Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/255

 We observe with joy the opinion of the German minority of Haase, Bernstein, and Kautsky is in this matter the same as our own, and we consider it our duty to express here our admiration of the courage with which they have expressed it.

From what we have just said come certain practical consequences, which we shall enumerate. And now we come to the kernel of our subject. In the first place Imperialism is nowhere reduced to complete impotence, a part of the ruling classes endeavour everywhere to lead governments to a policy of conquest, and from that comes the necessity of Socialists in all countries opposing energetically national Imperialism and preventing its imposing on the people its own War aims.

The Socialists of the Entente are also under these obligations. Their duty is to purify, as it were, this defensive War, to clear it of all desire for revenge, the abuse of power towards the vanquished, the extorted ransom, the lands placed under foreign rule against the will of the people, and they have never drawn back from this duty.