The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!
Soviet of People's Commissars, Proclamation. February 21, 1918
Original Source: Pravda, No. 32, 22 February 1918, p. 1
In order to save the exhausted and depleted country from new war miseries we made the supreme sacrifice and notified the Germans of our readiness to accept their peace conditions. Our delegates left Rezhitsa for Dvinsk on the evening of February 20, but as yet we have no news. The German Government is apparently delaying an answer. It appears that it does not desire peace. German militarism is carrying out the orders of the capitalists of all countries and is aiming to crush the Russian and Ukrainian workers and peasants, to give back the land to the landlords, factories and banks to the bankers and to restore the monarchy. The German generals plan to establish "order" in Petrograd and Kiev. The Socialist Republic of the Soviets is in the greatest danger. Until the time when the German proletariat rises and conquers, it is the sacred duty of the workers and peasants of Russia to defend the Republic of the Soviets against the hordes of the bourgeois-imperialistic Germany.
The Soviet of People's Commissars has decreed that:
All the forces and resources of the country shall be devoted wholly to the revolutionary defense.
All Soviets and revolutionary organizations shall defend every position to the last drop of blood.
Railroad organizations and their Soviets must in every possible way prevent the enemy from making use of the railroad machinery. As the Russians fall back they should destroy the line, blow tip or burn the buildings, and send all the cars and locomotives eastward into the interior.
All food stores and other valuable property which might fall into, the hands of the enemy should be destroyed. The responsibility for carrying out these orders falls on local Soviets and their chairmen, who, are held personally responsible.
The workers and peasants of Petrograd, Kiev, and all cities, villages, and hamlets on the line of the new front shall mobilize battalions to dig trenches under the supervision of military specialists.
All able-bodied persons of the bourgeoisie, both men and women, should be included M. the battalions and should work under the eyes of the Red Guard. In case of refusal or opposition, shoot them down.
All publications Opposing the revolutionary defense, siding with the German bourgeoisie, or hoping to make use of the invasion of the imperialistic hordes to overthrow the Soviet Government should be closed and their able-bodied editors and collaborators put to work digging ditches and other such work.
Enemy agents, profiteers, thieves, vagabonds, counter-revolutionary agitators, and German spies should be shot on the spot.
The Socialist Fatherland is in danger!
Long live the Socialist Fatherland!
Long live the International Socialist Revolution!
Source: Decrees of the Soviet Government (Moscow: Institute of Marxism-Leninism, 1957), Vol. I, pp. 490-491.