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128 THE CLASS STRUGGLE CURRENT AFFAIRS 129 trayed the class struggle and, in so doing, the decisions of the Second International, must be abandoned, the policies of the Social Imperialists and Social Patriots emphatically condemned, and the principles of the class struggle proclaimed. The future International must be founded upon the recognition of common ples and the determination for concerted action.
The Social Democracy of Switzerland, a neutral nation, does not hesitate to condemn the Social Patriotic parties nor is it afraid to call a traitor traitor. It refuses to be as gentlemanlike, well mannered and judicious as our Party and says what must be said: that no revolutionary International can be obtained with Social Imperialists and Social Patriots, at least not an International that will breast the storm of coming wars, thai will tear down the whole superstructure of capitalist society.
And in this, too, our American Socialists may learn from their Swiss comrades.
Friedrich Adler militia and proclaims its fundamental adhesion to the principle of national defense in case of attack from without, for the duration of the war and after the war, until the coming International shall have laid out the lines for a general fight against militarism, binding upon all parties and organizations affiliated with it.
It is interesting to note that the happenings of the St. Louis Convention were repeated at Berne. The radicals demanded an addition to the majority resolution, emphatically repudiating the idea of national defense. In Berne, as in St. Louis, the majority insisted that the decided opposition to all wars includes the repudiation of national defense. And yet in both countries the Left Wing demanded and in both cases justly so the insertion of a particular clause against national defense. Justly, because long years of experience have proven that our party leaders and theoreticians are as clever in the art of interpretation as the best statesman, The decision of the convention regarding the sending of delegates to the Stockholm Conference was equally unmistakable. It was decided by an overwhelming majority to send delegates to Stockholm only if its predecessor, the Zimmerwald Conference, should expressly endorse it. The action of Kienthal, the second conference of the Zimmerwald parties, received an almost unanimous endorsement. The resolution on the International says. The convention reaffirms its solidarity with the Internationalists of all nations who have striven to undermine the power of their governments; organizing and pursuing the class struggle, stimulating revolutions, to bring about the end of war and prepare the way for a Socialist peace. The Convention looks upon Socialists who support the war measures of their governments as renegades and calls upon the workers of all countries to act in accordance with the spirit of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conferences. The Convention supports the criticism and condemnation of the International Socialist Bureau expressed by the Kienthal Conference. Before an International of Labor can be firmly reestablished, the policy of toleration toward those who have beLike the flare of a rocket against the black sky of night, the shot that Friedrich Adler fired upon the Austrian Premier Stuergkh illuminated the disruption of the Austrian Party. For the deed of Friedrich Adler, and this was recognized at the time by all who knew Austrian conditions, was as much of a cry of protest against his own party, as against the Austria that Stuergkh personified. That he, whose agonized and indignant protest found its final expression in this act is the son of the builder and architect of the Austrian Party, makes that the great tragedy of the International.
Friedrich Adler lived and worked in Switzerland until shortly before the war broke out. He belonged to the radical wing of the Social Democracy, and thus stood, from the very beginning of the war, in opposition to his father and to the Austrian Party.
But this conflict antedated the war. Long before the outbreak, father and son had developed along widely divergent paths of thought and action. In Victor Adler, who was even more influential in the Austrian movement than Bebel in that of Germany, the political stagnation of the Double Monarchy had produced