THE CLASS STRUGGLE 78 79 THE CLASS STRUGGLE times of peace the tactics of its national groups on questions of militarism, on colonial policy, trade questions, May demonstrations, and the tactics of its national entities in times of war. The next duty of the socialist movement is the mental liberation of the proletariat from the guardianship of the bourgeoisie, and the shackles of the nationalistic ideaology by which it has been bound. The national sections must direct their agitation in the press, and in their parliaments, against the old nationalistic phraseology, and must denounce it as a part of the supremacy, as an instrument of mental oppression of the ruling class. The only defense of real national liberty is to day the revolutionary class struggle against Imperialism. The Fatherland of the proletariat, to whose defense all other considerations must be subordinated is the Socialist International.
The two opposition groups that deserve serious attention have thus united, in Gotha into one unified fighting organization. This result was not easily accomplished. Organization and unification alone cannot produce a complete fusion of all divergent views.
There will be friction, differences of opinion, and conflicts on questions of tactics and of principle. But the unification shows that these divergencies are not so deep, nor so impossible as it has oftentimes appeared.
On the problems of Imperialism and the attitude of the Social Democracy to international disarmament, and compulsory international arbitration, the forces of the opposition have found common ground, relentless opposition to the government as well as to the majority party, of which today no one can tell whether it is the majority or minority group of the German socialist movement, have been made a part of its immediate program while all collusion with the Scheidemann, Suedekum, Ebert group has been most emphatically repudiated. Two sentences, which once formed a part of the program of the Gruppe Internationale and whose general significance was embodied in the program of the Gotha conference will serve to illustrate the fundamental attitude of the Independent Social Democracy, and will show the absurdity of the claims of a certain American Socialist who has branded the German minority as the tool of William Hohenzollern. The war has shattered the Second International. Its inability to erect a bulwark against nationalist disruption in time of war, its failure to carry out a uniform tactic and action of the proletariat in all countries, have proven its insufficiency. In view of the betrayal of the aims and interests of the working class by the official parties in the leading countries, in view of its surrender of the proletarian International to their imperialistic capitalist rulers, the creation of a new International has become a necessity, a new International that will take up the fight and the leadership in the revolutionary class struggle in all countries, against Imperialism. In the International lies the center of gravity of the class organization of the proletariat. The International decides in When peace has come the political change that has relegated the conservatives in Germany to the second rank, and has placed the big capitalists in its place, will have been accomplished.
The brutal bourgeoisie, emerging from the war, unshackled and all powerful in its autocratic oppression of the laboring masses whom the war has left torn, disorganized and helpless in its power, will weld the proletariat, in a few short years into a fighting whole with new ideals and new methods. This will be the beginning of the most relentless struggle between capital and labor, whose equal, in bitterness and in magnitude, the world has never before witnessed. This must be understood when we hear the overthrow of monarchial Germany proclaimed by Socialists, we regret to say, as well as by others as the war aim of the democratic nations of the world. They do not understand that the German bourgeoisie, although it gained its victory over the conservative Junker, with the help of the proletariat, cannot be compared to the capitalist class of Russia or of Italy. Its economic power is so vastly greater, its understanding of the problems that it must face so incomparably keener. It knows the struggles that lie before it, knows the prize for which it is fighting with the working class. The German bourgeoisie has been and al