Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/218

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution

new Committee. We immediately declared the complete hostility of the Belgian Labour Party to a full meeting which would force them to meet the German Socialist Majority. But we added that separate interviews of the Organizing Committee with the different sections of the International might be useful. They would facilitate explanations or necessary declarations; they would oblige the Socialists of all countries engaging in the war to express their views on the situation; they would permit neutral countries to make a united statement on the situation. These interviews have since taken place.

Most of the Socialist bodies took part in them, and notably two bodies of the German Social Democracy.

The memorandum of Scheidemann and his friends was published, with the reply from Albert Thomas.

The greeting that the members of the Committee gave to the declaration of the German Majority was, it seems, anything but favourable, and it seems almost as if this greeting had something to do with the effort that Scheidemann made on his

212