed political institutions boards of arbitration between capital and labour ,philanthropies and privilages that are but the capitalist’s gifts- none of these can much longer answer the question that is making the temples ,thrones and Parliments of the nation tremble. There can be no peace between the man who is down and the man who builds on his back. There can be no reconcilliation between classes; there can only be end of classes. It is idle to talk of goodwill untill there is first justice, and idle to talk of justice untill the man who makes the world possesses the work of his own hands. The cry of the world’s workers can be answered with nothing save the whole product of their work.
(George D. Herron)
Page 35
Wastes of Capitalism
Economic estimates about Austrelia by Theodore Hertzka (1886)
Every family = 5-roomed 40 ft sq House to last for 50 years
Workers’ workable age : 16 to 50
So we hve 5,000,000.
Labour of 615,000 workers is sufficient to produce food for 22,000,000 people = 12.3% of labour
Including labour cost of transport ,luxuries need only 315,000 = 6.33% workers’ labour
That amounts to this that 20% of the available labour is enough for supporting the whole of continent. The rest 80% is exploited and wasted de to capitalist order of society.
Page 36
Czarist Regime & the Bolshevish Regime
Fraigier Hunt tells that in the first fourteen months of their rule ,the Bolshiviks executed 4500 men , mostly for stealing and speculation.
After the 1905 Revolution , Stolypin , minister of Czar caused the excecution of 32773 men
within twelve months.
[ p390]
[ Brass Check]
Page 37
Permanency of the Social Institutions
It is one of the illusions of each generation that the social institutions in which it lives are, in some peculiar ‘sense’, "natural " , unchangeable and permanent. Yet for countless thousands of years, social institutions have been successively arising , developing, decaying and becoming gradually superseded by others better adopted to contemporary needs.......
.... The question ,then , is not whether our present civilization will be transformed ,but how it will be trasformed?
It may be considerate adaption , be made to pass gradually and peacefully into a new form . Or , if there is angry resistance instead of adaption ,it my crash , leaving mankind painfully to build up a new civilization from the lower level of stage of social chaos and disorder in which not only the abuses but also the material, intellectual and moral gains of the previous order will have been lost.
P1 Decay of Cap. Civilization
:0:
Page 38
Capitalism and Commercialism :----
Rabinder Nath’s adress to an assembly of Japanese students :---
" You had your own industry in Japan ; how scrupulously honest and true it was, you can see by its products - by their grace and strength , their conscientiousness in details where they can hardly be observed . But the tidal wave of falsehood has swept over your land from that part of the world where business is business and honesty is followed merely as the best policy. Have you never felt shame when you see the trade advertisements , not only plastering the whole town with lies and exaggerations, but invading the green fields , where the peasents do their honest labour, and to hilltops which greet the first light of the morning?..... This commercialism with its barbarity of ugly decorations is a terrible menance to all humanity , because it is setting up the ideal of power over perfection . It is making the cult of self seekig exult in its naked shamelessness.................
page 39 ... Its movements are violent , its noise is discardently loud. It is carrying its own damnation because it is trampling into distortion. The humanity upon which it stands .It is strenously turning out the money at the cost of happiness......... The vital ambition of the present civilization of Europe is to have the exclusive possesion of devil.
:0:
Capitalist Society :
"The foremost truth of political economy is that everyone desires to obtain individual wealth with as little sacrifice as possible."
" Nassan Senior"
Page 40
Karl Marx on Religion :------
Man makes religion ; religion does not make man. Religion , indeed, is the self consciousness and the self feeling of man who either has not yet found himself or else ( have found himself) has lost himself once more. But men is not an abstract being squatting down somewhere outside the world . Man is the world of men , the state , society. This state ,this society produces religion, produces a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world. Religion is the generalised theory of this world its encylopaedic compend , its logic in a popular form ........... The fight against religion is, therefore a direct compaign against the world whose spiritual aroma is religion
......................................
