# Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
THE POLITICAL SITUATION
WE had a threefold aim in going to Russia. In the first place to join our efforts to those of Thomas, Henderson, and other Socialists from the Allied countries, against the tendency which seemed to exist in certain circles in favour of either a separate peace or of bringing pressure to bear on the Allies to obtain peace at any price. In the second place, to bring before our Russian comrades the case of Belgium and the situation of the Belgian workmen, to appeal to their solidarity in this struggle that we were carrying on against German Imperialism. Lastly, to take up a definite attitude on the subject of the proposed Conference, or, more correctly, the Conferences at Stockholm.
1. The Separate Peace.
We have already stated that no one in Russia seemed to consider a separate peace seriously. The Extremists themselves recognized that if Russia deserted the Allied cause she would be constrained to take up arms against them with Germany, in which conditions their desire for peace would not be gratified. But we were bound to observe, on the other hand, that German propaganda was active, that many Socialists were ultra-Pacifists, that after three years of war there is a consider- able feeling of war weariness among a large part of the population. Zimmerwald's theories have still, even now, a considerable influence on the Soviet, and even on certain members of the Provisional Government, who were, before accepting their present responsibilities, militant Zimmerwaldiens.
Still, during our short stay in Russia, it was possible already to notice the change which has since become more apparent in the feeling of the masses as among their Socialist leaders.
In the early days of the Revolution, ​which took place almost entirely in the capital, it was the Soviet of Petrograd alone that spoke and decided in the name of the workmen and soldiers of the whole country. The Extremists are represented there in a minority, but in an aggressive and determined minority. The Moderates are especially moderate when it is a question of an energetic carrying on of the war. There are, in this revolutionary commune, many foreigners, Cosmopolitans, Jews especially, hiding under a borrowed name their German origin, but who cannot regard as their fatherland a country where they have scarcely known anything but persecution.
But soon the Soviet of Petrograd took second place. It gradually became a local assembly, very influential, certainly, but whose influence was henceforth limited. The Congress of Peasants met. The Congress of the Soviets of all Russia assembled in its turn. The feeling there is quite different. Provincial elements bring to it a breath of national enthusiasm. They are longing for peace, certainly, for the country is war weary, and peasants and soldiers ​demand that they may have as soon as possible the right to taste the fruits of their Revolution, but they will not at any price accept a separate peace and a German peace.
On the other hand, among the leaders, the Revolution is taking place still more rapidly. Kerensky in his propaganda unites indissolubly the Revolution with national defence. Skobekeff and Tschernoff, in unofficial conversations, protested against any idea of a premature peace. Amongst the more advanced of the Cadets and the more political of the Socialists there is an obvious desire for closer union.
Tseretelli is, perhaps, in young Russia, the one who remains most faithful to Zimmerwaldian theories, and it is Tseretelli who, with Skobeleff, demands the expulsion of Grimm, the President of Zimmerwald. It is he who first asked that strong measures be taken, when, on June 2nd, the Léninists announced their intention of making an armed manifestation in the streets of Petrograd, and it was with his support that Kerensky made his great effort to renew in the Russian ​army the will to carry through the great offensive.
In short, we believe we are justified in saying that among the Socialists, the great majority of whom have broken with the Extremists, a revolution is taking place, very like that which took place with President Wilson. Like the latter, they wish a peace "without victory," that is to say, in reality without conquests. But they wished, and they still wish, a just and durable peace. Now, in face of the attitude of the Central Powers, they have been forced to admit that the road to this peace is necessarily by war. When we were leaving Petrograd, one of us made a note in his diary: "They still speak of peace, but they are preparing for an offensive; to-morrow they will make this offensive to achieve peace." Events since then have confirmed these prophecies, and it was not their fault if their first victories had no morrow.
2. Their Sympathies for Belgium.
What struck us most, perhaps, during this trip, where there was so much to ​astonish us, was the great sympathy shown for the Belgians. We had thought, truth to tell, that for the greater part of Russia our little country was only a place on the map, but they soon convinced us of the contrary.
Many of them had completed their studies at Liége and other Belgian Universities. They knew our "Houses of the People." They had been inspired by our co-operative system to follow our example. They had translated our Socialist literature, and especially did they remember what Belgium had done at the beginning of the war, and they were infinitely grateful to the Belgians for opposing the German armies when they themselves were attacked at the other side of Europe.
