Page:The Third International to the Workers of all Countries Concerning the Polish Question (1920).pdf/5

 one hand, of an approaching alliance between the revolutionary proletariat of Russia with the revolutionary proletariat of Germany and on the other hand of a possible coalition of reactionary Germany with reactionary Russia is what dictates the entire policy of the Allies in regard to Poland; this primarily applies to bourgeois France.

Formerly French capital was an indifferent onlooker of the manner in which the Tzarist Government dealt with Poland; the French bourgeois press systematically maintained silence regarding the brutalities committed by the Tzarist satraps in Poland. Whereas now, so soon as Beseller's military heel was removed from the neck of the Polish people, France began to evince a particular interest to the young Polish Republic, supplying it from the first day of its establishment with articles of military equipment. Having driven Poland as a wedge betwenbetween [sic] Russia and Germany, French capital resolved to convert her, Poland, into a fortress against Germany, into a base for mainitaining in the East a new European political equilibrium favourable to the French bourgeoisie.

In the forthcoming conflict with Germany, the phantom of which is depriving the French Stock Exchange kings of their rest, capitalist France cannot count upon the assistance of her former Allies. American capital is leaving petty European intrigues, concentrating its attention on the Pacific Ocean, on the conflict with Japan, which it is expected will give the American bourgeoisie an apportuniy of arousing once again the popular masses to fight for the interests of capital, to fight for new sources of capitalist profits. The position of British imperialism is growing more difficult daily. In England herself, the dissaffection of the wide masses of the population is constantly increasing; a dissaffection due to economic disorganisation and new taxes which fall, a heavy burden, not only upon the working masses but also upon the middle classes. Ireland is on the eve of revolution. Mass disturbances threatening to take the form of a revolution against British domination are prevalent in Egypt and India…. In the event of war with the German workers or the German capitalists the only hope left to the French bourgeoisie is Poland. This country must at all costs be fully adapted to the role of watch dog of French capital in the East.