The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-08-04

/ the war credits!
The workers were stunned! 1t
/ seemed incrediblel Perhaps the So
cialists were arrested; perhaps they
were barred from the reichstag; per-
haps it was a ruse of the imperial
general staff, a forgery. But soon
the damning facts became known. The
|. ll2 social-democrats had voted as a
unit for the war credits.
/ That day, August 4, 1914, was in
delibly burned into the mind of every
revolutionist as marking the great
est betrayal in all the history of the
world. The socialist leaders Of the
greatest party Of the international
had gone over to the side Of the kaiser
and his warmongers and had justified
in the most loathsome manner the
imperialist slaughter of peoples.
I WHAT excuse could these renegades
F" who had covered themselves with
infamy dare give for their betrayal
A few days brought the speech of
4 Scheidemann, vice president Of the
socialist delegation in the reichstag,
wherein he proclaimed that the So
ciahsts were supporting the German
government because it was waging
a defensive war against the black
reaction of Russian czarism," and
argued that socialists everywhere
must defend their country against
attack by foreign powers. The Off
eial organ of the party, the "Vor-
waertz," and many other party pa
pers declared that the war was being
waged against "the blood-czar,
against Russian barbarism" Their
most learned theoreticians cited Karl
Marx, who in 1848 had urged war
of Europe against Russia. In the
most shameless manner they perver-
ted the opinions of Marx. They ig-
nored the historical conditions under
which Marx urged war against Rus
STA. They did not explain that at
that time Russia was the seat of
feudal militaristic reaction and that
it had helped crush the revolution
airy risings that swept Central Eur
ope. They overlooked the fact that
the statement of Marx applied only
to that specific and historically
limited situation, to a condition that
had long since passed and that it is a
complete and shameless distortion of
Marxism to try to apply to struggle
between nations in the era of i'm
perialism the slogans of the middle
Of the past century.
When, at socialist congresses the
socialists had discussed the impend-
ing European war-the war that had
threatened for years and that every
one knew must inevitably be launched
there was never any attempt to
apply the observations of Marx on
Russia in 1848 to the war threats
of 1910-14. This was only a shabby
device by apostates to conceal their
perfidy and their utter depravity as
low, grovelling flunkeys of imperial
ism.
CONTEMPLATING precisely the
war that burst forth in 1914, the
international socialist congress at
Basic on November 24-25, 1912, had
drawn the correct revolutionary les
sons from the Balkan crisis. They
recognized it as powder magazine
whose slightest spark threatened to
inflame all Europe and the whole
world and their manifesto issued on
that occasion declared:
"If war threatens to break out
the working class and its parlia-
mentary representative in all the
countries affected bind themselves
with the assistance of the Inter-
national Socialist Bureau, whose
activity should promote unity-to
do all they can to prevent the out
break of war, by the use of such
means as they find most effective;
these means, naturally, will differ
in accordance with the acuteness of
the class struggle and of the gen
eral political situation.
"Should war nevertheless break
out, it is the duty of Socialists to
intervene with the object of putting
a speedy end to it; it is their duty
to make use of the economic and
political crisis in the fullest possible
measure to rouse the common peo-
pie and thus accelerate the down
fall of capitalism"
Continuing, the manifesto declares
that events in Europe then imposed
upon the proletariat more than ever
the duty to pursue its activity--direc-
ted according to general plan
with maximum of force and
energy" 1t proclaimed that the
workers of the capitalist countries,
particularly France and Germany
cannot recognize the existence of any
obligation whatsoever to 5oin in the
Balkan conflict, and that ''the prole-
tarians regard as crime shooting at
one another for the sake Of increasing
the profits of the capitalists, salts
flying the ambitions of dynasties, or
doing it for the glory of the secret
treaties Of diplomacy"
Two months before the Basic con-