Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/360

 of the ever-increasing number of combatants and of fronts, thus rendering it impossible for the different governments to formulate the so-called "war aims," then the small states will have the at all events doubtful advantage that their historical fate may be reckoned as pre-determined. No matter which side proves victorious, and however far-reaching the influence of such a victory may be, the fact remains that there can no longer be a return to independence for the small States. Whether Germany or England wins,—in either case the question to be determined is who will be the direct master over the small nations. Only charlatans or hopeless fools can believe that the freedom of the small nations can be secured by the victory of one side or the other.

A like result would follow the third solution of the war, viz., its ending in a draw. The absence of pronounced preponderance of one of the combatants over the other will only set off all the more clearly both the dominance of the strong over the weak within either one of the camps, and the preponderance of both over the "neutral" victims of Imperialism. The issue of the war without conquerors or conquered is no guarantee for anybody: All small and weak states will none the less be conquered, and the same applies to those who bled to death on the battlefield as to those who tried to escape that fate by neutrality.

The independence of the Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians and others, is regarded by us not as part of the Allies' War Program (as treated by Guesde, Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Henderson and others), but belongs to the program of the fight of the International Proletariat against Imperialism.