Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution/Appendix
APPENDIX
THE Dutch-Scandinavian Commission received on Saturday, June 30th, the Belgian Delegation, composed of citizen Emile Vandervelde, President of the International Socialist Bureau, and Louis de Brouckère, Assistant delegate to the International Socialist Bureau, both of them members of the General Council of the Belgian Labour Party.
The Delegation submitted their opinions in the following Memorandum:—
Open up before dealing with peace conditions the problem of to-morrow; we wish to recall our point of view with regard to the War, the problem of to-day.
It seems to us less a war between nations than a, probably decisive, struggle between two political principles. It is in this sense that it has justly been called a civil war in the Society of Nations.
This true nature of the great conflict was evident from its very beginning, and it becomes more evident every day.
Democracy Defends Its Cause.
The Russian Revolution, of which this War has been if not the fundamental reason at least the opportunity for the United States to come in.
America has had recourse to force of arms, only after having exhausted all the means of ending this great quarrel peacefully. She has definitely ranged herself now on the side of all free nations, that is to say, those having already accomplished their democratic revolution. On the other side, almost entirely isolated, are the last three semi-feudal, semiabsolute Powers, that of the Emperor of Germany, the sovereign of AustriaHungary, and of the Great Turk.
Against this triple force of oppression and reaction, whose triumph, or simply whose maintenance, would threaten the world with an unbearable slavery, would crush all hope, all possibility of the political development of the proletariat, democracy is fighting.
No one could seriously contest that this War on the part of the Allied Powers is not both a War of Defence and Liberation. Certainly we admit, unanimously with the Allied Socialists represented at the Conference of London in 1915, that all Capitalist Governments have in this present conflict their share of the responsibility. But we state with this assembly that on the rulers of the Central Powers, and on them alone, lies the direct, immediate responsibility of the conflict.
The Responsibilities of the War.
International Capitalist Imperialism has created economic and political conditions which have rendered the catastrophe possible, but it is the reactionary military Imperialism of the Central Powers that has used these circumstances to attempt universal hegemony, and who, conscientiously and deliberately carrying out a plan long since matured, have let loose this War on the vilest pretext and for the most miserable cause. They have been able to put their designs into execution owing to the passivity of their people, a passivity inconceivable in any other country, in France, Great Britain, even in Russia of 1914, where already the forces of democracy were rising against the Czar, and would have certainly rebelled against so amazing an endeavour.
We shall dwell but an instant, and only to set it aside, on the objection that if the Central Powers are guilty of Imperialism the Allied Powers are not exempt either, that in France, Britain, or Italy a certain proportion of the population, certain interests, certain groups always aspire to veritable territorial conquests, either colonial economic gains or even European, we should not dream of denying, no more than we should allow plausible conclusions to be drawn from that fact.
It is only in the ideal land of dreams that causes appear with simplicity and theoretic purity. In the world in which we live it is otherwise. Nothing is entirely exempt from some mixture of its opposite. But in politics, so in all other domains of action, we must find out the leading characteristics without dwelling on the exceptions.
France and Great Britain.
France of the Revolution, France whose effort to bring to triumph the cause of arbitration has been shown on every page of her International Annals, France who in August 1914 withdrew her troops to 10 kilometres from the frontiers and exposed her country to invasion to avoid even the appearance of provocation, is she less France because some financiers endeavoured to compromise her in Morocco?
Britain, who was arranging her naval vacations, who endeavoured with an energy and zeal unequal to the task to turn aside the catastrophe and find a juridicial solution to the conflict, is she less the old and strong democracy that has set so powerful an example to the world because a handful of landlords have obstinately opposed themselves to her liberal traditions?
The essential difference between the Central Powers and those of the Entente, that difference to which we have already alluded and to which we always return because it is the leading feature in the whole problem of the War, lies in the fact that while on our side a strong and active democracy exercising considerable political power, succeeds generally in holding in check Imperialist power, in keeping them at least within certain limits, the events of the three last years have shown, alas! but too clearly, that in the nations that are fighting against us democracy is powerless in the decisive hour, and so will she remain so long as deep and organic upheavals have not transformed the very constitution of their country.
