''Your iron chain was poor and rusty enough as it is, and now it has several links made not even of wood, but of clay and paper.''

Published in Pravda No. 67, June 9 (May 27), 1917

If an iron chain is needed to hold a weight, say, of 100 poods, what would happen if we replaced one of its links by a wooden one?

The chain would break.

No matter how strong and intact all the other links are, if the wooden link breaks the whole chain will burst.

The same is true in politics.

The Mensheviks and Narodniks, the ministerialist gentlemen of these petty-bourgeois parties, have joined forces with Plekhanov’s “Yedinstvo” in the elections to the District Councils.

You have only yourselves to blame, gentlemen!

Your “iron” chain was poor and rusty enough as it is, and now it has several links made not even of wood, but of clay and paper.

You have only yourselves to blame!

Comrades, working men and working women, soldiers, toilers, do you realise that by voting for the Narodnik-Menshevik bloc you will be voting for Plekhanov’s “Yedinstvo”?

You will be voting for that disgraceful Yedinstvo of Plekhanov’s which even the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary newspapers turn away from.

You will be voting for that disgraceful Yedinstvo of Plekhanov’s which, to the capitalists’ delight, frankly advocates war to a victorious finish.

You will be voting for that disgraceful Yedinstvo of Plekhanov’s which daily whitewashes the Russian capitalists by throwing all the blame on the German capitalists and tramples on the fraternal alliance of the workers of all countries in their struggle against the capitalists of all countries.

If you stand for the working people against the capitalists, if you wish to fight for bread, peace and liberty—then do not give a single vote to the bloc of the Narodniks and Mensheviks, who are trying to hide the rotten “Yedinstvo” in their lists!

Vote only for the Bolshevik and internationalist Social Democrats!

Source: Marxist Internet Archive