We had scarcely passed the frontier before we were given a striking proof of their feeling towards us.
It was in the dining-car of the train between Stockholm and Petrograd. Our neighbours at table were two army doctors returning from Germany. They took us for Frenchmen, and spoke in a friendly way of France. In the midst of our con​versation some remark revealed the fact that we were Belgians. Immediately their faces lit up with smiles. They rose to their feet and insisted on calling for wine to drink to the health of the defenders of Liége. We realized that our little country of Belgium held a big place in the heart of great Russia, and this first impression was daily strengthened.
We have already spoken of the welcome of the masses given us at Petrograd. We have told of the extraordinary enthusiasm that the presence of the Belgian Labour and Socialist delegates aroused at the front. We can still recall the touching reception that we received at Moscow from the members of the Municipal Douma.
But nowhere, perhaps, were we made so aware of the depth of this sympathy as on the day of our departure, when we were bidding farewell to the Congress of Soviets.
The assembly was being held on the left side of the Neva, in the Cadet School, with which Kropotkin's Memoirs had made us familiar. The heart of the working population of Russia was there, six hundred delegates representing their different bodies ​and all the different views of the Socialist proletariat. Tscheidze presided. Kerensky and Tseretelli were beside him. Before us in the first row was the General Staff of the Léninists, the small group of Trotsky's friends, the Extreme Left of the Revolution.
Never had the political situation been more strained. The very day before, the insurrection of the Extremists had seemed inevitable, and it was expected every day, though it did not take place for some weeks, and in this silent, gloomy assembly, as divided against itself as the Commune or the Convention in their worst days, one might well ask if there could be one thought in common.
That question was answered in a striking way when President Tscheidze addressed to us these simple words: "Tell our Belgian comrades that the cause of Belgium is as dear to us as the cause of the Russian Revolution." From every bench applause broke forth, and for one moment at least there was complete unity.
The partisans of Lénin and those of Kerensky, all Revolutionary Russia, greeted Socialist Belgium!
3. The Stockholm Conference.
It might be as well to recall here that at the time of our visit to Russia there was under discussion at Stockholm not only one conference, but three. In the first place, that of the Zimmerwaldians; in the second, that of the Dutch- Scandinavian Committee, in the third that of the Petrograd Soviet. Of the first we will say nothing. Grimm's International is not ours. There remain the two others.
A. The Dutch-Scandinavian Committee.
When the Russian Revolution took place, Stockholm became necessarily the half-way house of the Socialists, and in a general way of all travellers between Petrograd and Paris or London, Berlin, or Vienna. It was since the defeat of the Serbians the only road to Russia, the only road to rejoin the Trans- Siberian Railway and go round the world.
We know in what conditions the Dutch Delegation of the Socialist International Bureau decided to take up its abode there.
Since the beginning of the war the ​German aggression has more or less suspended the existence of the International. Belgium, where it used to have its headquarters, was invaded. The Maison du Peuples at Brussels, where its offices were, was guarded by German sentries. Its Executive Committee was scattered and could not meet. The President was at Havre, member of the Committee of Public Safety—that is what the Belgian Government has become; his colleagues, Bertrand and Anseele, could not leave their town without a special permit from the Kommandantur, and it was in such conditions, in a strenuous struggle for their national existence, that Belgian Socialists had still before them the duty of keeping alive the sacred fire of the International, of maintaining a bond, however feeble, between the working classes of every country, both neutral and belligerent.
Camille Huysmans, the secretary of the International Socialist Bureau, undertook this difficult task.
He began with the Dutch. He had admitted, in spite of the reservations of the French, that the Dutch Delegation ​should be joined to the Executive Committee provisionally for the duration of the war. He crossed the frontier and installed his secretariat at The Hague.
From the beginning, under the influence of their leader Troelstra, the Dutch Committee began a persevering campaign for the re-establishment of international relations.
In Entente circles Troelstra was generally considered Germanophile. He denied the accusation energetically. But the least that can be said is that his neutrality certainly looked kindly on the Socialist Democrats of the Central Empires, and that in a country where the Left party were mostly "Ententists" he seemed to have rather a tendency to lean to the other side.
