The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Bohemian Socialists Demand Repeal of St. Louis Platform

Bohemian Socialists Demand Repeal of St Louis Platform.

To the Socialist Party of America:

The Bohemian Federation of the Socialist Party of America considers it its socialist duty to raise its voice at this time to the Socialist Party of America in an urgent request that she change her attitude toward the present war in this trying hour of struggle for democratic principles, and that she take a stand, after the example of labor parties in the Allied Nations, on the side of her own country. The Bohemian Federation of the Socialist Party and the organized Bohemian Workers in America generally, felt from the very beginning of the war warm sympathies with the workers of the Allied countries and approved their attitude toward the war. The Bohemian Federation of the Socialist Party of America welcomed the grave voice of this country, when she, after the outbreak of the Russian revolution, as if conscious of the trying moments that were to overtake the Russian people, rose to stand by the side of the young Russian Democracy and thus to secure the victory of the Russian people.

The Bohemian Federation opposed, by a great majority of its votes, the well-known resolution of the St. Louis Convention and thus testified unmistakably to its fundamentally different view of the present war.

The Bohemian Federation of the Socialist Party of America demands that the standpoint taken in the above-referred to resolution be abandoned, for the development of affairs in Russia demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt its untenability and particularly those ideas expressed in the following declarations: “It is not a war against the militarist regime of the Central Powers,”—“It is not a war to advance the cause of democracy in Europe,”—“In all modern history there has been no war more unjustifiable than the war in which we are about to engage.”

We always stood by the statement of the English comrade Hyndman, who declared: “The victory of Germany is the defeat of German socialism,” and we ever felt it our plain duty as socialists to help with all our might to defeat this German militarism. Just as, in his time, Carl Marx proclaimed: “Destroy czarist Russia!”—so we with in creased justification proclaim today: “Destroy militaristic Germany, destroy that unfit state strangling her own peoples, that Austria-Hungary which constantly menaces democracy and socialism.”

Bohemian proletariat learned, as no one else in the whole world, the character of German militarism, the nature of the German ruling classes. Have not millions of our people been suffering for centuries under this frightful regime? Hence, from the beginning of the Russian revolution it feared for its success. Its fears became terrible reality just now, when the Russian revolution is at the mercy of the military castes of Germany and—even though seemingly a peace is concluded—this revolution and with it the democracy of the world is threatened with the grave danger of total defeat. While the impotent inaction of the German Social Democracy lasts, the German imperialistic government will not stop until it will have re-established in Russia the old czarist reactionary regime.

We devined these painful ends, we who are bitterly familiar with the Austro-German reaction. This is the reason why the Bohemian Social Democracy in our old country took its place bravely, in spite of oppression and grave dangers, by the side of Russia. It was the Bohemian Social Democracy in the first place which organized a revolutionary army from the prisoners of war, the now famous Czechoslovak Army, not only to win the independence for its nation oppressed by Germans and Magyars, calling for an independent Czechoslovak Republic, but also for the defense of the Russian revolution for which it has shed and yet will shed its blood.

We consider it our duty as socialists to urge “most earnesly the socialist party in the United States to take, now at least, in the interest of Russia which is being strangled an attitude of utmost seriousness, fully appreciative of the demands of this critical moment of history. Shall the great revolution that is marching through the world pass by without the proletariat of this country entering it as an active progressive force?

We have been noting for some time that the standpoint of the St. Louis convention is being slowly but permanently abandoned by the most influential men of our party. It is but a sort of reaction which is preventing our party from taking the new course. It will be an honorable act of courage if the Socialist Party of America will declare its new standpoint openly and in a way which will quite correspond to its interests, the interests of socialism, the interests of the democratic world in general.

We demand with the full weight of our socialist vote that the Socialist Party of America declare in favor of the war against the Central Powers; that it offer this Republic all its loyal assistance and support against the outer and inner enemy everywhere, where the social and democratic in terests of this country suffer in any way whatsoever.

Bohemian socialist workers always did and always shall stand firmly upon this principle. In the war of nations which was transformed into the greatest revolution of the suffering masses of humanity, we march on with our American nation toward the great goal of a better future.

German militarism must be crushed because—“The world must be made safe for socialism and democracy.”

Chicago, Ill., Feb. 25th, 1918.
(Signed)

JOS. MARTÍNEK.
CHAS. TERINGER.
CHAS. PINTNER .
F. BELÁC.
JOSEF NOVÁK.
CHAS. GLASER.
M. MARTlNKOVÁ.
FR. HLAVÁČEK.
VOJTA BENEŠ.
JOS. JENÍK.
L. CIMLER.
FR. V. STUCHAL.
K. SRETTR.
FR. H. GRUENER.
A. V . VESELÝ.
JAN JUPPA.
TONY NOVOTNÝ.
STEPHEN SKALA.
J. NOVOTNÁ.
ANT. SVOBODA.
E. HORÁK.
FR. HORN.
FR. BROŠTA.
FR. ŽIVNÝ.