362 THE CLASS STRUGGLE DOCUMENTS 363 (The New Republic)
Austria Pacifism By BAILSFORD (London)
supporters of the bourgeoisie, and the Left Wing, supporters of Socialism. Therefore this Constitutional Assembly, which was intended to be the crown of the bourgeois parliamentary republic, because of its very composition, had to oppose the October revolution and the Soviet government. The October revolution, which gave the power to the Soviets and through them to the workers and exploited classes, was strongly opposed by the exploiters. The crushing of this opposition clearly showed the beginning of a socialistic revolu.
tion. The working classes became convinced by their experience that the old parlamentarism had outlived its time, that it could not comply with the realization of the tasks of Socialism and that, not the social but only class institutions, such as the Soviets, are capable of crushing the opposition of the propertied classes and to lay down the foundations of a socialistic commonwealth.
The refusal on the part of the Soviets to use their full power and to abandon the Soviet republic, which is supported by the people, on behalf of the bourgeois parliamentarism and on behalf of the Constitutional Assembly, would now be a step backward and it would lead to the destruction of the October revolution.
The majority in the Constitutional Assembly, opened on the eighteenth of this month, is composed of the Social Revolutionary Party right wing, the party of Kerensky, Avksentyev and Chernov. It is but natural that this party refuses to take under consideration the complete, exact and clear proposition of the highest body of the Soviet Government, which proposition in no way could have been misunderstood, and that it refused to accept the proclamation of the right of toiling and exploited people and to recognize the October revolution and Soviet Government. Thus the Constitutional Assembly broke all its ties with the Russian Soviet Republic. The Bolsheviki and the Left Wing Social Revolutionists, who are supported by the great majority of workers and peasants, were under such conditions compelled to withdraw from such Constitutional Assembly. Outside of the Constitutional Assembly, the members of the right wing and the Mensheviki, the majority of the Constitutional Assembly, are openly fighting against the Soviet Government, agitating in their newspapers that their supporters overthrow this government, and thus they are supporting exploiters who are opposing the transferring of land and factories into the hands of the workers.
It is clear that thus the remaining part of the Constitutional Assembly can give their support only to the bourgeois counterrevolution in its fight to crush the Soviets. Therefore, the Executive Committee of the Soviets has decided to dissolve the Constitutional Assembly.
When Clemenceau gave to the world the startling letter in which the Austrian Emperor proposed terms of peace to France, he marked the end of a chapter. The publication of the letter would have been an unpardonable imprudence if the Emperor Karl were still an effective force working for a peace of reconciliation. Without a facsimile of the letter in the original language, it is hard to form a judgment upon it: and even then its terms might admit of two interpretations. At the lowest, it means that Austria was very much more anxious for peace than her ally; and was ready to discuss terms which included large concessions, more especially from her ally. For a year past by every device of private suggestion and public advocacy, she has endeavored to hasten peace, even at the cost of incurring the violent hostility of the German military party. The exposure of her efforts to attain peace must now have drawn down upon her the violent anger and suspicion of the Junkers. Flushed with the double elation of their easy triumphs in the east and their costly successes on the western front, dreaming once more of annexations and indemnities, they will turn upon this monarch as a false ally, and bury under their imprecations not him alone, but the whole Catholic pacifist movement of which he was the spokesman. Their fury may make for the young Emperor one of the most painful humiliations through which the Hapsburg dynasty has passed in our time. Clemenceau reasoned that it is to our advantage, even by means which challenge criticism, to create distrust and disunion in the enemy camp. There is one grave drawback to these tactics. After this sharp lesson, will the Emperor again dare to promote the cause of an early peace? If he were to risk another effort, can any vestige of influence among the leaders of opinion of the Central Powers survive this disclosure? Has not Clemenceau silenced a voice which was pleading for peace, and made an enemy of a man who wished to be a friend?
The French Ministry must have assumed that for some time to come the Austrian passion for peace has been submerged by events.
The Emperor wrote before the collapse of Russia, before the successful offensive against Italy, before the treachery of the Ukrainian Rada, before the painful surrender of Rumania, and before the second battle of the Somme. good deal has happened to prove that the Austrian peace party, even though the Emperor still heads it, is not its own master. It had to acquiesce in the cruel eastern treaties. day after