We need not dwell on the evidence of this. If the responsibility of the German Empire in the present conflict were still to be established, if the side from which comes the Imperialist danger were still to be sought, Germany's own avowals would set at rest all further doubts.
We observe with joy the opinion of the German minority of Haase, Bernstein, and Kautsky is in this matter the same as our own, and we consider it our duty to express here our admiration of the courage with which they have expressed it.
From what we have just said come certain practical consequences, which we shall enumerate. And now we come to the kernel of our subject. In the first place Imperialism is nowhere reduced to complete impotence, a part of the ruling classes endeavour everywhere to lead governments to a policy of conquest, and from that comes the necessity of Socialists in all countries opposing energetically national Imperialism and preventing its imposing on the people its own War aims.
The Socialists of the Entente are also under these obligations. Their duty is to purify, as it were, this defensive War, to clear it of all desire for revenge, the abuse of power towards the vanquished, the extorted ransom, the lands placed under foreign rule against the will of the people, and they have never drawn back from this duty.
In what concerns the Belgian Socialists, the only ones of whom we are qualified to speak, it may be of use to recall here that they have fought and vanquished the annexationist danger that existed even in their own country in a certain measure, and that the Belgian Government is agreed on our programme of peace without conquest.
The special note added by Belgium to the reply of the Allies shows that this nation, which before the War aspired only to live at peace with her neighbours, has to-day no other aim in the War but the re-establishment of peace and justice, but that she wishes a peace that will assure to her country legitimate reparation and the guarantee of future security.
The present circumstances, and especially the Russian Revolution, which will be felt throughout the entire world, open up new possibilities in the struggle against Imperialism.
The Socialist Duty.
Everywhere Socialists can now act with more chances of success. We do not hesitate to say that they owe it to themselves to take full advantage of this, not only by influencing the diverse Governments where they are represented, or by parliamentary influence, but by making a direct appeal to public opinion by influencing the masses dealing directly with the people themselves, and directed at this purification of war aims in which Russia has set us an example.
Having said this, we hasten to come back to what we consider at present an essential Socialist duty, that of defence against the aggression of German Imperialism, and against its attempt at universal hegemony. We Belgians have even been reproached with having defended ourselves. We shall not reply to that by quoting the resolutions of the International, which recognizes the right of national defence and recommends the creation of militia for that purpose. We should blush to reduce this argument to a mere interpretation of text. We shall only say that attack and invasion have made weigh upon us the most heavy of tyrannies, the German military tyranny, to which Bismarck assigned as aim that the people should be left only their eyes to weep with. Belgian Socialism, which so often has risen against oppression within, was not likely to submit to oppression from without.
When they burned our villages, when they insulted our women, when they brutally suppressed our hardly-won liberties, how could we admit that this was a simple bourgeois quarrel which did not concern the working classes.
On the other hand, if they had given up the idea of fighting and protested that William II's soldiers were too numerous and his cannons powerful, they would have been dishonoured in their own eyes, cowardice never having been numbered among revolutionary virtues.
We must add that such renunciation was not even discussed. With their rifles and their strikes they have fought, and all the reports that come to us from our country are at one in stating that they will go on fighting whatever may be the sacrifices, however long may be the suffering, until this tyranny is vanquished.
The Sacred Union.
We have been reproached with having allied ourselves in this struggle with all classes of the people, with having achieved the sacred union. We do not dream of excusing ourselves. German aggression has created among all Belgian common interests since they are crushed beneath common yoke.
We are asked to think only of inter-class conflicts. Shall we do so amidst our ruined factories in a country where there is now scarcely any regular work? Shall our deported workmen lead such a cause?
To be able to take up again, otherwise than in mere words, the political struggle of our working classes, who does not see that we must have first a real national political life, that we must have regained our independence, nay, more, that we must have put it beyond the possibility of further attack.
