Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/39

 Rh moment, that the Social-Democracy of Germany at the beginning of the war would have taken an international position—what would be the results from the national point of view? Let's forget for a while the international point of view. If the war would have begun it would have been liquidated very quickly, for against the will of the trade unions Wilhelm would not have been able to conduct the war. There would have been no war, and of course, there would have been no Versailles Treaty. This way, from the viewpoint of expedience, your international position would, on one hand have saved millions of lives, and on the other—would exclude the very possibility for Germany of the Versailles Treaty. "The second example again is taken from the national point of view: If, at the time of the Brest Litovsk Peace, the German Social-Democracy, the German trade unions, would have acted not as the slaves of Hindenburg and Ludendorf, but in a decisive way, with strikes against the forcing upon Soviet Russia of a robber's peace, and would have forced its government to conclude a really democratic peace, you would have split the whole Allied front, and again, Germany would not have come to the Versailles Treaty."

So the social patriots in the final analysis are the worst enemies of their "fatherland." Even from the purely practical point of view, the tactics of the reformists not only does not give the results which they strive for, but gives just the opposite results, destroying the country and production and leading the working class into poverty.

An attempt to use the reformist tactics we have also in the countries of the Allies, but there it was proceeding on different lines. It is known that the Allies conducted the struggle for "eternal principle," for "eternal peace," at least that is what they are always speaking and writing about. What kind of an "eternal peace" was achieved? At least the ten million killed in the war did receive, in fact, "eternal peace." Just after the end of the war with this same "eternal peace" begins a new, curious and most interesting phase of Allied reformism. The reformist trade unions, as we already have mentioned, have been the foundation, the basis of the war itself, and it is clear that they were very anxiously awaiting the end of it, expecting: "The war will end and we will get everything." The war came to an end and it was necessary to begin making the peace treaty. When the leaders of the trade unions dared to mention that they would like to participate in the working out of the treaties, they were given to understand that the time when they used to come in through the front door had passed; now they can come up the back stairs.

Above we have already characterized the feelings prevalent in the laboring masses. In the period of two years the reformist "quadrille"