A Scandinavian Socialist said to us, "The Vorstand of Berlin has two branches: one at Copenhagen, the other at The Hague."
We must frankly admit that in their efforts to reconstruct, even at the present hour, international relations, the Dutch and Danish Socialists were influenced chiefly by their wish to put an end to the horrors of a ​war which seemed to them could only end in an indefinite result.
But, none the less, in the present state of things their efforts—profited voluntarily or involuntarily—Germany, and in these conditions their policy could not but excite the suspicions and mistrust of the Allied countries.
Just after the Russian Revolution, however, circumstances seemed more favourable to their action.
The Petrograd Soviet declared for peace without annexations or contributions. The German and Austrian Socialist Democrats declared themselves ready to accept this formula on condition that they interpreted it in the same sense as von Hindenburg; and in Great Britain, and especially in France, an increasing minority declared themselves in favour of taking up again international relationships. In neutral countries, Socialists were unanimous for peace, and hoped to achieve it by a general Conference.
In the beginning of April the Danish put their irons in the fire. The Socialist Minister Stanning wrote to the International Socialist Bureau that if the Executive ​Committee were not willing to act, or could not act, the Conference would take place without them. The members of the Dutch Delegation, on receiving this letter, and without waiting to obtain the opinion of their Belgian colleagues, decided to set out for Stockholm. They went via Germany. Huysmans, who signed on as a steward on a Dutch boat, was not long in joining them, and installed the secretary's office of the B.S.I, in the Trade Union House of the Socialist Party of Sweden.
Immediately, Hjalmar Branting, the Swedish Socialist leader, insisted that the convoking of a full Conference should not be left to the sole initiative of the Dutch Delegation. A convocation by the International Socialist Bureau was not possible, since the permanent members of the Executive Committee could not meet. They finally decided, in agreement with the Norwegians and the Danes, to create the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, with the right of calling a full meeting of the International as soon as possible.
In the meantime our delegation went to Stockholm and got into touch with the ​new Committee. We immediately declared the complete hostility of the Belgian Labour Party to a full meeting which would force them to meet the German Socialist Majority. But we added that separate interviews of the Organizing Committee with the different sections of the International might be useful. They would facilitate explanations or necessary declarations; they would oblige the Socialists of all countries engaging in the war to express their views on the situation; they would permit neutral countries to make a united statement on the situation. These interviews have since taken place.
Most of the Socialist bodies took part in them, and notably two bodies of the German Social Democracy.
The memorandum of Scheidemann and his friends was published, with the reply from Albert Thomas.
The greeting that the members of the Committee gave to the declaration of the German Majority was, it seems, anything but favourable, and it seems almost as if this greeting had something to do with the effort that Scheidemann made on his ​return for the democratization and parliamentarization of Germany.
As for the Social Democratic Minority, represented by Kautsky, Bernstein, Hanse, Ledebour, they had at least the merit of speaking out plainly.
We cannot, unfortunately, divulge their verbal declarations without putting them in a difficult position.
What can be repeated, however, is that they stated that in their opinion, though at present their action was met with formidable obstacles, they were sure whenever peace was declared to have the immense majority of the German working classes with them; that the aggressive tone of the Allies' Note in reply to President Wilson made their propaganda very difficult. On the other hand, they denounced the absence of sincerity in the protestations in favour of the rights of the people of Scheidemann and his supporters, when the Majority Socialists were in reality in the service of a fatal Imperialist and Militarist policy—fatal both for Germany and for Europe.
From these declarations, which seem to ​have strongly impressed all those who heard them, little remains in the memorandum drawn up for the public. But we must in justice remember that on leaving Stockholm the Minority Socialists had to return to Germany.
The Dutch-Scandinavian Committee received French and British delegates. They met the delegation from German Austria, who voiced almost entirely the opinion of the Germans. They noted also the declarations of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Tcheco-Slav Socialists, who, contrary to their allies, pronounced in favour of reparation for Belgium, and reparation at the expense of Germany.
These interviews ended, there remained the question of the full Conference, but the Soviet on its side convoked an International Conference, and it was decided that all must await the arrival of the Russian delegates from Petrograd.
