But we are convinced that the working class will find in the
international solidarity of the workers the means to force the
conclusion of peace at an early date. The terms of that peace will
be dictated by the people themselves, and not by the diplomats.
We are convinced that this war will finally open the eyes of the
great masses of Europe, and show them the real causes of all the
violence and oppression that they endure, and that therefore this
new explosion of barbarism will be the last.
As soon as this declaration was read the fourteen members of the Social
Democratic group left the chamber in silence. They were immediately
followed by the Laborites and Socialist-Revolutionists representing the
peasant Socialists, so that none of the Socialists in the Duma voted for
the war credits. As we shall see later on, the Laborites and most of the
Socialist-Revolutionists afterward supported the war. The declaration of
the Social Democrats in the Duma was as weak and as lacking in definiteness
of policy as the Manifesto of the Socialist-Revolutionists already quoted.
We know now that it was a compromise. It was possible to get agreement upon
a statement of general principles which were commonplaces of Socialist
propaganda, and to vaguely expressed hopes that "the working class will
find in the international solidarity of the workers the means to force the
conclusion of peace at an early date.
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