The Bolsheviki and World Peace

endence of our land. Thus we will make good our word, and do what we have always said we would. In the hour of d

Social Democratic fraction, read by Haa

by the Social Democratic press. The logic of the Socialist press, however, did not keep pace with its patriotism. For while it made desperate efforts to represent the War as one of

ason to decline with thanks the assistance offered them at the point of the

olation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg as a means of attacking France, Haase does not mention this fact in a single word. This silence is so monstrous that one is tempted to read the decla

e Haase, "What portion of the five billions voted by the Social Democratic fraction was meant for the destruction of Belgium?" It is quite possible that in order to protect th

, the German Social Democracy speaks to the masses only about the war against Czarism, but does not mention even by name Belgium, France and England. All this is of course not exactly flattering to the international reputation of Czarism. Yet it is quite distressing that the German Social Democracy should sacrifice its own good na

need of defending her borders from her uneasy neighbor. Austria's prop was Germany. And Germany, in turn, as we already know, was prompted by the need to secure her own state. "It would be sen

being allegedly only a means of breaking through to France along the line of least resistance. The mil

ould be a far greater menace to Germany in two or three years than she was then. And France during that time would have completely carried out her three-year army reform. Is it not clear, then, that an intelligent self-defense demanded that Germany shoul

e War now and that it was forced upon her by the Triple Entente, while the other implies that war was disadvantageous to the Entente now and that for that very reason Germany had taken

, spoke only of self-defense. It is true that no one threatened Russian territory. But national possessions, mark you, do not consist merely in territory, but in other, intangible, factors as well, among them, the influence over weaker states. Servia "belongs" in the sphere of Russian influence and serves the purpose of maintaining the so-called balance of power in the Balkans, not only the balance of power between the Balkan States bu

olicies. Thus, all the countries were on the defensive, none was the aggressor. But if that is so, then what sense is there in opposing the clai

nsiderations, and in its nature has no relation to the question of defense or aggression. And yet sometimes these formal expressions about a war designate with more or less truth the actual significance of the war. When Engels said that the Germans were on the defensive in 1870, he had least of all the immediate political and diplomatic circumstances in mind. The determining fact for

et those historical tendencies did not, in themselves, predetermine the question as to which party was interested in provoking the war just in the year 1870. We know now very well that international politics and military considerations induced Bismarck to take the actual initiative in the war. It might have happene

responsibility for the bloody conflict, in public opinion, on the enemy government. The exposure of diplomatic trickery, cheating and knavery is one of the most important functions of Socialist political agitation. But no matter to what extent we succeed in this at the crucial juncture

, regardless of which side declared the war and under what conditions. Finally, the first tactics followed in the carryin

l the invasion and follow it up by invading French territory, then it will certainly not produce the same impression as if the G

onnection between the elements of attack and defense. The first tactical move of the French should--at least in Engels' opinion--make the people feel that the responsibility of attack rested with the French. And yet the entire strategic plan of the Germans had an absolutely aggressive character. The diplomatic moves of Bismar

ich conflicted with the dynastic pretensions of the French Monarchy. But this national "war of defense" l

nducted the war and how it was conducted. "Who would have thought it possible," Marx writes bitterly, "that twenty-two years after 1848 a nationalist war in Germany could have been given such theoretical expression." Yet what w

oward it. It was by no means in opposition to the views of Marx and Engels, but, on the contrary, with their perfect acquiescenc

n principle of every dynastic war, as Social Republicians and members of the International Labor Association, which, without distinction of nationality, fights all

confidence to the policy of Bismarck. And this in spite of the fact that it was necessary, if the centralization of state power arising out of the War was to turn out of use to the Social Demo

ry consequences of the War that had induced him to

up the balance sheet of h

y acknowledged that we had been right. I confess that I do not in any way regret our attitude, and if at the outbreak of the War we had known what we learned within the next few years from the official and unofficial disc

hen he said, "Then they acknowledged that we had been right." For the vote of August 4 was eminently a condemnation of Bebel's po

Comrade Kautsky--that Germany's position towards Czarism is the same as it was towards Bonapartism in 1870! He even quotes from a letter of Engels: "All classes of the German people realized that it was a question, first of all, of national existence, and so they fell in line at once." For the same reason, we are told, the German Social Democracy has fallen into line now. It is a que

ite in his letter concerning

his gap that divided the positions between Bebel and Schweitzer in 1870. Marx and Engels were with Bebel against Schweitzer. Comrade Kautsky might have informed his leader writer, Hermann Wendel, of this fact. And it is nothing but defamation of the dead for Simplicissimus now to reconcile the shades of Bebel and B

nce. Let us forget that the starting point of the War was the crushing of Servia, and that one of its aims was the strengthening and consolidation of the arch-reactionary state, Austria-Hungary. We will not dwell on the fact that the attitude of the German Social Democracy dealt a hard blow at the Russian Revolution, whi

win, the centralization of state power will further the centralization of the German working c

tria with Germany. Any other expansion of the German fatherland means another step towards the transformation of Germany from a national state to a

of the "internal building up" of the state. There is no doubt that Germany will need this "internal building up" after a victory no less than before the War. Bu

o believe that a more liberal spirit would prevail in the new order. And this more liberal régime was to be granted by the same man who had till then shown himself the greatest enemy, I w

It was eight years after the victory over France that the anti-Socialist laws were passed. In forty-four years Prussian Junkerdom has become the imperial Junkerdom. And if, after half a century of the most intense class struggle, Junkerdo

of Germany, as stated above, can produce only one result--territorial acquisitions at the expense of Belgium, France and Russia, commercial treaties forced upon her enemies, and new colonies. The class struggle of the proletariat would then be pla

r the banner of scientific Socialism. But now the international conditions point to the very opposite prognosis. Germany's victory