124 THE CLASS STRUGGLE DOCUMENTS 125 The proletariat of all countries must stop the slaughter by rising.
They are called to dictate peace in the interests of freedom and socialism.
Now the hour has come to act. At this moment the English and French workmen may follow the signal given by the German workers. This signal must be given. Forward, German workers, soldiers, male and female! Forward to the battle for freedom, for an immediate peace and socialism! Forward towards the brotherhood of all peoples under the banner of free labor! Down with the class rule of the bourgeoisie! All power to the proletariat! Long live the German republic! Long live the international revolution of the proletariat!
An Appeal of the Spartacus Group To the Workers of All Countries. Christmas, 1918. Proletarians! Men and Women of Labor! Comrades. The revolution in Germany has come! The masses of the soldiers who for four years were driven to slaughter for the sake of capitalistic profits; the masses of workers, who for four years were exploited, crushed, and starved, have revolted. Prussian militarism, that fearful tool of oppression, that scourge of humanity lies broken on the ground. It most noticeable representatives, and therewith the most noticeable of those guilty of this war, the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, have fled from the country. Workers and Soldiers Councils have been formed everywhere. Workers of all countries, we do not say that in Germany ali power actually lies in the hands of the working people, that the complete triumph of the proletarian revolution has already been attained.
There still sit in the government all those Socialists who in August, 1914, abandoned our most precious possession, the International, who for four years betrayed the German working class and the International. But, workers of all countries, now the German proletarian himself speaks to you. We believe we have the right to appear before your forum in his name. From the first day of this war we endeavored to do our international duty by fighting that criminal government with all our power and branding it as the one really guilty of the war. Now at this moment we are justified before history, before the International and before the German proletariat. The masses agree with us enthusiastically, constantly widening circles of the proletariat share the conviction that the hour has struck for a settlement with capitalistic class rule. But this great task cannot be accomplished by the German proletariat alone; it can only fight and triumph by appealing to the solidarity of the proletarians of the whole world. Comrades of the belligerent countries, we are aware of your situation. We know full well that your governments, now that they have won the victory, are dazzling the eyes of many strata of the people with the external brilliancy of their triumph. We know that they thus succeed through the success of the murdering in making its causes and aims forgotten. But we also know that in your countries the proletariat inade the most fearful sacrifices of flesh and blood, that it is weary of the dreadful butchery, that the proletarian is now returning to his home, and is finding want and misery there, while fortunes amounting to billion are heaped up in the hands of a few capitalists. He has recognized, and will continue to recognize, that your governments, too, have carried on the war for the sake of the big money bags. And he will further perceive that your governments, when they spoke of justice and civilization and of the protection of small nations, meant capitalist profits as surely as did ours when it talked about the defence of home. and that the peace of justice and of the League of Nations are but a part of the same base brigandage that produced the peace of Brest Litovsk. Here as well as there the same shameless lust for booty, the same desire for oppression, the same determination to exploit to the limit the brutal preponderance of murderous steel. The imperialism of all countries knows no understanding, it knows only one right capital profits; it knows only one languagethe sword; it knows only one method violence. And if it is now talking in all countries, in yours as well as ours; about the League of Nations, disarmament, rights of small nations, self determination of the peoples, it is merely using the customary lying phrases of the rulers for the purpose of lulling to sleep the watchfulness of the proletariat. Proletarians of all countries! This must be the last war! We owe that to the twelve million murdered victims, we owe that to our children, we owe that to humanity. Europe has been ruined by this damnable slaughter. Twelve million bodies cover the grewsome scenes of this imperialistic crime.
The flower of youth and the best man power of the peoples have been mowed down. Uncounted productive forces have been annihilated.
Humanity is almost ready to bleed to death from the unexampled blood letting of history. Victors and vanquished stand at the edge of the abyss. Humanity is threatened with famine, a stoppage of the entire mechanism of production, plagues, and degeneration. The great criminals of this fearful anarchiy, of this unchained