Právo Lidu. This meeting took place in the second half of November 1914. At the last moment Dr. Soukup was unable to come and so only F. V. Krejčí and Dr. Šmeral were present beside myself.
F. V. Krejčí had previously told Šmeral what I thought about the state of affairs and also what I had told him about my work with Professor Masaryk. I repeated my arguments to Šmeral.
I have long remembered Šmeral’s reply as one of the things which affected me most deeply during the war. It was also a striking proof of the aberration of many Czechs before the war, and—what was much worse—also during the war. It was a proof of the erroneous tactics and development of ideas among the Czechoslovak Social Democrats as well as of Dr. Šmeral’s sterility of mind, Marxist doctrinairism, and, of course, political incapacity. People can and do make mistakes. But a man who lays claim to so important a political leadership must not make so serious a mistake as Dr. Šmeral did during and after the war.
Dr. Šmeral plainly informed me that we were mad, that Masaryk was leading the nation to another “White Mountain”(4) (those were the actual words he used), that a politician who was responsible for a large party and, in fact, for the whole nation, could not and must not engage in such a gambling policy as that of Professor Masaryk. Besides, the plans which we had formed were fantastic. The Quadruple Alliance was not concerned about us and was not thinking of us. Dr. Šmeral asked me to show him even a single utterance which would make it evident that the Allies were seriously concerned with our cause. He repeatedly asked where were the slightest guarantees from the Entente which would justify us in such a policy. But when I objected that it was also a moral question for us whether we were to associate ourselves with Vienna and Austrian dishonesty and violence or not, and by no means merely a question of political opportunism, he turned to me and said: “You may declare that I am a cynic, that I am a materialist, that I am heaven knows what, but politics is not a moral affair, it is deceit, cynicism, intrigue, fraud, violence, crime if you like. All this is being used against us, we must reckon with it, and for that reason I cannot be a party to your fantastic scheme which can be attempted and defended only by irresponsible persons.”
