When the Duma met, on August 8th, for the purpose of voting the war
credits, the Social Democrats of both factions, Bolsheviki and Mensheviki,
fourteen in number,[2] united upon a policy of abstention from voting.
Valentin Khaustov, on behalf of the two factions, read this statement:
A terrible and unprecedented calamity has broken upon the people
of the entire world. Millions of workers have been torn away from
their labor, ruined, and swept away by a bloody torrent. Millions
of families have been delivered over to famine.
War has already begun. While the governments of Europe were
preparing for it, the proletariat of the entire world, with the
German workers at the head, unanimously protested.
The hearts of the Russian workers are with the European
proletariat. This war is provoked by the policy of expansion for
which the ruling classes of all countries are responsible.
The proletariat will defend the civilization of the world against
this attack.
The conscious proletariat of the belligerent countries has not
been sufficiently powerful to prevent this war and the resulting
return of barbarism.
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