tionary movement against the imperialistic powers, and that inexhaustible reservoirs of revolutionary strength may there be found which, under the present circumstances, may be objectively directed against the entire bourgeois system of the world.
The Versailles Treaty is being annulled by facts. It does not lead the way to any general understanding among capitalist countries, nor to an abandonment of imperialism, but, on the contrary, it creates new antagonism, new imperialistic groupings and new armaments. In the present situation, the reconstruction of Europe is impossible. American capitalism will make no sacrifice to restore the capitalistic system in Europe. America is like a vulture hovering over Europe, which will become its prey. America will enslave capitalistic Europe unless the European working classes seize political power and clear away the wreckage of the world war by the reconstruction of Europe through a federated Soviet Republic.
The recent experiences of a small country such as Austria, have much importance as symptoms of the political condition of Europe. By edict of Entente Imperialism, the whole of that "democracy"—which has been so much praised by the Two-and-a-Half International, the defence of which served as a pretext for every act of betrayal of working-class interest, and the protection of which they placed in the hands of the most reactionary Monarchists, Christian Socialists, Pan-Germans, who simply used it for the re-establishment of their power—has been annihilated by a stroke of the pen in Geneva and replaced by the uncompromising dictatorship of a plenipotentiary of the Entente. As soon as the bourgeois parliament was eliminated, its place was taken by a servant of the Entente bankers. The Social Democrats, after a brief show of resistance, capitulated and voluntarily assisted in carrying out the damaging agreement. They even showed a badly-concealed willingness to re-enter the Coalition, in order to hamper as far as possible the resistance of the workers.
These experiences of little Austria, and also the recent rise to power of the Fascisti in Italy, clearly show the insecurity of the whole situation and prove that "democracy" is merely a sham and implies in truth the veiled dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. When this did not serve its purpose, a brutal white guard terror took the place of the bourgeois dictatorship.
At the same time the international political situation of Soviet Russia—the only country where the proletariat has conquered the bourgeoisie and has retained its power during five long years that it has been withstanding the attacks of its enemies—has become considerably stronger.
At the conferences of Genoa and Hague, the Entente capitalists tried their best to force Russia to abandon the nationalisation of industry and to burden Russia with such a debt as would have converted the Soviet Republic into an Entente
25
