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ferences of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, wrongly regarded as "pacifist" when not contemptuously ignored, were mainly inspired by their energies. These conferences issued a defiant proclamation. "The capitalists' war is not our war. The only war that matters is the class war. We shall wage the class war whenever opportunity arises, without regard to the interests of either of the belligerent capitalist groups." Thus the bolshevik agitators, returning to Russia in the early summer of 1917, were a thorn in the side of the compromise administration throughout the stormy interval between the two revolutions of that year. They did not "make" the revolution of November; no group of agitators can make a revolution. But they actively fomented it. They were on the spot when the hour came. Their slogan, "All power to the soviets!" proved a successful counterblast to the "democracy" of those who were attempting to limit the change to a bourgeois revolution. Their influence was dominant in the soviets, and after they had seized the State machine they were able, amid unparalleled difficulties, to begin the realisation of communism, to pass from science to practice.
The New Communist Manifesto
When the Soviet Republic had been in existence rather more than a year, it issued a call for an international conference in Moscow. In view of the blockade and the widespread unsettlement that characterised the capitalist "peace," it was impossible that this gathering should be largely attended. Moreover, the unification of left-wing forces was to come about only as a result of the conference. The communists in various lands, who did not as yet realise their own mission, could not unite to send duly accredited representatives. Nevertheless, a fairly representative body assemble din Moscow during the first week of March, 1919; and here was founded the Third International. It issued what is known as the New Communist Manifesto. Tn this document, the main points which will guide the communists in their advance are summarised as follows:—
(1) The world crisis can be solved in one way only, through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
(2) The only possible league of nations is a world-wide federation of workers' republics.
(3) There must, in contradistinction to imperialist theories, be genuine self-government for all colonies.
(4) The rule of the proletariat cannot be established through the methods of bourgeois democracy. The proletariat must create its own political machinery. The workers' councils, the soviets, constitute this apparatus, the most powerful weapon in the hands of the proletariat to-day.
(5) Civil war is forced upon the working class by its mortal enemy. The workers must return blow for blow. It is necessary to disarm the bourgeoisie and to arm the proletariat. The workers' army is indispensable to the workers' State.