We have been reproached with having behaved as the German majority did, because we also helped our Government in the continuance of this War. No distinction is drawn between the aggressor and the victim, and speeches are made on the technical difficulty of recognizing the real assailant. The failure of Bebel's thesis is proclaimed. We have no intention of stopping to discuss this mere verbiage.
To all clear consciences the fact of dealing a blow will always be distinct from the fact of parrying that blow. And, what, although the guilt of the German Government be not sufficiently established by the mere fact that they declared war, if other manifest proofs exist to show their criminal intention, their long premeditation and their methodical carrying out of their plan. All comparison between us—we who join with all the nation because she is attacked—and those who joined their Emperor to attack us seems to us an outrage, which we deeply resent and which makes any common understanding, any discussion even, impossible.
The defence against aggressive imperialism implies for us something more than the mere driving back of the invader from our frontiers. Now that the attack has been made we can no longer exist, the world can no longer go on, under the perpetual threat of its recommencement. As long as in Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople emperors, believing themselves to be invested with the Divine mission of governing the world, continue to dispose as they will of all the moral and material forces of their docile people, ready to follow them in all their enterprises, there can be no security for us, no social life possible, no hope of development nor of democratic progress. No treaty, whatever may be its terms, can give us the indispensable guarantee since we know from experience how enemy countries treat those scraps of paper.
Belgian Neutrality and Germany.
On the 2nd of August 1914 the German minister at Brussels solemnly declared that we should remain apart from this conflict, that it might be we should see our neighbour's house in flames, but our own roof would be spared. Some hours after he delivered the ultimatum giving us, as is known, but a few hours to reply. Almost immediately the invasion began, and systematically they burned our towns and villages.
We cannot live henceforth in the perpetual dread of such horror happening again, and sleep at nights wondering if we shall waken to the clatter of the Uhlans' horses through our streets. Let them not tell us that the destruction of German Imperialism is the business of the Germans themselves. It could only be so if their Imperialism remained at home. To-day it has outstepped its limits and oppresses us. We are not disposed to let them work their will on us. We mean to break the power of our tyrant. We desire this as legitimately as the Russians for example, who resolved to break the power of their tyrant, and the fact that ours is seated in Berlin is not a sufficient reason to make us change our opinion.
Moreover, what we say of Belgium's decision in this matter applies to all the nations of the Entente.
The suppression of German Imperialism is obviously a world-wide necessity.
There is no Democratic development possible, there is notably no future for the working classes other than in a durable peace, and the only durable peace conceivable lies in the development of international law, in the solution of conflicts by legal ruling, in the establishment of international institutions that will administer justice in this society of nations that the President of the United States has announced amid the applause of the democracy of the world.
But how could nations engage in this worthily, how could they become useful parties to the international contract if in the first place they are not masters of their own destinies, if they could not effectively control a Government responsible to them.
We insist on making quite clear, to avoid all possibility of a mistake, that the necessary struggle, in our opinion, is the struggle against German Imperialism, and not against the German people.
Whatever may have been our grief and indignation when we learned what the German people had become in this War, the servile executors of the will of their master, when we saw Socialists whom we had become accustomed to consider as brothers taking their part, in our country, in the pillage and massacre, in the aggression and insult of our most cherished feelings, mocking at the credulity of internationalists who counted on their aid, we would not, all the same, for that reason hate the German people.
We ask no revenge against them, we do not wish, when our turn comes, to oppress them, we only wish to deliver them in delivering ourselves, to give them the right to dispose of themselves in the same way even as the Russian Revolution has done for the Russian people.
This right, obviously implying the deliverance from national despotism as from all foreign despotism, all project of dismemberment of Germany or Austria-Hungary, whether that territories really German be joined in spite of the wish of their inhabitants to some foreign Power, or that, on the contrary, existing empires be forced to divide themselves up into independent sovereignties, would find us immovably opposed. And even any economic league against Germany with the aim or the result of preventing the legitimate development of her industry, all attempt to submit her to a contribution, or any action directed towards isolating her.
