Page:Michael Farbman - The Russian Revolution & The War (1917).djvu/34

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24
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

democracy of the Imperialistic States is out to destroy German Imperialism; the Russian democracy is out to destroy Imperialism as such, because Imperialism, as such, is the enemy of democracy and of all the Russian Revolution stands for. To a Russian, the protagonists in the war are now Revolution and Imperialism. Unless the Revolution destroys Imperialism, Imperialism will destroy the Revolution.

Such is the non-Imperialist creed of the C.W.S.D. The Imperialists at once denounced it as a movement for a separate peace. There is no longer any need for argument now on this subject. It is an exploded fable and was, in fact, an invention of the Imperialists for the purpose of discrediting the democratic purpose and saving their Imperialism. Such an idea as that of a separate peace was quite impossible from the very nature of the revolutionary mind. The only peace that the Russian democracy thought of, or was capable of thinking of, was a general peace. The enemy, as I have said, was Imperialism;