Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/86

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54
MILITARISM

cal policy. Such a combination is of course not of eternal duration, nor has it sprung from a real, lasting tendency of evolution. It results from a constellation, transient in its nature, and is quite compatible, as has been proved, with an energetic fight against anti-militarism.

From these points of view an interesting case is furnished by Russia which has been forced to adopt universal military service on account of her intensely strained foreign relations, and which as an Asiatic despotic state is confronted by an interior discord without example. The interior enemy of Czarism is not only the proletariat, but also the immense mass of the peasantry and the bourgeoisie, and even a large portion of the nobility. Ninety-nine percent, of the Russian soldiers belong to classes that are the arch-enemies of the Czar's despotism. The development of class-consciousness is extremely hampered by the low state of education, national and religious antagonisms and the clashes of economic and social interests; further by the greater or smaller pressure exercised by the widely ramified bureaucratic ap-