B. The Petrograd Soviet.
When we arrived in Russia, Albert Thomas and de Brouckère, who had gone in advance, were already in communication ​with the Soviet, which had just delivered its convocation to Stockholm for a Conference distinct from that of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee. We joined them, and at our first meeting drew up a note clearly expressing the point of view of the Belgian delegation. This note contained. (1) our interpretation of the peace formula of the Provisional Russian Government, especially in what concerned Belgium; (2) the explanation of the motives that led us to consider a full meeting, to which would be admitted those who held the present policy of the Socialist Majority in the Central Empires, would be both useless and dangerous.
After sending off this note the pourparlers were interrupted, Thomas having gone to Moscow and thence to the front; but during his absence we had the opportunity of learning facts that it would be interesting to make public, could one write freely the complete history of the Stockholm Conference. Although many Socialists in France and Great Britain judged this Conference to be undesirable, it had in certain diplomats open partisans, espe​cially preoccupied with humouring the Russians. They were afraid of their meeting with the Germans only. The opinion was expressed that Socialists of the Allied countries ought also to attend this Conference to plead energetically the cause of the Western Democracies.
It seemed, indeed, at one time as if Albert Thomas were of this opinion, and that he had said so to his friends, Moutet and Cachin; but the latter, very much impressed by the Russian Revolution, went further, and on their return to France advised enthusiastically the national duty of the Socialist party to attend the Conference without making any stipulation or accepting any guarantee. We know what followed.
Thomas returned to Petrograd when the news reached Russia from France. We found him very much upset by the clearly hostile welcome that Parliamentary opinion gave to the idea of a meeting with the German Majority Socialists.
The same evening we had an interview with him, along with Henderson, who had just arrived from London.
​It was understood that in a reply to the convocation of the Soviet we should announce our refusal to take part in a full Conference, and we drew up, in common agreement, the conditions clearly enough to make sure there would be no mistake and to put an end to any diplomatic manœuvre on the part of our adversaries. "More than ever," said our letter, "are we convinced that a meeting to which would be admitted those who supported the present policy of the Majority Socialists in the Central Empires would be useless and dangerous; useless because such a meeting of contrary views could not end in action; dangerous because it would give rise to misunderstanding, and would lead the working and peasant classes to think that a just and durable peace was possible before aggressive Imperialism is destroyed.
"As long as by a public declaration made without reticence or reservation in their own country, on the responsibility of their own working classes, the Socialists of all nations interested have not renounced their association with an aggressive Imperialism, ​we hold that an International Socialist Conference would be morally impossible."
Some days later, in another letter to the Soviet, Henderson, anxious to see the Socialists of the Allied countries clearly define their points of view, announced the convocation in London for the middle of July of a Conference of the Socialists of the Allied nations.
About the same time we had a long conversation in a friend's house with Skobeleff, Kerensky, and Tseretelli, who was, and who still is, we believe, the President of the Committee of Foreign Affairs at the Soviet.
Tseretelli, who had begun by taking a high hand, imagining that the services rendered to Socialism by the Russian Revolution gave him, in a sense, the right to pose as arbiter in an International Conference, seemed very much impressed when we told him that we would not allow it to take place. Finally, he promised us, in his own name, to insist with the Soviet that delegates be sent to London with a view to acquiring information and coming to an understanding on the conditions of ​admission to the Conference which would prevent the attendance of Imperialistic Socialists.
Did he go back on his word, or did he fail in his effort?
The fact remains that a few days later we received from the Soviet a reply which maintained the terms of the former convocation.
We were at the front when this letter was sent to us. Thomas, who was returning to France, received it as he was leaving. He insisted on going on with the matter, but maintaining the point of view we had come to together.
It was in such a frame of mind that, before leaving Petrograd, we sent to the Soviet a last note, which summed up the former documents, and of which this is the text:
To the Executive Committee of the Council of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies at Petrograd.
Honoured Friends,—
On our return from the Russian front, where the delegates of Socialist ​Belgium met with a fraternal and enthusiastic welcome, we found waiting for us the letter that has been sent to us by the Executive Committee of the Soviet between the 1st of May and the 13th of June. Your point of view in what concerns the preparation for, and the aim of, the International Conference could be summed up in the following terms:
(1) The responsibility for the horrors of the World War rests on International Imperialism.