These precautions might be indispensable against the subjects of the Hohenzollern, obstinately resolved to bind themselves to their destinies and to serve them against humanity, but they are not conceivable, indeed they would bring about a revolt of the world's democracy if we attempted to apply them to a Germany liberated.
The Conditions of a Durable Peace.
Our conception of a peace comes from what we have just said of the manner in which we regard this War. We can conceive of no durable peace being possible while the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs keep their present power. If it were imposed on the world it would only lead to extension and reinforcement of tyranny, followed by a new war, whose preparation would absorb for a generation probably the living forces of the world, and would condemn it to the most terrible material, political, and moral stagnation.
The greatest danger of the present moment is the danger of the free countries giving way to war weariness and accepting a precarious peace, a peace which would not solve the vital problem that is before us.
We feel that we could not become a party to it without betraying in the deepest sense our Socialistic convictions.
As for peace with the peoples of the Central Powers, the day that they are delivered from their rulers, be it by their own effort or by ours, we have already stated our views on this subject to the Council of Workmen and Soldiers' deputies at Petrograd.
The Council of Workmen and Soldiers' deputies at Petrograd had drawn up in their appeal to the Socialists of all countries the essential conditions for a general peace. A peace without annexation or indemnities, on a basis of the right of all nations to dispose of themselves.
In the name of the Belgian Socialists who have deputed us to represent them abroad, we have declared that we associate ourselves unreservedly with the sense of democracy and justice which has inspired this statement. We adhere to all its terms, but we desire to make clear the sense in which we understand them. Like all general formulæ, that of the Committee is possible of various interpretations, and it is important to avoid in exchanging views the misunderstanding that might result by using equivocal expressions.
No annexation. Annexation occurs when the belligerents by force and against the will of the inhabitants attach all or a part of the territories of their adversaries to the kingdom of their own sovereign. The classical example of this is the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire.
If, conforming to the will of the inhabitants, this province were now returned to France, we see in that no annexation in the sense in which we have just defined it, we should, on the contrary, consider it a dis-annexation. Even the constitution of the Polish unity, the completion of Italian and Servian unity, desired by the population in question, would not have that character of violence or force which is characteristic of an annexation. These territorial changes would only serve for the realization of legitimate national aims, conforming to all traditions of democracy and to the doctrine so often formulated of the International.
The Policy of Annexation.
Belgian Socialists have not waited till to-day to oppose strongly the policy of annexation. A small part of our Conservative Party has made a campaign in view of the complete victory of the Allies. Belgium receiving an important part of the German territory on the left bank of the Rhine, Aix-la-Chapelle, and even Cologne. Our annexationists would reclaim from Holland a part of Limburg, yielded to that country in 1839, and from Dutch Flanders which would give us access to the mouth of the Scheldt, and would thus assure in all time the free navigation of the river. By our efforts we have succeeded in deleting from the programme all claims of this description. Public documents declare it in which all the members of the Cabinet are engaged.
We shall content ourselves by referring to the declaration added by Belgium to the general reply made by the Allies to President Wilson. There it is expressly stated that the nation which before the War only wished to live at peace with its neighbours has to-day no other aim than the establishment of peace and order. But that she insists on a peace which would assure the country legitimate reparation and the guarantee of future security.
The refusal of all annexation does not necessarily imply the maintenance of the territorial statu quo, we have already pointed out that the modification of frontiers seems legitimate to us when it conforms to the wishes of the inhabitants. With regard to Belgium we see two possible applications of this general principle.
There are in the neighbourhood of Stavelot several villages, at present attached to Prussia, which appear to wish to become Belgian again. The peace treaty would grant them their aspiration if this aspiration were clearly expressed.
In the same way the little state of Luxembourg, numbering hardly 200,000 inhabitants, provided that her return to Belgium, from which she was detached, would give her more advantages than she could hope for in a separate existence; we believe that we shall be able to welcome her as part of Belgium did she freely attach herself.
