s
and ruling classes pause and consider. The cry of this army is, "No
quarter! We want all that you possess. We will be content with nothing
less than all that you possess. We want in our hands the reins of power
and the destiny of mankind. Here are our hands. They are strong hands.
We are going to take your governments, your palaces, and all your purpled
ease away from you, and in that day you shall work for your bread even as
the peasant in the field or the starved and runty clerk in your
metropolises. Here are our hands. They are strong hands."

Well may rulers and ruling classes pause and consider. This is
revolution. And, further, these 7,000,000 men are not an army on paper.
Their fighting strength in the field is 7,000,000. To-day they cast
7,000,000 votes in the civilized countries of the world.

Yesterday they were not so strong. To-morrow they will be still
stronger. And they are fighters. They love peace. They are unafraid of
war. They intend nothing less than to destroy existing capitalist
society and to take possession of the whole world. If the law of the
land permits, they fight for this end peaceably, at the ballot-box. If
the law of the land does not permit, and if they have force meted out to
them, they resort to force themselves. They meet violence with violence.
Their hands are strong and they are unafraid. In Russia, for instance,
there is no suffrage. The government executes the revolutionists. The
revolutionists kill the officers of the government. The revolutionists
meet legal murder with assassination.

Now here arises a particularly significant phase which it would be well
for the rulers to consider. Let me make it concrete. I am a
revolutionist. Yet I am a fairly sane and normal individual. I speak,
and I _think_, of these assassins in Russia as "my comrades." So do all
the comrades in America, and all the 7,000,000 comrades in the world. Of
what worth an organized, international, revolutionary movement if our
comrades are not backed up the world over! The worth is shown by the
fact that we do back up the assassinations by our comrades in Russia.
They are not disciples of Tolstoy, nor are we. We are revolutionists.

Our comrades in Russia have formed what they call "The Fighting
Organization." This Fighting Organization accused, tried, found guilty,
and condemned to death, one Sipiaguin, Minister of Interior. On April 2
he was shot and killed in the Maryinsk