568 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE AWAKENING OF AUSTRIA 569 lated these conditions very carefully, we perhaps for our part would go somewhat further, but as we wish that the parliament and the other parties should join us, we only included what we believed that every deputy in this house could vote for without violating his convictions.
it must be made. We must not ask any contributions, it may even be necessary here and there to return sums. now come to consider two clauses which one of the gentlemen crossed out because he could not accept the responsibility for them.
That we do accept it, doesn seem to occur to him. He just crossed out these clauses when nobody was supposed to be looking, and would like us to forget about them.
First and foremost as a basis of peace must be the acknowledgement of a new Europe, of a new world order, of a new international law, an acknowledgment that has been voiced repeatedly by Czernin and Count Burian, but that would sound quite different if those who ridiculed Count Czernin as a dreamer if not as something worse, should have to speak themselves. The Social Democrats demand that a league of nations be created, that disarmament follow, as we have demanded at all times. We want to have courts of arbitration and to avoid future wars. The times in which the affairs of the people were disposed of by kings and diplomats are gone, not because Wilson or the Entente wills it, but because the people will no longer submit to the old management along these lines. We do not know how we will emerge from this war, just as we do not know how we got into it. We do not know what experiences we shall still undergo, but this much we do know: never again would the peoples of Austria submit to the control of this old Austrian skeleton, entirely aside from what the Entente wants or does not want. We want a new international law, the avoidance of all economic war, labor legislation, reconstruction of all occupied lands. Our violation of Serbia did not end when we forced war upon that country. What has happened down in Serbia from the time of the occupation is by no means above criticism. We did not so manage things down there in a way to win the affections of the Serbs, nor to convince them that the Hapsburg regime is more agreeable than the regime of that gentleman of rather doubtful character that of recent years has occupied the Serbian throne. don know whether the people down there have a strong preference, but in any event it must hurt them to make a choice. Insofar as reparation is possible therefore, We want a new order of things in Austria and, must want it, for otherwise Austria cannot be recognized as a state that is qualified to conduct peace negotiations, not even if it accepted the whole Wilsonian programme. Austria must come forward as a living state, and declare that it has abolished the old order, that it has given autonomy to all its nationalities, economic and political. The Social Democrats demand this not only for those who with a certain pride call themselves the opprossed nationalities. Czechs, Poles, and Slovenes are not the only ones that are oppressed, the Germans are not less so.
The German people are not composed exclusively of the National Association and the bureaucrats. The German people too, wish to be the masters of their own destiny, not only socially but also nationally. The German people have not gained anything by their domination over others, and do not feel like continuing it. But neither do they desire to be oppressed by others. cannot help smiling when hear mention of the Slav empire from Danzig to the Adriatic, for between Danzig and the Adriatic there are also a few million Germans.
If the Slavs don wa to be oppressed, the Germans are certainly no worse than the Slavs, and the German Social Democrats and whole German working class do not want to be trampled upon.
We too wish to constitute ourselves a nation, and we will see to it that the newly constituted German people of Austria, shall not drift into the false, narrow, unfortunate channels, that have heretofore been taken for granted as German. The German people do not care to be the bailiffs of the Hapsburgs.