(2) The workmen of the whole world must unite in this struggle against Imperialistic influences and in the struggle in favour of peace.
(3) The peace conditions must be on the following lines: "A general peace without annexations or contributions, founded on the right of nations to dispose of themselves."
In our former letters we have already stated our agreement with this formula, on the express condition, of course, that it does not exclude either the integral resti​tution of land, as in Belgium, which has been the object of an unjustifiable act of aggression, nor the liberation, the disannexation, of territories which have been annexed against the will and the imprescriptible right of their inhabitants. What you say, moreover, in that which concerns Alsace-Lorraine and the indemnities due to Belgium, Poland, etc., seems to indicate, and we are very glad to know this, that our points of view in this respect are the same.
On the other hand, we are forced now to make the most definite reservation on the other points of view which serve as the basis of your convocation.
Certainly we agree with the first Inter-Allied Conference of London that all Imperialistic Powers have their share of responsibility in the present conflict. Imperialistic International Capitalism has brought about the antagonism that made war possible, but it is the semi-feudal Imperialism of the Central Powers which let loose the catastrophe. They alone have not found among their democracy the resistance which would have made such aggression impossible. Moreover, we can ​never admit that a comparison can be made between those who have deliberately prepared, provoked, declared war, and those who have submitted to it by remaining faithful to their international engagements, like Belgium, or nations that, like France, as Jaurès publicly declared on the eve of his death, did all in human power to prevent it.
On the other hand, though none more than ourselves hope for the union of the working classes of the whole world against all Imperialistic tendencies, how could we count seriously on the German Majority Socialists uniting themselves with us in this struggle, when their whole policy for the last three years has been but one long abdication, who have in the most open manner joined with their Kaiser, and who, after having witnessed the martyrdom of Belgium, after having become accomplices by their silence in all the claims of Prussian militarism, go to-day to Stockholm or elsewhere to sound public opinion for the Imperial Chancellor?
To unite ourselves with them under these conditions would be a moral im​possibility. It is not only our opinion, it is the opinion of Mehring and of all Socialists who, even in Germany, have remained faithful to the principle of the International.
That is why we persist more than ever in thinking that alone there can and ought to be admitted to an International Conference those who publicly in their own country, speaking on behalf of the working classes, shall in acts as well as in deeds break with the Imperialistic policy of their Governments.
Recent events, moreover, have just shown that one cannot be sufficiently prudent if one would evade the ambush of those Imperialists who hide their real face beneath a beautiful mask, and consciously or unconsciously, under the guise of Socialism, play the game of German Imperialism.
In such conditions, before continuing our pourparlers, it would be desirable to refer to our mandates and to come into contact with the Socialists of the other Allied countries. The Conference that our British comrades are proposing to bring together shortly in London will give us ​such an opportunity. We earnestly hope to see you there, and we believe that the negotiations that we have entered upon may be more usefully carried out when the Conference of London will have made known the opinions shared by all the working classes of the Allied countries.
Fraternally yours,
(Signed) Vandervelde and de Brouckère.
4. Summing-up and Conclusions.
In short, the Russian Revolution did not accept the inheritance of the former Government on condition of not being held liable with regard to its agreements with the Allies. But one can have confidence in the Provisional Government when it declares that it will remain faithful to the Pact of London and that it is unanimously opposed to any idea of a separate peace.
On the other hand, we can honestly say that from the point of view of Belgian propaganda the success of our mission exceeded our greatest hopes.
​The question, which was always a delicate one, of the International Conference of Stockholm remains to be discussed. The Belgian delegation had been able to come to an agreement on the common attitude to be taken up with Albert Thomas and Henderson. But afterwards the latter was won over to agree to a consultative Conference, and in any case up to the present the Russians remain immovable.
When we were in Petrograd they seemed to have a kind of Messianic faith in the Conference. They believed that the prestige of their Revolution would put them in a position to impose their peace formula on the other Socialist parties, including the German Majority Socialists. They were upheld in this by the acquiescence of the last French National Council. They knew, perhaps, that in other Allied countries the idea of going to Stockholm to explain their views to the Germans found sympathy in high places. Moreover, such men as Tseretelli and Kerensky, whose point of view, at bottom, was very like our own, were persuaded that every effort in favour of the Stockholm ​Conference would strengthen their influence in view of an energetic pursuance of the war. Thus they persisted up to the last in attempting to gain our adherence.