Page 41
continued from last page:------
Religion is the sigh of oppressed creature the feelings of a heartless world just as it is the spirit of inspiritual conditions. " It is the opium of the people"
The people cannot be really happy untill it has been deprived of illusory happines by the abolition of religion. The demand that the people should shake itself free of illusion as to its own condition is the demand that it should abondon a condition which needs illusion
The weapon of criticism cannot replace the critiism of weapons. Physical force must be overthrown by physical force as soon as it takes possesion of the masses.
Page 42
A Revolution not Utopian
A radical revolution , the general amancipation of mankind , is not a utopian dream for Germany ; what is utopian is the idea of a partial, an exclusively political revolution , which would leave the pillar’s of the house standing.
" Great are great because
we are on knees
Let us Rise. "
Page 46
Democracy : ----
Democracy is theoratically a system of political and legal equality . But in concrete and practical operation it is false, for there can be no equality , not even in politics and before the law , so long as there is glaring in equality in economic power. So long as the ruling class owns the worker’s jobs and the press and the schools of country and all organs for the moulding and expression of public opinion; so long as it monopolise all trained public functionaries and disposes of unlimited funds to influence elections , so long as the laws are made by ruling class and the courts are presided over by members of that class, so long as lawyers are private practitioners who sell their skill to the heighest bidder and litigation is technical and costly , so long will the nominal equality before the law be a hollow mackery.
In a capitalist regime the whole machinary of democracy operates to keep the ruling class monority in power thrugh the sufferage of working class majority, and when the bourgeois goverment feels itself endangered by democratic institutions, such institutions re often crushed without compunction.
[ p 58]
[ From Marx to Lenin ]
[ by Morris Hillquit ]
Democracy does not secure " equal rights and a share in all political rights for every body , to what ever class or party he may belong " (Kautsky) It only allows free political and legel play .For the existing economic inequalities ............. Democracy under capitalism is thus not general, abstract democracy but specific bourgeois democracy .......... or as Lenin terms it ------------- democracy for bourgeois .
( ......... not readable ed. )
Page 47
" Term "Revolution" defined " :----
" The conception of revolution is not to be treated in the police interpretation of term , in the sense of an armed rising. A party would be mad that would choose the method of insurrection on principle so long as it has at its disposal different , less costly , and safer methods of action. In that sense , social democracy was never revolutioanry on principle . It is only in the sense that it recognises that when it attains political power, it cannot employ it for any other than the abolition of the mode of production upon which thw present system rests. "
" Karl Kautsky"
: 0 :
Some facts and figures about United States
5 men can produce bread for 1000
1 man acn produce cotton cloth for 250
1 man can produce woollen for 300
1 man can produce boots and shoes for 1000
p78 Iron Heel
: 0 :
15,000,000 are living in abject poverty who cannot even maintain their working efficiency. 3,000,000 child labourer
: 0 :
Re: England :---
Pre war estimates
Total production of England ( per annum) 2000,000,000
Gains through foreign investments 200,000,000
1/9 th part of population took away 1/2 1100,000,000
2/9 th ‘’ ‘’ ‘’ 1/3 of rest 1100,000,000
i.e 300,000,000
..................... (ed. rest not readable )
Page 48
Internationale
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation !
Arise ye wretched on earth ,
To justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in birth.
No more traditions chain shall bind us,
Arise ye slaves ! no more in thrall !
The earth shall rise on new foundation ,
we have been naught we be all
[refrain]
it is like final conflict ,
Let earth stand on his place,
The international party ,
Shall be the human race.
---------------------------------
Behold them seated in their glory,
The kings of mine and rail and soil,
When would you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil?
Fruits of people’s work are buried,
In the strong coffers of a few,
In voting for their restitution,
The men will ask only for their due,
[ same Refrain ]
Toilers from shops and fields united ,
The party we of all who work,
The earth belongs to us, the people,
No room here for the shirk,
How many on our flesh have fattened?
