Bolshevism undoubtedly has brought Russia a
big step toward her misfortune, from which she cannot extricate
herself on her own accord.
Thus there exists no more any purely Socialist army, and all the
fighting forces and all those who have taken to arms are fighting
for the interests of the one or the other group of the Great
Powers. The question therefore finally is only this--in the
interests of which group one wants to fight. The revolutionary
struggles in Russia and in Finland, to my mind, have clearly
established that a Socialist society cannot be brought about by
the force of arms and cannot be supported by the force of arms,
but that a Socialist order must be founded on a conscious and
living will by an overwhelming majority of the nations, which is
able to realize its will without the help of arms.
But now that the nations of the world have actually been thrown
into an armed conflict, and the war, which in itself is the
greatest crime of the world, still is raging, we must stand it. We
must, however, destroy the originator and the cause of the war,
the militarism, by its own arms, and on its ruins we must build,
in harmony and in peace--not by force, as the Russian Bolsheviki
want--a new and a better social order under the guardianship of
which the people may develop peacefully and securely.
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