"In refusing," Tseretelli said to us, almost with tears in his eyes, "you are taking away the brightest ray of hope from our horizon."
And Kerensky added:
"You are making more difficult the propaganda we were carrying on for the coming offensive."
Let us add that soon after, when we were repeating the latter remark to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Teretschenko, adding that it seemed paradoxical to us to suppose that, to induce the Russian soldiers to fight, one must put before them the idea of a conference in favour of peace, his answer was:—
"It may be paradoxical, but Kerensky is right. Just now our soldiers would rather fight for nothing than for some definite object."
It was not only in Petrograd that a general Conference was eagerly demanded. The same thing was going on in Stockholm, ​where the Dutch, such as Vliegen or Van Kol, whose Entente sympathies were obvious, tried to convince us with an insistence which had a touch of national egotism. With rare exceptions, the neutrals are, on the whole, for the Allies, but they are governed by the fear of being sooner or later drawn into the conflict.
This statement would not be complete if we did not give the main points of an interview which we had on our way through Christiania with Hjalmar Branting, who is certainly, of all the Socialists in neutral countries, the most influential and the one who shares most nearly our own point of view.
His views, which Huysmans shared, can be summed up in the following words:
"You would be wrong not to come to a general Conference. Except for the Danish and the Dutch, all the Socialists of neutral countries sympathize with the Socialists of the Entente. There are serious cracks in the solidarity of Central Europe. The Bulgarian Socialists, who were ignorant of all that was happening on the West, were ​much impressed when they learnt the cause of the war, the conditions in which Belgian neutrality had been violated, and the horrors committed in that country. In the same way the Hungarian Socialists, and especially the Czechs, have clearly separated their cause from that of the German Majority. They demand that not only shall Belgium be reconstructed, but reconstructed by Germany. They demand the independence of the three Polands; they hold that energetic action must be taken against the Imperialism of their Governments. As for the German Minority Socialists, they would be the most energetic supporters of the Allies against David, Scheidemann, and their supporters. In these conditions, if—and this is indispensable—the first point brought up were the examination of the causes and the responsibilities of the war, if you came and demanded justice, it is certain that the German Majority Socialists would find themselves practically isolated and that the immense majority of the Conference would force them into the position of either agreeing or resigning."
​I have thought it wise to reproduce in full the arguments which were put before us in favour of a general Conference, but they did not convince us.
Our objections remain to-day more than ever unsurmountable.
Certainly, in admitting that the holding of a Conference might be possible of realization, it is probable that there would be a unanimous statement in favour of the independence of Belgium, and that the immense majority would demand integral restoration by Germany. It would be the same possibly for the reconstruction of Serbia and Roumania, the total evacuation of France, the withdrawal on the part of the Germans from all attempts, direct or indirect, at annexation.
But it would obviously not be the same for the other questions that of Poland, or Alsace-Lorraine, for example, where the Russians, the Italians, as well as many of the French and British minority, might readily agree in their longing for peace with the German Social Democrats.
And, on the other hand, supposing that in the end a programme acceptable to all ​Socialists should be drawn up, it is obvious that nothing could come of it so long as the German Socialists continued to support their Imperial Government, and that the latter, not having been vanquished, should maintain at least a part of its present exigencies.
On our return journey we met at Christiania a Norwegian pacifist, who had played an important part in the movement in favour of international arbitration.
He came from Vienna and Berlin. He had been interviewing Count Czernin, Zimmerman, Dernburg, and other politicians. According to him, the German rulers were, in July 1917, ready to treat on the following conditions: A simple rectification of the frontiers on the Courland side; the including of several kilometres west of Metz, France to keep the basin of the Briey; the transformation of Belgium, nominally independent, into "another Luxembourg," incorporated in the Zollverein and with Germany controlling her railways; suppression of Roumania, with Volhynia conferred on Austria and Moldavia on Russia.
​Needless to say, even the neutral Italians or the Russian Extremists would hesitate to accept such a programme, and that if a general meeting took place the German Majority Socialists would not dare to put it forward.
But who does not realize that even to discuss with the latter, so long as they are allied with their Imperial Chancellor, would weaken the mainspring of the war and give to the nations, longing for peace, deceptive hopes, while embarking the Socialist International in an undertaking that might land it in confusion?
