A Message Sent to the Socialists of the Central
Powers by Those of the Entente Nations
Emile Vandervelde and Camille Huysmans, the Chairman and Secretary
of the International Socialist Bureau, on March 1, 1918, signed and
transmitted a message to the Socialists of Germany, Austria-Hungary,
and Bulgaria, inviting them to consider the declaration on war aims
adopted by the Interallied Labor and Socialist Conference in London,
Feb. 23, and asking them to propose conditions of their own for
comparison. The communication was printed April 17 without comment in
the German Socialist organ, Vorwärts, being reproduced by it from the
Paris Humanité. It is as follows:
The third Interallied Socialist Conference, which was held in
London from Feb. 20 to Feb. 23, has commissioned the President
and Secretary of the International Socialist Bureau to communicate
to you the authentic text of the memorandum which has been
adopted by the meeting of delegates of the Labor and Socialist
organizations of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium. The
main ideas of this document have received, or had received in
advance, the approval of the parties of Serbia, Portugal, Greece,
Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
A special mission, consisting of Stuart, Bunning, (England,)
Jouhaux and Cachin, (France,) a Belgian delegate, an Italian
delegate, and the Secretary of the International Socialist Bureau,
Camille Huysmans, has gone to the United States in order to obtain
the adhesion of the American working class to this memorandum,
which expresses the point of view of the organized proletariat
of the Entente countries with regard to the necessary foundations
of a democratic peace and the principal conditions for a general
international Labor and Socialist conference, which has been
summoned to a neutral country by "a committee which provides all
guarantees of impartiality toward the various elements which are
called to take part."
In making this communication to you the signatories of this
message consider it profitable to recall objectively the reasons
which determined the acceptance of the procedure proposed by the
London Conference.
The conference was of the opinion that it would be of no use to
assemble a general congress unless its aim had been established in
principle.
The conference was of the opinion that "the principal condition
for the holding of a plenary assembly of the International
consists in its organizers satisfying themselves that all the
organizations to be represented formulate in precise terms and
by a public declaration their peace conditions upon the basis
of the principles of peace without annexations and without
indemnities of a punitive character, and the right of the peoples
to self-determination," and, further, that these organizations
will "work with all their power to obtain from their Governments
the necessary guarantee that these principles shall be applied
honestly and without _arriere-pensées_ in the settlement of all
questions raised at the official peace conference."
In order itself to satisfy these conditions, the London Conference
has considered it necessary to state precisely its views and its
action in the memorandum which we are commissioned to communicate
to you.
The conference expects that your party, following the same idea,
will resolve to issue a public declaration of a similar kind,
whether separately or jointly with the Labor and Socialist
organizations of Central Europe.
In the opinion of those who took part in the London Conference
the comparison of these documents will be of the greatest
importance. It will be a principal means of establishing whether
a sufficient agreement of views exists between the proletariats
of the two belligerent groups to make possible a common action
against imperialism and for a democratic peace. This preliminary
examination is all the more necessary, because it is obvious that
no important party, conscious of its responsibility, will run
the risk of having the resolutions of an international congress
imposed upon it by the will of a majority. Only resolutions which
were the expression of a general and common will would possess
moral authority and practical effect.
The sum of the matter is that the Socialists of the Entente
countries request you in this grave hour, in which it is necessary
to know whether the world is to be freed by democracy or to be
handed over to imperialism, to ask your consciences whether
a real, sincere, and effective agreement of the wills of the
proletariats is possible in order to put an end to the law of
violence, in order to lay the foundations not of a peace, but of
the peace, and in order to help the peoples to liberate themselves
from the endless chain of military war which leads to economic
wars, and of economic wars which will again produce military wars.
We add to the messages only one observation. Since the London
Conference momentous events have taken place which constitute the
gravest menace for the workers of all countries. The principles
to which they appeal have been shamefully violated. The right of
the peoples to self-determination has been openly disregarded. In
Austria and Germany themselves Socialists have expressed the fear
that Russia, disarmed and for the moment impotent, might become
a battleground in which the rival imperialisms and their claims
would meet and ultimately satisfy themselves jointly at the cost
of the defeated revolution.
The working classes have a common interest in protesting against
such events and in preventing the realization of such projects.
That is the wish of the authors and the signatories of the
memorandum. In the same spirit we beg you to subject this document
to a conscientious and thorough examination.
In communicating this request to you we address to you, comrades,
our Socialist greetings.
At a meeting of the Socialist Party Committee in Berlin on May 31,
according to the Vorwärts, Friedrich Ebert, Vice President of the
Social Democrats, announced that the party leaders had indirectly
received a copy of the Entente Socialist memorandum on war aims.
Philipp Scheidemann declared that the aims of the Entente Socialists
were to a great extent in complete accord with the annexationist aims
of the Entente Governments. The committee adopted a resolution pledging
continued adherence to the Reichstag peace resolution of July, 1917,
which declared for no annexations and no indemnities.