Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/277

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Appendix

But though we do not deny our former conduct, though we proudly affirm that our Party and ourselves have fulfilled in this matter our duty as Socialists, we hasten to state, and we state it gladly, that the Russian Revolution has created new conditions which allow of an added intensity and a greater influence being brought to bear on anti-imperialistic action.

Free Russia has just revised and purified her war aims. The moment seems to have come when the Allied Socialist Parties can with more authority and more hope of success than in the days of Czardom demand that their respective Governments do the same.

To the diplomatic step which the Provisional Russian Government has just inaugurated in this respect can and ought to be added the political influence of the Socialist Party, not only influence with ministers and rulers, not only parliamentary influence, but influence on public opinion, on the opinion of the masses.

In this necessary, positive, immediate action we are ready to collaborate with all our strength.

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