It is true that the partisans, or at least certain partisans, of the Conference said to us, "There is no question of coming to an understanding with the German Majority Socialists; we shall, on the contrary, go to Stockholm to ask the question of war responsibilities, to denounce the weakness, the compromise, the treachery even, of the Socialist Democratic Majority, to force them to choose between their Kaiser and Socialism, to break with their present policy or resign from the International. They must join with us, with all Socialists, against Imperi​alism, or else stand alone, condemned by us, discredited completely in their own eyes and of the working classes, who up to the present have been faithful to them."
To speak frankly, there might have been something to say for such a view had the Russian Revolution, by a triumphant offensive, dissipated any idea of a peace from war weariness or weakness; if the neutrals on their side had had no other idea than to uphold the right and found peace on a basis of international justice; if, in the Allied countries, Socialists were unanimous, both as to the responsibility of the war and the conditions necessary for peace. But at the moment when the friends of the Russian Revolution are anxiously asking themselves not only if she can, but if she will defend herself, when in the last countries to remain neutral public opinion is almost entirety governed by a dread of being drawn into the war—when, in short, in the Allied countries, the Socialists seem further than ever from agreeing as regards a policy of war or peace, we do not hesitate to say that it would be worse than folly to expect a general Conference, where the ​most contradictory views would meet in a confused mêlée, to become a Court of Justice and a Grand Jury.
Just after the Conference of the Socialists of the Allied countries in London (August 28, 1917), Arthur Henderson, whose great influence had some weeks before carried the decision of the Labour Party in favour of Stockholm, said in an interview:
"The inability of the inter-Allied Conference of last week to come to any even approximate agreement forces us to examine the whole situation anew.
"The International Conference, by reason of the great divergence of views that have been expressed in the inter-Allied Conference, would be not merely harmful, but disastrous.
"We cannot meet in an International Conference so long as no common ground of understanding between the working classes of the Allied nations has been discovered."
Such has always been our own view, and it is in the first place for this reason that we have never ceased to exact for any reunion or reconstruction of the ​International necessary and preliminary guarantees. These guarantees do not at present exist. A general Conference where those Socialists who are fighting for the freedom of Europe would have as their judges and arbitrators, among others, Sudekum, David, or Scheidemann, Italian neutralists, or Scandinavian pacifists, Maximalists from Petrograd, or Zimmerwald Extremists, would only give the world a lamentable spectacle of confusion and impotence. In the interests of the International, we could not wish such a thing.
It now only remains for us to conclude.
As we write, the Russian Revolution is passing through a crisis that may well prove fatal.
Riga is taken, Courland is conquered, the lines in the North are broken, and, what is infinitely more grave than the worst defeats, the question is being asked if the Revolutionary armies are still capable not of a great offensive, but simply of holding out against the attacks of the enemy.
Meanwhile, in the interior the authority of the Provisional Government is tottering. ​The Soviets are discussing when they should be acting, party and class antagonisms are dominating the preoccupations of public safety, and in this immense country, where so many nationalities meet, one looks in vain for any signs of a national spirit.
We must expect in these conditions that in Paris, as in London, the Conservatives, who have been forced to keep silence during the first successes of the Revolution, should to-day open their mouths to judge and to condemn.
And, unfortunately for the cause even of the Entente, they are doing so with such bigoted views, such a petty manner of judging the Revolution only by its immediate military results, that their attacks risk influencing Western opinion against Russia and Russian opinion against the Allies.
Certainly one can understand that, at the news of reverses which defeated so many hopes, there should have been, among those who were counting on an early and victorious peace, feelings of anger and disillusionment.
But though disillusioned we should not ​be unjust, and still less should we forget what would have inevitably happened had the Russian Revolution not taken place, had the Sturmers and the Soukhomlinoffs not been put beyond all possibility of doing harm, had the Czar's régime, in a word, not collapsed beneath the weight of its own mistakes, crimes, and treasons.
