Page:Rosa Luxemburg - The Crisis in the German Social-Democracy (The "Junius" Pamplhet) - 1918.pdf/62

 60 Servia to send cattle and fruits into Austria, thus depriving this nation of farmers of its most important market. In the interests of Austrian monopolies it has forced Servia to import industrial products exclusively from Austria, and at the highest prices. To keep Servia in a state of economic and political dependence, it prevented Servia from uniting on.the East with Bulgaria, to secure access to the Black Sea, and from securing access to the Adriatic, on the West, by prohibiting the acquisition of a harbor in Albania. In short, the Balkan policy of Austria was nothing more than a barefaced attempt to choke off Servia. Also, it was directed against the establishment of mutual relations between, and against the inner growth of the Balkan States, and was, therefore, a constant menace for them.

Austrian imperialism constantly threatened the existence and development of the Balkan States; now by the annexation of Bosnia, now by its demands upon the Sanjak of Novibazar and on Saloniki, now by its encroachments upon the Albanian coast. To satisfy these tendencies on the part of Austria, and to meet the competition of Italy as well, the caricature of an independent Albania under, the rule of a German nobleman was created after the second Balkan war, a country which was, from the first hour, little more than the plaything of the intrigues of imperialistic rivals.

Thus the imperialistic policies of Austria during the last decade were a constant hindrance to the normal progressive development of the Balkans, and led to the inevitable alternative: either the Habsburg monarchy or the capitalist development of the Balkan States.

Emancipated from Turkish rule, the Balkan now faced its new hindrance, Austria, and the necessity of removing it from its path. Historically the liquidation of Austria-Hungary is the logical sequence of Turkish. disintegration, and both are in direct line with the process of historical development.