Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/72

 Rh and war, and making them masters of their own destinies."

At Chemnitz, a meeting of delegates, representing 50,000 Saxon workmen, adopted unanimously a resolution to this effect: "In the name of the German democracy, and especially of the workmen forming the Democratic Socialist party, we declare the present war to be exclusively dynastic. …. We are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by the workmen of France. … Mindful of the watchword of the International Workingmen's Association: Proletarians of all countries unite, we shall never forget that the workmen of all countries are our friends and the despots of all countries our enemies."

The Berlin branch of the International has also replied to the Paris manifesto: "We," they say, "join with heart and hand your protestation. … Solemnly we promise that neither the sound of the trumpet, nor the roar of the cannon, neither victory nor defeat, shall divert us from our common work for the union of the children of toil of all countries."

Be it so!

In the background of this suicidal strife looms the dark figure of Russia. It is an ominous sign that the signal for the present war should have been given at the moment when the Moscovite Government had just finished its strategic lines of railway and was already massing troops in the direction of the Pruth. Whatever sympathy the Germans may justly claim in a war of defense against Bonapartist aggression, they would forfeit at once by allowing the Prussian Government to call for, or accept the help of, the Cossack. Let them remember that, after their war of independence against the First Napoleon, Germany lay for generations prostrate at the feet of the Czar.