Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/177

Rh forgetful or ignorant of the fact that a powerful and militant imperialism with annexationist desires existed in these countries. No. But, none the less, they hoped and expected that the influence of the Russian Revolution would appear most quickly and most powerfully just in these free and democratic states. They were confident that the old democratic traditions of these countries would make them all the more responsive to any manifestations of the democratic spirit in Russia. From England and France they expected an immediate and joyful response.

The aim of the Russian democracy in making this appeal was to put an end to the war with one blow. It was a great dream, worthy of a great revolution. But it was an ideal, and even the greatest enthusiasts did not believe that peace would come all at once. The democracy knew that they were in for a stubborn and intense struggle for peace. And their programme in that struggle was definite and realistic. In the first place, to prove to the Russian Army and to the broad masses of the democracy that Russia and her Allies had no aims of conquest, that they were fighting a purely defensive war, and that if the war had to continue it was wholly and solely the fault of Austro-German imperialism. In the second place, to destroy the internal unity of Germany, which was built and nourished on the conviction that the Allies were threatening the integrity of the Central Powers, that they had annexationist aims and were out for purely German territory, that they wanted to dismember Austria and destroy the Turkish Empire and to exclude Germany from the world's commerce and colonial power.

The Russian and Allied imperialists tried to discredit this first international act of the Russian Revolution by calling it doctrinaire and fanatical. It was, in fact, neither fanatical nor doctrinaire. It was an instinctively felt and deeply considered action which did honour to the statesmanship of the Russian democracy.