26.03.1998

The altruistic friends of Russia

From The Call, paper of the British Socialist Party, March 21 1918

We are about to allow Japan to invade Asiatic Russia for the good of the latter. As good friends we must intervene and help Russia against her enemy - Germany.

Of course the present Soviet government has not been consulted - that goes without saying. But what is equally, if not more, interesting is that, according to the Swiss Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, Germany’s action against Russia at the present time is activated by pure consideration of humanity and the general interests of the world.

Says this paper: “Even the most inveterate enemy of Germany must allow that it is rendering valuable service to Kultur and humanity in ridding North Livonia, Estonia and perhaps Finland from the bestial hordes of the present government in Petrograd. Austria-Hungary is doing a similar service in protecting the Ukraine peace with its sword, and thereby the Ukraine itself, and is utterly frustrating the devilish proceedings of the Bolsheviks in that country...

“For a number of reasons the Entente should view the new position of the Central Powers with a certain goodwill ... Again the redemption of Russia from Bolshevism means the saving of France from financial ruin. Germany is really executing a French and American mandate as much as one of her own.”

After pointing out that Germany was instrumental in bringing about the downfall of tsarism, and thus delivering the world, and Britain in particular, from a Russian domination of the world, the paper considers that now another world mission has been laid on Germany: “to deliver Russia from the Bolshevik plague, and thereby to rescue the world from the peril of a general revolution”.

And both the Entente and the German apologists are, from the bourgeois point of view, quite right. By destroying the Russian proletarian revolution, they are destroying the deadly foe of the capitalists of the whole world. But what of the workers of the world? Are they going to assist or tamely acquiesce in this unholy war against their class?