others. Moreover, if one did so, it would be at cost of the strict exposition of the facts, and it was to be feared that a publication which appeals to all who sincerely desire to know the truth about the origin of the war might, through such a polemic, take on the partisan or even personal character, which I desired to avoid. I have, therefore, confined polemics to cases where it was required, in order to make clear the situation of affairs, and have as far as possible avoided recrimination. That this work will, nevertheless, involve me in fresh controversy, I am well prepared to discover.
But whatever attitude one may take towards it, I trust that every reader of the documents here published will keep one thing in mind: They testify to the thoughts and deeds of German statesmen, not of the German people. The guilt of the latter, so far as they are guilty, consists only in this, that they did not concern themselves sufficiently about the foreign policy of their rulers. But this is a fault which the German people shares with every other. It was in vain that more than half a century ago, at the foundation of the first International, Marx proclaimed it to be the “duty of the working classes to master for themselves the mysteries of international statecraft, in order to keep an eye on the diplomatic proceedings of their Governments.”
Hitherto this has only been achieved in very imperfect measure. The present war, with its dreadful consequences, points the working classes more sternly than ever to the fulfilment of this duty.
As a slight attempt in that direction, I offer the present work.
K. Kautsky.
Berlin, 1st November, 1919.