But if the noise some birds of pray ,
Shall vanish from our sky some morning ,
The blessed sunlight still will stay,
[ same Refrain again]
Page 49
Marseillaise
Ye sons of toil ,awake to glory !
Hark , hark , what myraids bid you rise,
Your children, wives and grand sires hoary,
Behold their tears and hear their cries,
Shall hateful tyrants mischief breeding,
With hireling hosts , aruffian band --,
Affright and desolute the land
While peace and liberty lie bleeding ?
[ chorus]
To arms , To arms ! Ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheathe
March on , march on , all hearts resolved,
On Victory or death.
With luxury and pride unsounded,
The vile insatiate despots dare,
Their thirst for gold and power unbounded
To meet and vend the light and air;
Like beasts of burden would they load us,
Like gods would bid their slaves adore,
But man is man and who is more ?
Then shall they longer last and goad us ?
[ The same chorus again ]
Oh liberty ! Can man resign thee,
Once having felt thy generous flame ?
Can dungeons bolts and bars confine thee ,
Or whips thy noble spirit tame ?
Too long the world has wept bewailing ,
The falsehood daggers tyrants wield;
But freedom is our sword and shield,
And all their arts are unavailing ?
[Same Chorus again ]
Page 50
Growth of Opportunism : ----
It was the possibility of acting within the law that reared opportunism within labour parties of the period of Second International .
[ Lenin vide Collapse of II Int. N ]
Illegal Work
" In a country where the bourgeosie , or the counter - revolutionary Social Democracy is in power , te Communist Party must learn to coordinate its legal work with illegal work and legal work must always be under the effective control of illegal party."
Bukharin
: 0 :
Betrayal of II Int. N’s Cause
The vast organisation of socialism and labour were adjusted to such peace time activities , and when the crisis came , a number of the leaders and large portion of masses were unable to adopt themselves to the new situation ...... It is inevitable development that accounts largely for the betrayal of II International.
Marx to Lenin p 140
Morris Hillquiet
: 0 :
The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
Ambrose Prierce writes :---
" Grape shot --- (n) -- An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism. "
Rifles !
" You say you will have majority in the Parliament and State offices , but " How many rifles have you got ? Do you know where you can get plenty of lead ? When it comes to powder , the chemical mixtures are better than mechanical mixtures. You take my word."
p198 Iron Heel
Page 53
Power and its Achievement
A socialist leader had addressed a meeting of the plutocrats and charged them of mismanging the society and there by thrown the whole resposibilit for the woes and misery that confronts the suffering humanity.After wards a capitalist ( Mr. Wickson)rose and addressed him as follows :
" This, then, is our answer . We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease , we will show you what strength is. In roar os shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutioists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours. We are its lords and ours it shall remain. as for the host of labour. It has always been in the dirt since history began , and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine , and those that come after us , have the power.
There is the word. It is the king of words ---- Power. Not God , not mammon but power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. "Power"
" I am answered." Earnest (the socialist leader) said quietly. " Itis the only answer that could be given. Power. It is what we of the working class preach. We know and well we know by bitter experience that no appel for the right, for justice, for humanity can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as your heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we have preached power. By the Power of our ballots , on election day will we take your government away from you ........ "
" What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority on election day." Mr. Wickson broke in to demand . "Suppose we refuse to turn the Government over to you after you have captured it at the ballot box?"
Page 54
" That also we have considered, " Earnest replied. "And we shall give you an answer in terms of lead. Power, you have proclaimed the king of words. Very good! Power, it shall be. And in the day that we sweep to victory at the ballot box, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we have constitutionally and peacefully captured and you demand what we are going to do about it -- ? --- in that day. I say , we shall answer you ; and in roar of shell and shrapnel, in whine of machine guns shall our answer be couched .