Reparations.
No contributions. We mean by contributions an indemnity such as that which Bismarck exacted in 1871 from vanquished France, or that which Germany imposes continually in occupied Belgium. This contribution is like a tax levied on the weakest. It is one of the most cynical applications of the doctrine that might is right. Needless to say that, as strongly as the Workmen and Soldiers' Committee, we object to such an idea. But just because we do object so strongly we can only admit a peace treaty which would in some way sanction contributions levied by the invader during the war being repaid.
This question has a special interest for Belgium—let us say without exaggeration a vital interest; for if we do not arrive at an equitable solution of this problem the greater part of our working-class population will be condemned for long years to suffering, poverty, and lack of work, from which their only escape would be emigration en masse.
German authority has by threats and violence exacted from our towns the payment of several millions in money since the beginning of the German occupation. They requisition, moreover, for the needs of the army a monthly contribution of fifty millions in corn, and that has been increased to sixty millions. They have seized several millions in raw food material and machinery. They have carried out much destruction for military operations: in many cases this was simply to terrorize the population and assure for the future economic advantage by suppressing a troublesome competition.
The Belgian nation must indemnify the victims of all such violence, and this charge will be added to those which we have enumerated.
It would be the height of injustice to allow the victim of this oppression to bear the burden of repaying it. It might even lead to the risk of her succumbing beneath the burden.
Surely in common justice the author of the ill-doing should repair what wrong he has done, in so far as it is reparable.
On October 4, 1914, the Chancellor admitted in the Reichstag that Germany had violated the neutrality of Belgium, and that she owed her reparation. We are firmly convinced that Russian democracy will not admit less than did the representative of the Kaiser, and will recognize in this matter the obvious rights of an oppressed nation.
Rights of Nations to Dispose of
Themselves.
According to us, this right implies that nations shall have no foreign rulers, and that they cannot be placed against their will under a selected sovereignty. The principle proclaimed by the Soviet is opposed by its former conception of the territorial statu quo, to which the Holy Alliance had brought its influence to bear, to that which bound once for all every province to a State, or rather placed it in the domain of a sovereign. Any change made was considered as infringing the divine right on which the sovereignty was founded, but to-day, when the Constitution is based on the naturally variable will of the people, the right of populations to change their rulers seems no less essential than their right, to retain them. It would be as tyrannical to maintain against their will in the Hungarian or Austrian State, Bosnia or Bohemia or Transylvania, which aspired to other national destinies, as it would be to attach by force to the German Empire Belgium, which has an invincible repugnance to abandon her independent existence.
The right of nations to dispose of themselves implied no less surely that they shall have no masters in their own countries either. It was only a misleading verbalism, for example, when one spoke of the right of Russia to dispose of herself before the Revolution, since the Czar could dispose of the Empire. In the same way we cannot honestly say that Germany disposes of herself as long as the semi-absolutism of the Hohenzollern exists. This seems to us essential. We consider the Democratic Constitution of Germany not only as a right that she can claim, but as a condition to which other nations have the right to subordinate their adhesion to a general peace.
We can certainly trust ourselves to an agreement signed in the name of a people having the will and the power to guide their own destinies, but we can consider only as another scrap of paper a treaty which would be guaranteed only by an Emperor accustomed to hold lightly his given word, and having, as in the past, the power to lead a docile nation where he chose.
We do not hesitate to add that this necessity for liberty à interio, without which the world can know no durable peace, is necessary. What we have just said can be applied elsewhere than to Germany. A Democratic Constitution should be brought into being everywhere, developed or consolidated, so that nations can at last associate themselves in the same international justice. Our views on this point are in entire accordance with those which citizen MacDonald expressed in a letter to one of ourselves, a letter which has since been made public.
