Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/370

 of the United States of Europe—without monarchy and standing armies—would under the foregoing circumstances become the unifying and guiding formula of the European revolution.

Let us assume the second possibility, namely, an "undecided" issue of the war. At the very beginning of the war, the well known professor Liszt, an advocate of "United Europe," proved that, should the Germans fail to conquer their opponents, the European Union would nevertheless be accomplished, and in Liszt's opinion, it would be even more complete than in the case of a German victory. By the evergrowing want for expansion, the European States, hostile against one another but unable to get equal with one another, would continue to hinder one another in the execution of their "mission" in the near East, Africa and Asia, and they would everywhere be forced back by the United States of America and by Japan. In the case of an "undecided" issue of the war, Liszt thinks the indispensability of an economic and militaristic understanding of the European Great Powers, would come to the fore against weak and undeveloped peoples, but above all, of course, against their own working masses. We pointed out above the colossal hindrances that lie in the way of realizing this program. The even partial overcoming of these hindrances would mean the establishment of an imperialistic Trust of European States, a predatory share-holding association. The proletariat will in this case have to fight not for the return to "autonomous" national states, but for the conversion of the imperialistic state trust into a Republican European Federation.

The further, however, the war progresses and reveals the absolute incapacity of militarism to cope with the question brought forward by the war, the less is spoken about these great plans for the uniting of Europe from the top down. The question of the imperialistic "United States of Europe" arose out of the plans, on the one side, of an economic union of Austria-Germany and on the other side of the quadruple alliance with its war-tariffs and duties supplemented with militarism directed against one another. After the foregoing it is needless to enlarge on the great importance which, in the execution of these plans, the policy of the proletariat of both State Trusts will assume in fighting against the established tariff and military-diplomatic fortress and for the economic union of Europe.

Now after the so very promising banning of the Russian Revolution, we have every reason to hope that during the course of this present war a powerful revolutionary movement will be launched all over Europe. It is clear that such a movement can only succeed and develop as a general European one. Isolated with-