" You can not escape us. It is true that you have read history aright. It is true that labour has , from the begining of history been in the dirt . And it is equally true that so long as you and yours and those that come after you , have power, that labour shall remain in dirt. I agree with
you. I agree with all you have said. Power will be the arbiter, as it always have been the arbiter. It is a struggle of classes. Just as your class dragged down the old feudal nobility , so shall be draged down by my class, the working class. If you will read your biology and your sociology as clearly as do your history, you will see that this end I have described is inevitable. It does not matter whether it is in one year , ten or a thousand -- your class will be draged down .And it shall be done by power. We of the labour host have coined that word over , till our minds are all atingle with it. Power. It is kingly word.
Iron Heel P 88
by Jack London
Page 55
Figures : ----
England :---
1922 -- Number of men employment - 1,135,000
1926 -- It has oscillated to 11/4 and 11/2 millions
i.e 1,250,000 to 1,500,000
Betrayal of the English Labour Leaders
The years 1911 to 1913 were times of unparalled class struggles of the miners, railwaymen, and transport workers generally. In August 1911, a national , in other words a general strike broke out on the railways . The vague shadow of revolution hovered over Britain in those days. The leaders exerted all their strength in order to paralys the movement. Their motive was "Patriotism"; the affair was occuring at the time of the Agadir incident which thretened to lead to war with Germany. As is well known today, the Premier summoned the workers’ leaders to a secret council , and called them to salvation of he fatherland. And leaders did all that lay in their power , strengthening the bourgeoisie and thus preparing the way for the imperialist slaughter.
P3
Where is Britain going?
Trotsky
Page 56
Betrayal :--
Only after 1920 ,did the movement returns within bounds , after "Black Friday" when Triple alliance of miner’s ,railwatmen’s and transport leaders betrayed the general strike.
P3
: 0 :
For Reform a Threat of Revolution is necessary : ----
" The British bourgeoisie reckoned that by such means (reform) a revolution could be avoided. It follows, therefore, that even for the introduction of reforms , the principle of gradualness alone is insufficient, and that an actual threat of revolution is necessary.
p29
: 0 :
Social Solidarity :
It would seem that once we stand for the annihilation of a privileged class which has no desire to pass from the scene, we have there in the the basic contents of class struggle. But no, Macdonald desires to "evoke" the consciousness of social solidarity . With whom? The solidarity of working class is the expression of its internal welding in the struggle with the bourgeoisie.
The social solidarity which Macdonald preaches is the solidarity of the exploited with the exploiters in other words, the maintenance of exploitation.
Revolution a Calamity :-----
" The revolution in Russia ", says Macdonald, " taught us a great lesson. It showed that revolutions is a ruin and a calamity and nothing more."
Page 57
Revolution leads only to calamity ! But the British Democracy led to the imperialist war, ............ With the ruin of which the calamities of revolution cannot ,of course , be compared in the very least. But in addition to this , wht deaf ears and shameless face are necessary in order ,in the face of a revolution which overthrew Tzarism, nobility and bougeoisie, shook the church , awakened to a new life a nation of 130 million, a whole family of nations , to decare that revolution is a calamity and nothing more.
p 64
: 0 :
Peaceful ? : ----
When and where did the ruling class ever yield power and property on the order of a peaceful vote -- and especially such a class as the British bourgeoisie which has behind it centuries of world rapacity ?
p 66
: 0 :
Aim of socialism :--- Peace
It is absolutely unchallenged that the aim of socialism is to eliminate force, first of all in its most crude and bloody forms , and afterwards in other more concealed forms.
p80
Where is Britain Going ?
Trotsky
Aim of the World Revolution :-----
1. To ver through capitalism
2. To control the nature for the service of humanity.
This is how Bukharin defined it.
Page 58
Man and machinary
The United States Bureau of Labour tells:
12 lbs package of pins can be made by a man working with a machine in 1 hr 34 minutes.
The same would take 140 hours and 55 minutes , if man works with tools only, but without machine.