This opinion had, moreover, been forcibly expressed in the manifesto of President Wilson, and all the Socialist democracies of the allied countries find in it an echo of their own views. We believe that even on this point the opinion of our Russian friends will be the same as our own, and that if they have not expressly mentioned the Democratic Constitution of States and the establishment of a Society of Nations in the programme that they submitted to the working classes of the whole world, it is because they have considered both as implicitly understood in the right of nations to dispose of their own destinies.
Against Imperialism.
We shall rejoice unreservedly if it is permitted us to see in all countries, in those governed by the coalition of Emperors as in those of the Entente, the energetic action of the working class against Imperialism carried out on the lines of the programme that the Workmen and Soldiers' Council has formulated, and of which we have endeavoured to explain the exact bearing in the first part of the memorandum. We wish to state also that, in what concerns the Belgian Socialists, they have not for one day ceased fighting against the policy of aggression and conquest. We have been accused of having sacrificed ourselves to Imperialism because we have defended our independence and our national liberty, in combination with all classes in our country, because one of us has accepted a place in the Committee of Public Safety in the Government of Havre. It is not the Russian Socialists, placed since the Revolution in the same difficult circumstances, and who have been led by these circumstances themselves to like solutions, who will echo these calumnies. They understand, as we did, that the duty of defending liberty against foreign tyranny is as sacred a duty as to defend it within our own country.
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.
It is by this that can be manifested in full publicity and open daylight the community of thought and action of the working classes, and the International can be reconstituted as something more than the mere reunion of Committees.
Reconstruction of the International.
We are firmly convinced that the International must be reconstructed from its very foundation; that the action of the masses must precede any action of the congress; which can only bear fruit if it has the support of the people. It is sufficient to say that we could not agree in the present circumstances to the suggestion of a general conference to which would be admitted unconditionally all the parties and bodies affiliated to the Socialist International Bureau.
A plenary assembly, to which would be admitted those who support the present policy of the Socialist majority of the Central Empires, appears to us both useless and dangerous—useless because such an association of contrary opinions could produce no action. Now, to our great grief, events have constantly shown us since the beginning of the war that the Socialist majority of the Central Empires, or at least the leaders who speak in their name, the only ones that we could meet in conference, are opposed to us in thought and action.
They attached themselves from the very first day to that aggression of which we have been the victims. They have not ceased to uphold it, and they are still upholding it.
It is with their complicity, with the help that they give their Emperor, that our country is invaded and that our comrades suffer.
We are fighting for our liberty and for the defence of universal democracy.
They are supporting against the Union of Democratic Nations the military effort of the last semi-absolute monarchs. They are even supporting it against the first effort of German democracy.
It is they who foresee and who fight against the revolt against the Hohenzollern.
What purpose could a meeting of them and ourselves serve, in what could it end, other than some equivocal resolution, whose skilfully veiled phrases should hide the lack of unanimity?
We believe that it is frankness rather than diplomatic skill that the international working class has need of at present.
If an assembly in such conditions seemed simply useless, we might still give in to it in deference to our comrades. But we consider it dangerous for the cause of democracy, and even for the cause of the International itself. That is why we insist. It is dangerous because it is misleading; because it obscures the situation; because it holds out the illusion that a just and durable peace is possible before Imperialism has been destroyed; because, finally, in holding out the false hope of an equitable and early solution it weakens energy and favours that drifting of weak wills towards peace at any price. We who aspire to peace only with liberty cannot associate ourselves with what might favour a German peace, under the hegemony of the King of Prussia.
We wish it to be clearly understood that we do not refuse to meet the German people, but to associate ourselves with the supporters of the Imperialism of William and Charles.
German Socialists.
We see no objection to join in common action with those who, in the Central Empires, are opposed to a policy of aggression and conquest, and have the same aims as ourselves. We would not refuse to meet the Majority Socialists if, renouncing their present errors, they openly and bravely took part against their Emperors. That is why we have asked the French and British delegations not to admit to the proposed Conference all the parties and bodies affiliated to the International, but to make a condition of admission that each group shall give its adherence to an anti-Imperialist programme which would serve as the basis of the deliberations.
