Page:The Manifesto of the Moscow International - tr. Henry James Stenning (1919).djvu/10

 taneously with the collapse of the imperialist military system. The armies of millions mobilised by Imperialism could only be maintained so long as the proletariat remained obediently under the yoke of the bourgeoisie. The falling to pieces of national unity signified also an inevitable falling to pieces oi the army. Thus it happened first in Russia, then in Austria-Hungary and Germany. The revolt of the peasants against the landlords, of the workers against the capitalists, of both against the monarchical or "democratic" bureaucracy, leads unerringly to the revolt of the soldiers against the commanders, and further to a sharp cleavage between the proletarian and the bourgeois elements of the army. The imperialist war, which pitted one nation against the other, passes into civil war, which pits one class against the other.

The wail of the bourgeois world against the civil war and the red terror is the most monstrous hypocrisy which the history of political struggles has hitherto revealed. There would have been no civil war if the exploiters who have brought mankind to the brink of destruction had not opposed every step forward of the labouring masses, if they had not plotted conspiracies and murders and summoned armed assistance from without, in order to maintain or re-establish their predatory privileges. The working class has been forced into civil war by its arch-enemy. The working class must answer blow with blow, if it is not to renounce itself and its future, which is equally the future of all mankind. While the Communist parties have never artificially conjured up the civil war, they endeavour to shorten its duration as far as possible, to decrease the number of sacrifices, and above all to assure victory to the proletariat. From this will be understood the necessity for the opportune disarming of the bourgeoisie, the arming of the workers, the formation of a Communist army to protect the power of the proletariat and the integrity of its social construction. Such a one is the Red Army of Soviet Russia, which arose to protect the achievements of the working class against any attack from within or without. The Soviet Army is inseparable from the Soviet State.

Conscious of the world-historical character of their tasks, the enlightened workers aimed at an international union even in the first stages of their organised Socialist movement. Its foundation stone was laid in London in 1864 with the first International. The Franco-German War, out of which arose the Germany of the Hohenzollerns, under-