Ratio 1.34 : 140.55 times
: 0 :
100 pairs of shoes by machine work takes 234 hr 25 minutes
By hand it will take 1,831 hrs 40 minutes
Labour cost on machine is $ 69.55
"" "" by hand is $ 457.92
: 0 :
500 yards of gingham checks ae made by machine labour in 73 hours
By hand labour , it takes 5,844 hours
: 0 :
100 lbs of sewing cotton can be made by machine labour in 39 hours
By hand it takes 2,895 hours
Re: Agriculture
A good man with scythe can reap 1 acre a day ( 12 hours)
A machine does the same work in 20 minutes.
Six men with flials can thresh 60 liters of wheat in half an hour
One machine thresher can do 12 times as much .
" The increased effectiveness of man - labour aided by the use of machinery ....... varies from 150 % in the case of rye to 2,244 % in the case of Barley.......... "
Page 59
The wealth of U.S.A and its Population : 1850 - 1912
per capita T. Population
In 1850 total wealth was $ 7,135,780,000 $ 308 = 23,191,876
1860 Total wealth was $ 16,159,616,000 $ 514 = 31,443,321
1870 " $ 30,068,518,000 $ 780 = 38,558,371
1880 " $ 43,642,000,000 $ 870 = 50,155,783
1890 $ 65,037,091,000 $ 1,036 = 62,947,714
1900 $ 88,517,307,000 $ 1,165 = 75,994,575
1904 $ 107,104,202,000 $ 1,318 = 82,416,551
1912 $ 187,139,071,000 $ 1,965 = 95,410,503
Due to the use of machinary
: 0 :
The machine is social in nature as the tool was individual
: 0 :
" Give us worst cotton , but give us better men."
Says Emerson
" Deliver me , those rickety perishing souls of infants , and let the cotton trade take its chance."
P 81
: 0 :
The man cannot be sacrificed to machine .The machine must serve mankind. Yet the danger to the human race lurks , menancing in the Industrial Regime.
Poverty and Riches P 81
Scott Nearing
Page 60
Man and Machinary :
C. Hanford Henderson in his " Pay Day" writes :
" This institution of industry the most primitive of all institution , organised and developed in order to free mankind from tyranny of Things , has become it self the greater tyrant degrading a multitude into the conditions of slaves - slaves doomed to produce , through long and weary hours , a senseless glut of things and then forced to suffer for the lack of the very things they have produced. "
Pov. Riches P 87
: 0 :
Man is not Machinary :---
The combination of steel and fire ,which man has produced and called a machine , which man has produced and called machine , must be ever the servant, never the master of man. Neither the machine nor the machine owner may rule the human race.
P 88
: 0 :
Imperialism : ---
Imperiaism is capitalism in that stage of developent in which monopolies and financial capital have attained a preponderating influence, the export of capital has acquired great importance the international trusts have begun the partition of world , and the biggest capitalist countries have completed the division of the entire terrestrial globe among themselves. "
Lenin
Page 61
Dictatorship : ----
Dictatorship is an authority relying directly upon force , and not bound by any laws.
The revolutionary dictatorship of the proltariat is an authority managed by the proletariate by means of force over and against the bourgeoisie , and not bound by any laws.
Prol. Rev p18 Lenin
: 0 :
Revolutionary Dictatorship :---
Revolution is an act in which one section of the population imposes its will upon the other by rifles, bayonets , guns and other such exceedingly authoritarian means. And the party which has won is necessarily compelled to maintain its rule by means of that fear which in arms inspire in the reactionaries. If the Commune of Paris had not relied upon the armed people as against bourgeoisie , would it have maintained it self more than twenty- four hours? Are we not, in contrary, justified in reproaching the commune for having employed this authority too little ?"
F.Engles
: 0 :
Bourgeoisie Democracy : ---
Bourgeoisie Democracy while constituting a great historical advance in comparison with feudalism nevertheless remains and cannot but remain , a very limited , a very hypocritical institution , a paradise for the rich and a trap and a delusion for the exploited and for the poor.
Lenin P 28
Page 62
Exploitation of labour and state :---
Not only the ancient and feudal, but also the representative state of today is an instrument of exploitation of wage labour by capital."