The Soviet, in a spirit of conciliation, has agreed in a measure to this request, declaring that only those would be authorized to take part in the Conference who would accept the principles of peace formulated by the C.O.S.
Unfortunately, the formula of the Soviet admits of extremely different interpretations. Obviously, before being of use for this Conference its sense ought to be clear. Without that there would be a regrettable misunderstanding, as the basis of our work and the whole object for which new Russia calls the International would be affected by it.
The essential, vital point which remains to be discussed is to know by what procedure one could fix this common interpretation, which would then be imposed on all the participants and prevent these which are separated from us by a moral abyss, as well as by a political abyss, from changing the aims of our meeting and making it serve for the execution of projects conceived in the Government circles of Berlin and Vienna.
Three methods immediately present themselves to our minds. The first would consist of making clear the reading of the formula of the Soviet. Each party would then have to decide if it would accept it. But the Soviet does not seem to desire to do this. It seems, we believe, not to have the power to decide alone a question which has an international bearing. And we can only appreciate these scruples.
The Exchange of Views of Stockholm.
The second is that which the organizers of the Stockholm Conference have already adopted; to obtain an exchange of different views between the convening authorities and the different international sections of their bodies. All would thus be able to state their views and their intentions. Many misunderstandings arising from the rarity of personal contact since the War between the militants of different countries would disappear, and perhaps it would end by certain general opinions standing out which might thus serve as a basis for the convocation of a General Conference of anti-Imperialist Socialists.
We add that in our mind this exchange of views can only be of service if care be taken to remove from it all character of secret diplomacy. There must be no question of some militants, more or less delegates, discussing together in the twilight of private meetings and replacing in the debate the working classes—the party interested. They must speak in the name of their working classes, give their views consciously, clearly, honestly expressed. In other words, the first condition of all useful debate is, in all the countries taking part, this action of the masses that we have tried to make clear above. It only, moreover, can guaranteee the sincerity of engagements. These alone count in our eyes that can be interpreted by acts, and, after the terrible experience we have had we cannot reasonably be asked to accept any other.
In short, we ask that in all countries Socialists should carry on a campaign and produce a general public movement, a movement on the part of the masses to bring the Governments to give up all War aim of an Imperialist character and to accept the peace formula of the Soviet explained and made clear.
We accept the idea of an exchange of views analogous to that of the Dutch-Scandanavian Committee of Stockholm, the exchange of views based on the action of which we have spoken in the previous paragraph.
We believe that under these conditions great results could be achieved.
The General Conference.
Lastly, we believe that these preliminaries might lead to the drawing up of a programme for a General Conference sufficiently definite to prevent any misunderstandings, and to discourage all diplomatic manœuvres of our adversaries, and to keep away those nominally Socialist bodies who would not decide to co-operate sincerely in the anti-Imperialist cause to which the International would convene them.
And we wish to state clearly that as soon as these conditions are fulfilled Belgian Socialists will be glad to attend such a plenary assembly, which would then be the real International.
Before closing, we would say a word on one of the questions submitted in the sheet which we have received from the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, the Flemish question.
The Independence of Belgium.
With regard to Belgium, we are bound to state that there is a very big difference between the constant assurances that we are given on the subject of the political independence of the country, and the manner in which the occupant administers it and insists on changing the fundamental institutions.
If Germany's intention is to evacuate Belgium and to respect her independence, we cannot understand why she is carrying out a policy which can only be explained by her desire to remain. It is notably in such a spirit that she is trying to exploit the Flemish question, to set the Flemish and the Walloons against each other, and so demoralize the nation.
The Flemish people, as much as the Walloons, wish to remain Belgian, in an independent Belgium. They do not dream of accepting from the hands of the enemy occupying their land reforms in the German interest.
They intend the necessary linguistic changes to be accomplished by the Belgian Parliament, and to be the expression of the collective will of the nation.
| Signed | EMILE VANDERVELDE. | |
| LOUIS DE BROUCKÈRE. |
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