486 THE CLASS STRUGGLE RECONSTRUCTION IN RUSSIA 487 Repudiation of the loans which were contracted by the Czar government upon account of the Russian people, thereby to deal a blow to international capital as one of the factors chiefly responsible for the war, Arming of the laborers and peasants and disarming of the propertied classes. Besides all this, the introduction of a universal obligation to work, for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of sociсty, is planned.
As soon as production shall have been consolidated in the hands of the working masses, united in a gigantic association, in which the development of every single individual will appear as the condition for the development of all men; as soon as the old bourgeois state, with its classes and class hatred, is definitely superseded by a firmly established socialistic society, which rests upon universal labor, upon the application and distribution of all productive forces according to plan, and upon the solidarity of all its members, then, along with the disappearance of class differences, will disappear also the necessity for the dictatorship of the working classes, and for state power as the instrument of class domination.
menia, of all the peoples populating the territory of the former Russian Empire, to their full self determination.
In its efforts to create a league free and voluntary, and for that reason all the more complete and secure of the working classes of all the peoples of Russia, the Soviet Republic declared itself a federal republic and offered to the laborers and peasants of every nation the opportunity to enter as members with equal rights into the fraternal family of the Republic of Soviets (through action taken) independently in the plenipotentiary sessions of their Soviets, to any extent and in whatever form they might wish.
The Soviet Republic has declared war upon war, not only in words but also in deeds; and in doing so it formally and in the name of the working masses of Russia announced its complete renunciation of all efforts at conquest and annexation, as well as all thought of oppressing small nations. At the same time the Soviet Republic, to prove the sincerity of its purposes, broke openly with the policy of secret diplomacy and secret treaties, and it proposed to all belligerent nations to conclude a general democratic peace without annexations or indemnities, upon the basis of the free self determination of peoples.
That standpoint is still firmly adhered to by the Soviet Republic.
Compelled by the policy of violence practised by the Imperialisms of all the world, the Soviet Republic is marshalling its forces for resistance against the growing demands of the robber packs of international capital, and it looks to the inevitable rebellion of the working classes for the solution of the question of how the nations can live peacefully together. The international Socialist revolution alone, in which the laboring people of each state overthrow their own imperialists, puts an end to war once for all and creates the conditions for the full realization of the solidarity of the working people of the entire world.
Taking its stand upon the principles of the International, the Soviet Republic recognizes that there can be no rights without duties and no duties without rights, and therefore proclaims at the same time with the rights of the working classes in a rejuvenated society the following outline of their duties: To fight everywhere and without sparing their strength for the complete power of the working classes, and to stamp out all attempts to restore the dominion of the despoilers and oppressors. To assist with all their strength in overcoming the depression caused by the war and the opposition of the bourgeoisie, and to cooperate in bringing about as speedy a recovery as possible of production in all branches of economy.
These are the immediate internal problems of the Soviet Republic.
In its relations to other nations the Soviet Republic stands upon the principles of the first International, which recognized truth, justice and morality as the foundation of its relations to all humanity, independent of race, religion or nationality.
The Socialistic Soviet Republic recognizes that wherever one member of the family of humanity is oppressed all humanity is oppressed, and for that reason it proclaims and defends to the utmost the right of all nations to self determination, and thereby to the free choice of their destiny.
It accords that right to all nations without exception, even to the hundreds of millions of laborers in Asia, Africa, in all colonies and the small countries who, down to the present day, have been oppressed and despoiled without pity by the ruling classes, by the socalled civilized nations.
The Soviet Republic has transformed into deeds the principles proclaimed before its existence. The right of Poland to self determination having been recognized in the first days of the March revolution, after the overturn in November the Soviet Republic proclaimed the full independence of Finland and the right of the Ukraine, of Ar