Engles
: 0 :
Dictatorship : ------
"Since the state is only a temporary institution which is to be made use in revolution in order forcibly to suppress the opponents. It is perfectly absurd to talk about a free popular state ; so long as the proletariat still needs it not in the interest of freedom ; but in order to suppress its opponents , and when it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state , as such ,ceases to exist. "
Engels in his letter to Babels March 28th 1875
: 0 :
The impatient Idealist :-----
The impatient idealist --- and without some impatience a man hardly prove effective --- is almost sure to be led into hatered by the opposition, and disappointments which he encounters in his endeavaour to bring happiness to the world.
Bertrand Russell
: 0 :
Page 63
Leader :--
" No time need have gone to ruin" writes Carlyle , " Could it have found a man great enough , a man wise and good enough ; wisdom to dicern truely what the time wanted valour to lead it on the right road thither; these are the salvation of any time."
: 0 :
Arbitrariness :--
Kautsky had written a booklet with the title "Proletariate Dictatorship" and had deplored the act of Bolsheviks in depriving the burgeoisie people from right to vote. Lenin writes in his "Proletarian Revolution " : -- P 77
Arbitariness ! Only tink what a depth of meanest subserviency to bourgeoisie and of the most idiotic pedantry is contained in such a reproach , when thoroughly bourgeios and for the most part even reactionaries jurists of capitalist countries have in the course of , we may almost say , centuries , been drawing up rules and regulations and writing up hundreds of volumes of various codes and laws , and of interpretations of them to oppress the workers , to bind hand and foot (of) the poor men , and to place a hundred and one hindrances and ob
stacles in the way of the simple and toiling masses of people --- when this is done , the bourgeois Liberals and Mr. Kautsky can see no "arbitrariness"! It is all Law and Order ! It has all been thought out and written down, how the poor man is to be kept dwn and squeezed. There are thousands and thousands of bourgeois lawyers and officials able to interpret the laws that the workers and average peasent can never break through their barbed wire entanglements. This of course ,is not a dictatorship of the filthy or profit-seeking exploiters who are drinking the blood of te people. Oh it is nothing of the kind! It is ‘pure democracy’ which is becoming purer Page 64 and purer everyday. But when the toiling and exploited masses for the first time in history seprated by Imperialist War from their brothers across the frontier, have constructed their Soviets, have summoned to the workers of political constrution , the classes which the bourgeois used to oppress and to stupefy, and begun themselves to build up a new proletarian State, begun in the midest of raging battles ,in the fire of Civil War, to lay down the fundamental principles of "a State without exploiters" , then all the scoundrals of the bourgeoisie , the entire band of blood suckers, with Kautsky, singing ‘obliger to’ scream about arbitariness!"
Lenin p77-78
: 0 :
Party :--
But it has become clear that no revolution is possible unless there is a party able to lead the revolution.
( p 15 Lessons of October 1917 )
A party is the instrument indespensible to a proletarian revolution.
( p17 Idib by Trotesky )
Signatures of B K Dutt
Dated 12/7/30
Law, morality. religion are to him ( the woring man ) so many bourgeois prejudices behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
Karl Marx -- Menifesto
Page 67
Autograph of Sh B K Dutta
12th July ‘30
Autograph of Mr. B K Dutta taken on 12th July ‘30 in Cell No 137 Central jail Lahore four days before his final departure from this jail .
Sd/- Bhagat Singh
Page 68
Blank
Page 69
Aim of communists : ---
" The communists disdain to conceal their views and aim. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to loose but their chains. They have a world to win Workingmen of all countries , unite.
: 0 :
Aim of Communist Revolution :---
" We have seen above , that the first step in the revolution by working class is to raise the proletriat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy to wrest , by degree , all capital from the bourgeoisie , to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State , i.e of the proletraiat organised as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. "
" Communist Manifesto "
Page 70
To point out the mistakes of Karl Marx :-----
..... And it certainly looks as if Trotsky belonged to what Germans called the school of "real politics " and was as innocent as Bismarck of any ideology at all. And it is therefore rather curious to note that even Trotsky is not revolutionary enough to say that Marx had made mistake; but feels obliged to devote a page or so to the task of exegesis -- that is , proving that the sacred books meant something quite different from what they said.
