Page:Boris Souvarine - The Third International.djvu/6



On the 4th August, 1914, the Workers' International breathed its last, and that watchword of Socialism: "Death to militarism," which should have rung out clear and strong above the tumult of mobilisation and the clash of arms, was unheard by the peoples of the world. No doubt this cry of revolt from a workers' movement animated by a true solidarity of the exploited against their task masters would have been promptly stifled by the death-dealing implements of war, and by the weight of censorship and martial law, but ere its defeat it would have awakened the consciences of thousands, who, in their turn, would have awakened thousands more.

Thus the opposition of the workers to militarism would have swiftly followed on the declaration of war, instead of supervening years later, and the governing classes would have had to reckon from the start with an opposing force to whose ranks every additional day of warfare would have brought fresh recruits, until they assumed revolutionary strength. But, instead of this, the International remained silent.

The International, that is to say its executive and its representatives rather than its component sections, has never, unto this day, refuted the shameful conduct ta which its members had to submit, and which subsequent events have fully shown up. The men who were pledged to denounce capitalism and all its crimes suddenly forgot their sacred trust. They gleaned from the columns of the capitalist press reasons, which, in their minds, would exonerate them from blame in becoming traitors to their cause, by exchanging their sense of human solidarity for " patriotism." They forsook their Socialist credo: "Proletarians of the World Unite!" Endevouring to make others forsake it also, commanding their victims; "Proletarians destroy one another!"