Part 17

"But my protest is against the war, against those who are responsible for it, against those who direct it; it is against the capitalist policy which gave it birth; it is directed against the capitalist objects pursued by it, against the plans of annexation, against the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, against military dictatorship, against the total oblivion of social and political duties of which the Government and ruling classes are still to-day guilty. For this reason, I reject the military credits asked for."--From the "Daily News," December 14, 1914.

"KARL LIEBKNECHT.

"BERLIN, December 2."

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DANGER OF RUSSIA.

The following is the text of the resolution passed by the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party in reply to M. Vandervelde's appeal on behalf of the Allied cause:--

"We recognize the anti-democratic character of the Prussian hegemony, but as Russian Social Democrats we cannot forget another enemy of the workers, and no less dangerous--Russian absolutism. In home affairs this enemy remains what it always has been, a merciless oppressor and an unceasing exploiter. Even at the present moment, when we should have thought this despotism would be more cautious, it remains the same and continues the political persecution of the democracy, and of all subject nationalities. To-day all Socialist journals are stopped, all working class organizations are disbanded, many hundreds of members are arrested, and our brave comrades are sent to exile just as before. Should this war end in victory for our present Government, it will become the centre and mainstay of international reaction.... Our immediate objective should be the convocation of a Constitutional Assembly. We demand this in the interests of the same European democracy on whose behalf you appeal. Our party is a very important section of the world's democracies, and by fighting for our interests we are at the same time fighting for the interests of all democracies, enlarging and strengthening them. We hope that our interests are not considered as opposed to those of other European democracies which we esteem as highly as our own. We are persuaded that Russian absolutism is the chief support of reactionary militarism in Europe, and that it has bred in the German hegemony the dangerous enmity towards European democracy."

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LETTER ON RUSSIA FROM P. KROPOTKIN.

"'But what about the danger of Russia?' my readers will probably ask.

"To this question, every serious person will probably answer, that when you are menaced by a great, very great danger, the first thing to do is to combat this danger, and then see to the next. Belgium and a good deal of France are conquered by Germany, and the whole civilization of Europe is menaced by its iron fist. Let us cope first with this danger.

"As to the next, Is there anybody who has not thought himself that the present war, in which all parties in Russia have risen unanimously against the common enemy, will render a return to the autocracy of old materially impossible? And then, those who have seriously followed the revolutionary movement of Russia in 1905 surely know what were the ideas which dominated in the First and Second, approximately freely elected Dumas. They surely know that complete Home Rule for all the component parts of the Empire was a fundamental point of all the Liberal and Radical parties. More than that: Finland then actually accomplished her revolution in the form of a democratic autonomy, and the Duma approved it.

"And finally, those who know Russia and her last movement certainly feel that autocracy will never more be re-established in the forms it had before 1905, and that a Russian Constitution could never take the Imperialist forms and spirit which Parliamentary rule has taken in Germany. As to us, who know Russia from the inside, we are sure that the Russians never will be capable of becoming the aggressive, warlike nation Germany is. Not only the whole history of the Russians shows it, but with the Federation which Russia is bound to become in the very near future, such a warlike spirit would be absolutely incompatible."--Quoted in "Freedom," also in the "Manchester Guardian," October, 1914.

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THE FUTURE OF EUROPE.

Portion of a letter written by P. Kropotkin to Mr. R.J. Kelly, K.C., of Dublin, December 15, 1915.

"The same for the South Slavs and for all nationalities oppressed in Europe. When the last Balkan War had shown the inner power of the South Slavs, I greeted in it the disintegration of the Turkish Empire, which would be followed by the disintegration of the three other Empires--Austria, Russia, and Germany--so as to open the way for two, three, or more federations. A South Slavonic federation--the Balkan United State was the dream of Bakunin--would be followed by a free Poland, free Finland, Free Caucasia, free Siberia, federated for peace purposes. Yes, dear Mr. Kelly, you are right, we are on the eve of great events in Europe. Warmest wishes that this should become a reality, or receive a sound beginning of realization, during the coming new year, and my very best wishes to you of health and vigour.--Sincerely yours,

"P. KROPOTKIN."

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SERVIA.

"We are therefore justified in declining to accept such evidence. We are witnessing the birththroes of a new nation, the triumph of the idea of national unity among the disunited Southern Slavs, and it is the duty of Britain and France, whose Fleets are now operating on the Adriatic, to insist upon a just and permanent solution, based upon the principle of nationality and the wishes of the Southern Slav race. Only by treating the problem as an organic whole and avoiding patchwork we can hope to remove one of the chief danger centres in Europe."--Lecture at Essex Hall, November 13, 1914, by R.W. Seton Watson.

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THE BATTLEFIELD.

"Then the camps of the wounded--O heavens what scene is this?--is this indeed humanity--these butchers' shambles? There are several of them. There they lie, in the largest, in an open space in the woods, from two hundred to three hundred poor fellows--the groans and screams--the odour of blood, mixed with the fresh scent of the night, the grass, the trees--that slaughter-house! Oh, well is it their mothers, their sisters cannot see them--cannot conceive and never conceived these things.

"One man is shot by a shell, both in the arm and leg--both are amputated--there lie the rejected members. Some have their legs blown off--some bullets through the breast--some indescribably horrid wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out--some in the abdomen--some mere boys--many rebels, badly hurt--they take their regular turns with the rest, just the same as any--the surgeons use them just the same. Such is the camp of the wounded--such a fragment, a reflection afar off of the bloody scene--while all over the clear, large moon comes out at times softly, quietly shining.

"Amid the woods, the scene of flitting souls--amid the crack and crash and yelling sounds--the impalpable perfume of the woods--and yet the pungent, stifling smoke--the radiance of the moon, looking from heaven at intervals so placid--the sky so heavenly--the clear-obscure up there, those buoyant upper oceans--a few large, placid stars beyond, coming silently and languidly out, and then disappearing--the melancholy, draperied night above, around. And never one more desperate in any age or land--both parties now in force--masses--no fancy battle, no semi-play, but fierce and savage demons fighting there--courage and scorn of death is the rule, exceptions almost none."--From Walt Whitman.

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CHINESE CHRISTIANS ON THE WAR.