Preface to The lessons of October 1917
by Trotsky
Preface by A.Susan Lawrence
Voice of the People :-----
The Goverment we know have all ruled , in the main, by indifference of people; they have always been gov’t of a minority of this or that fraction of the country which is politically conscious. But when the gaint wakes , he will have his way , and all that matters to the world is whether he will wake in time.
Preface
Page 71
" It so often happens." wrote Lenin in July 1917, " that when events take a sudden turn, even an advanced party cannot adapt itself for some time to the new coditions. It goes on repeating yesterday’s watch words which under the new circumstances have become empty of meaning and which have lost meaning ‘unexpectedly’ , just in proportion as the change of in events has been unexpected. "
Lesson of October P17
: 0 :
Tactics and Strategy : -------
In politics as in war , tactics means the art of conducting isolated operations ; strategy means the art of victory , that is the actual seizure of power.
P 18
: 0 :
Propoganda and Action :----
And it is an extremely sudden change, when the party of Proletriat passes from prepration , from propaganda and organisation and agitation to an actual struggle for power and an actual insurrection against bougeoisie . Those in the party who are irresolute or sceptical , or compromising, or cowardly ..... oppose the insurrection, they look for theortical arguments to justify their opposition, and they find them all ready made , among their opponents of yesterday.
Trotsky p 19
Page 72
" It is necessary to direct ourselves, not by old formulas but by new realities."
Lenin p25
He always fought for the future against the past.
p41
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But a moment comes when the habit of thinking that the enemy is strongest becomes main obstacle to victotry.
Trotsky p 48
...... But in such circumstances not every party will have its Lenin.
....... What does it means to loose the moment?
All the art of tactics consists in this to to match the moment when the combination of circumstances is most favourable......
( Circumstances had produced the combination and Lenin said ) The crisis must be settled in one way or another " Now or never" repeated Lenin.
P 52
Page 73
The strength of a revolutionary party grows to a certain point, after which the contrary may happen .........
" To hesitate is crime" wrote at the begining of October, " To wait for the Congress of Soviets is a childish playing with formalities, a disgraceful playing with formalities, it is betraying the revolution."
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Opportune Moment : -----
Time is an important factor in politics. It is thousand times more so in war and revolution. Things can be done today that cannot be done tomorrow. To raise in arms to defeat the enemy , to seize power, may be possible today and tomorrow may be impossible. But, you will say , to seize power means changing the course of history; is it possible that such a thing can depend on a delay of 24 hours? Even so, when it comes to an armed insurrection, events are not measured by long yards of politics but by short yards of war. To lose a few weeks , a few days , sometimes even one day , may mean giving up the revolution , may mean capitulation.
Political cunning is always dangerous , especially in a revolution . You may deceive the enemy, but you may confuse the masses who are following you.
Page 74
Hesitation :----
Hesitation on the part of the leaders, and felt by their followers , is generally harmful in politics; but in the case of an armed insurrection, it is a deadly danger.
War :----
......... War is war ; come what may, there must be no hesitation or loss of time.
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The inefficient Leader : ---
........ There are two kinds of leaders who incline to drag the party back at the moment when it should go fastest. One kind also tends to see over whelming difficulties and obstacles in the way of revolution and looks at them ----- consciously or unconsciously -- with the desire of avoiding them. They alter Marxism into a system for explaining why revolutionary action is impossible.
The other kind are mere superficial agitators. They see never any obstacle untill they can break their heads against them. They think they can avoid real difficulties by floods of oratory. They look at every thing with supreme optimism , and , naturally change right over when something has actually to be done.
P 80
PAGES 75 TO 100 ARE BLANK
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Courtesy:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9728510/Jail-Note-Book-of-Shahid-Bhagat-Singh
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