II. THE CHALLENGE TO IMPERIALISM

1. _Revolutionary Protest_

Since the Franco-Prussian War the people of Europe have been waking up
to the failure of imperialism. The period has been marked by a rapid
growth of Socialism on the continent and of trade-unionism in Great
Britain. Both movements are expressions of an increasing working-class
solidarity; both voice the sentiments of internationalism that were
sounded so loudly during the revolutionary period of the eighteenth
century.

The rapid growth of the European labor movement worried the autocrats
and imperialists. Bismarck suppressed it; the Russian police tortured
it. Despite all of the efforts to check it or to crush it, the
revolutionary movement in Europe gained force. The speeches and writings
of the leaders were directed against the capitalist system, and the rank
and file of the workers, rendered sharply class conscious by the
traditions of class rule, responded to the appeal by organizing new
forms of protest.

The first revolutionary wave of the twentieth century broke in Russia in
1905. The Russian Revolution of 1917 destroyed the old regime and
replaced it first by a moderate or liberal and then by a radical
communist control. Like all of the proletarian movements in Europe the
Russian revolutionary movement was directed against "capitalism" and
"imperialism" and despite the fact that there was no considerable
development of the capitalist system in Russia, its imperial
organization was so thoroughgoing, and the imperial attitude toward the
working class had been so brutally revealed during the revolutionary
demonstrations in 1905, that the people reacted with a true Slavic
intensity against the despotism that they knew, which was that of an
autocratic, feudal master-class.

The international doctrines of the new Russian regime were expressed in
the phrase "no forcible annexations, no punitive indemnities, the free
development of all peoples." The keynote of its internal policy is
contained in Section 16 of the Russian Constitution, which makes work
the duty of every citizen of the Republic and proclaims as the motto of
the new government the doctrine, "He that will not work neither shall he
eat." The franchise is restricted. Only workers (including housekeepers)
are permitted to vote. Profiteers and exploiters are specifically denied
the right to vote or to hold office. Resources are nationalized together
with the financial and industrial machine