Let us suppose, indeed, that Nicholas II had remained on the throne: is there any one who doubts that peace would have been made to-day between the armies of the North—a separate peace and a disastrous one, which would have opened up the way for Germany to the richest granaries of Europe? And instead of Russian liberty having been in spite of everything a great encouragement to the efforts of liberation and the other nations, this peace would have been followed by new grouping, a new coalition arising against Western Democracies, the Triple Alliance of the Czars of Petrograd, Vienna, and Berlin.
Thanks to the Revolution, on the contrary, Russia remains part of the great alliance of nations against all that remains of autocracy in the world. She is fighting ​for her liberty and for that of others, and though the difficulties that she has to contend with are serious, they are no greater than those of the French Revolution.
In the month of July last, when the armies of Brusiloff announced thirty-five thousand Austro-German prisoners, we thought of Valmy and Jemmappes.
Now, in September, which is opening so badly, why should we not remember, to give us fresh hope, those terrible days of 1793, when Belgium was evacuated, Revolutionary France invaded, Lyons in revolt, the English in Toulon, and La Vendée in open rebellion against the nation?
The Convention none the less triumphed, and the Russian Revolution will surely triumph in its turn.
Between these two periods, it is true, we must remember there is one disquieting difference.
The defeats of the Revolution took place in France when the war was only beginning; they have taken place in Russia after three years of a war which has ruined the finances of the country, thrown all its internal services into disorder, and created among the ​mass of the people an irresistible longing for rest and peace.
But between these two periods also there is another difference, and this time to the advantage of the Russian Revolution. It is that France in 1793 had against her, if not the peoples, at least the Governments of all Europe, whilst Russia in 1917 has to sustain her and help her to triumph the Democracies of the whole world.
Certainly we are not among those who refuse to recognize the faults, weaknesses, and the sufferings of the Russian Revolution. On the surface she seems in a state of anarchy. That which existed is gone forever, what is to come is not yet in being. The whole fabric of the new régime remains to be manufactured, aggravated by the circumstance that they are at war.
But great as may be the difficulties and the perils of the present hour, they ought not to make us lose sight of the essential result. For the first time throughout the centuries of their history a nation of a hundred and eighty million souls is delivered from the most bloodstained, corrupt, ​and brutal of tyrannies, and breathes at last the pure air of liberty.
And this liberty, so eagerly longed for, so dearly bought by the martyrdom of thousands of martyrs, is such a conquest, such a great boon and blessing, that it were to despair of all human nature not to believe that to defend it the Russian nation will make just such an effort as was made in 1793 by the people of France.
We cannot too often draw attention, indeed, to the similarity between these two periods. With this outstanding difference, that the Russian Revolution is hastening headlong forward, and counting in weeks and days instead of in years.
That is what we said on the evening of our departure in our last conversation with Kerensky, Teretscko, Prince Lvoff, and other members of the Provisional Government.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs received us in one of the ministerial palaces on the bank of the Neva. It was eleven o'clock at night, but the sky on this beautiful June night was still red with the last rays of the setting sun. Opposite, across the ​river, we could see the fortress of Peter and Paul, with the red flag flying from the ramparts. Sturmer, Protopopoff, Soukhomlinoff, the dethroned ministers, were there awaiting judgment. On our balcony, on the contrary, were those men, ministers to-day, who four months before had been prisoners over there. An amazing turning of the tables! Those who had lived in the palace in prison, while the men who had spent years in prison were now installed in the palace. And at the same time others—Tseretelli, for example—were coming back from Siberia, while the Czar was on his way to that land of exile.
Need we be astonished that after such an upheaval, such a turning of the tables both socially and politically, the disorder of these early days should have allowed the enemy to gain certain advantages and to profit from the inevitable disorder following on the Revolution? On the contrary, the astonishing part is that his gains have not been greater, his action more decisive. He has delayed and hesitated. He has miscounted once again his adversaries' capabilities, and left the ​Russian nation precious time in which to recover her force—time that surely she will know how to profit by.
And if this is so, what matter the defeats, the trials, the disasters even, which accompany, as they always have accompanied, great revolutions? Russian liberty is still fighting tooth and nail for its very existence. Russia must at one and the same time defend herself against the menaces of absolute authority, the perils of anarchy, and the ravages of invasion. At first glance, the Revolution seems to have engendered only chaos. So be it; but do not let us forget the words of Nietzsche, "There must be chaos, that out of chaos may come forth new stars. There must be chaos, that new worlds may be born."