The Bolsheviki and World Peace

ess. With two or three exceptions Socialist papers daily point out to the German workingman that a victory of the German arms is his victory. The capture of Maubeuge, the sinking of three Eng

ple's will for the class struggle has substituted the education of the people's will for military victories. I have not in mind the ugly chauvinistic excesses of individual organs, but

made it its task only to avert the danger threatening f

itself on the defensive in this War. We have already discussed the standards for determining the difference between a war of aggression and a war of defense. These standards are numerous and contradictory. Yet i

ive. Urged onward by the feverish development of the national industry, German imperialism disturb

be most favorable for Germany to deal her rivals a crushing blow--whi

t Germany played in Austria's provocative action in Servia. The fact that Cza

the entire German campaign was

ics, the first move of the German army

pretations--although the first two pages of the White Book are very clear as to this meaning--has the revolutionary party of the working cla

ieve that it was Napoleon who provoked the war, while he himself, the peace-lo

as generally overlooked, while in Germany, which appeared to be the one attacked, preparations for war had been completed down

t one might expect more critical

t in case of an attack on Germany the Social Democracy would defend i

a war of attack.... Yesterday it was the German government that took the aggressive, to-morrow it will be the French government, and we cannot know if the day after it may not be the English government. The governments are constantly taking turns. As a matter of fact what we are concerned with in case of war is not a national, but an international question. For a war between great powers will become a world war and will affect the whole of Europe, not two countries alone. Some day the German government might make the German proletariat believe they were being attacked; the French government might do the same with its subjects, and t

the position of the Social Democracy dependent upon an indefinite and contradictory formal estimate of whether a war is one of defense or one of aggress

nger of war begat excluded the possibility for the Social Democracy's expecting salvation from the victory of either of the warring parties. For that very

"Don't reckon upon us if some day you decide to utilize your cannon and your battleships." Then he turned to Petrograd and London: "They had better take

two fronts, the internal front and the foreign front. His one obstinate answer to all historical and logical objections

psychology of the masses. They whispered with the Socialist leaders, nosed about in the office of the International, and so created a sentiment which made it possible for Jaurès and Haase to declare at Brussels, a few days before the outbreak of the War, that their particular governments had no other object than the preservation of p

voked, apart from who was right and who was wrong, war, once it breaks out, subjects every belligerent to the danger of invasion and conquest. Theoretical, political, diplomatic and military considerations fall into ruins as in an earthquake, a conflagration or a flood. The government with its army is elevated to the position of the one power that can protect and save its people. The large masses of the people in actuality return to a pre-political condition. This feeling of the masses, this elemental reflex of the catastrophe, need not be criticized in so far as it is only a temporary feeling. But it is quite a different matter in the case of the attitude of the Social Democracy, the responsible political representative of the masses. The political organizations of the possessing classes and especially the po

ening our Fatherland, and you join us in trying to avert the danger by arms. But this danger has not grown up since yesterday. You must previously have known of the existence and the tendencies of Czarism, and you knew that we had other enemies besides. So by what right did you attack us when we built up our army and our navy? By what right did you refuse to vote for military appropriations year after year? Was it by the right of treason or the right of blindness? If in spite of you we had not built up our army, we should now be

aid, and this time his speech would have carrie

ined organization--be made to serve for class exploitation at home and for imperialistic adventures abroad, but will be invincible in national defense. We want a militia. We cannot trust you with the work of national defense. You have made the army a school of reactionary training. You have drilled your corps of officers in the hatred of the most important class of moder

es from both the right an

annot on the instant replace William II.'s army by a people's militia, and once this is so, we cannot refuse food, clothing and materials of war to the army tha

the most convincing thing

by circumstances, we should still be waiting in vain for an answer to the principal question: Why did the Social Democracy, as the political organization of a class that has been denied a share in the governmen

ormal state-housekeeping we wage war against the monarchy, the bourgeoisie and militarism, and are under obligations to the masses to carry on that war with the whole weight of our authority, then we commit the greate

In that way we can also most surely serve that part of our task which war outlines so sharply, the work of national independence. The Social Democracy cannot let the fate of any nation, whether its own or another nation, depend upon military successes. In throwing upon the capitalist state the responsibility for the method by which it protects its indep

saying that the entire German people stood behind him. What should we Russian Socialists say to the Russian workingmen in face of the fact that the bullets the German workers are shooting at them bear the political and moral seal of the German Social Democracy? "We cannot make our po

in Germany and France. No outside power, no confiscation or destruction of Socialist property, no arrests and imprisonments could have dealt such a blow

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the name of a "war of defense"--as an argument, by no means as an actual possibility. Now that this picture has

erpretation of the present situation, which, in its turn, is conditioned by the difference in their geographical position [!]. Therefore, this difference can scarcely be overcome while the war

f their parties, this is not a collapse of the International. The "standard of judgment" is one and the same for the German Socialist cutting a Frenchman's throat as for the French Socialist cutting a German's throat. If Ludwig Frank takes up his gun, not to proclaim the "difference of principle" to the French Socialists, but to shoot them in

onal was oppo

as best it can. This means for the Social Democracy of every country the same right and the same duty to participate in its c

own skin, to break one another's skulls in self-def

r standards. Nor is there any difference of principle between them either. They least of all have any right to cast reproaches at each other. Their conduct simply springs from "a difference in their geographical position." Had Bethmann-Hollweg b

cy in case of war wanted to judge by national and not by international consi

ernational in place of the international point of view that they held in common, Kautsky not only reconciles himself to thi

e independence and the integrity of the national territory. This is an essential of democracy, tha

al Austro-Hungarian Monarchy? And the German Social Democracy? By amalgamating itself politically with the German army, it not only helps to preserve the Austro

n by the point of the bayonet, at every frontier passing over the living bodies of the nations. If the Social Democracy assists its national (or anti-national) governments with all its energy, it is again leaving it to the power and intelligence of the bayonet to correct the map of Europe. And in tearing the International

duties above its class duties, it commits the greatest crime not only against Socia