6 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE CLASS STRUGGLE Socialist Congress of Copenhagen (1910) and Basle (1912. which declares that. In the event war should come notwithstanding the efforts of the Socialists to prevent it, then it becomes the duty of the Socialists to work for its speedy termination, and to use all the power at their command, utilizing the political and economic crisis produced by the war, in an effort to arouse the discontent of the people so as to hasten the abolition of the rule of the capitalist class.
The last words particularly must be constantly before our eyes, to serve as our guide in whatever we undertake. The Russian Revolution has proven the great possibilities of this war, and the utter futility of the counsel which would prevent all attempts at revolutionary propaganda because the revolution was not an accomplished fact before it was begun. It is true that unfounded expectations, illusory hopes, may involve great and useless sacrifices. But the price required by the counsels of timidity which would not make a move in the class struggle before success has been assured and insured is far more costiy, for it would render the revolutionary class absolutely impotent and would make any real revolution utterly impossible.
The foundation of a positive program such as is here suggested, must be laid by giving clear and inequivocal answers to the questions which we have formulated. And we herewith submit for the consideration of the Socialists of the United States what we believe to be the true Socialist position on the questions involved.
We emphatically and unqualifiedly repudiate the doctrine of national defense believing this doctrine to be merely an idealogic fig leaf for the shameful practices of our imperialistic age. So cialists must have none of it, if they do not want to become accomplices in the imperialistic designs of the ruling interests of the respective nations, and the wars which inevitably follow when these designs cross each other, That does not mean that we are indifferent to the independence of all nations and particularly of small nations. Nor to their right to solve their own problems and work out their own destinies. On the contrary we feel very deeply on the subject. So cialism can only be brought about by the efforts of free men, and must be based on the fullest liberty of all races and nations. But we recognize the two fold fact, that the small nations, who alone are in danger of losing their independence, are not in a position to defend it, and that none of the big nations would defend the independence of a smaller one except when such a policy is dic.
tated by its own selfish interests. Such a protection is at best insecure, and makes of the small nations mere pawns in the imperialistic world game played by the big nations. The only security of small nations as well as the protection against the forcible annexation of provinces of alien tongue and nationality, now possible, at least as far as the civilized world is concerned, only as the result of such extraordinary upheavals as the present world conflict, if at all lies in the ethical concepts and economic interest of the revolutionary proletariat. The freedom and independence of nations cannot, therefore, possibly be served by this nationalistic right or duty which is based upon and seeks to perpetuate a mode of thought which is directly contrary to the moral ideals of the revolutionary protetariat, which, nourished by group interests, is merely the elevation into an ideal of the sordid selfinterest which rules the capitalist world both within and without the group called nation.
Rising superior to the selfishness of the group called nation, as they do to the selfishness of the individual, the Socialists can see that self defense is as poor a protection in the case of a weak nation as it is in the case of a weak individual, and that the only real protection to the weak lies in an expansion and amplification of social norms and the protection which a larger society can give to its weak members as against the strong. Concretely, this means a federation of all the nations of the world an ideal which lies in the opposite direction from the right or duty of national (self)
defense.
And even before the Socialist ideal of a world federation has been achieved the important matter cannot be left to the Socialist nationals of the country which is the subject of attack. On the one hand it touches a matter in which all Socialists, whether of