THE CZECH DECLARATION OF 6 JANUARY
all States, based upon democratic principles, whether they are belligerent or neutral, now accept with us the right of nations to free self-determination as a guarantee of a general and lasting peace.
Also the new Russia accepted the principle of self-determination of nations during its attempts for a general peace, as a fundamental condition of peace. The nations were freely to determine their fate and decide whether they want to live in an independent State of their own or whether they chose to form one State in common with other nations.
On the other hand, the Austro-Hungarian delegate declared, in the name of the Quadruple Alliance, that the question of the self-determination of those nations which have not hitherto enjoyed political independence, should be solved in a constitutional manner within the existing State. In view of this declaration we deem it our duty to declare, in the name of the Czecho-Slovak nation, that this point of view of the Austro-Hungarian representative is not our point of view. On the contrary, we have in all our declarations and proposals opposed this solution, because we know, from our own numberless bitter experiences, that it means nothing but the negation of the principle of self-determination. We indignantly express our regret that our nation was deprived of its political independence and of the right of self-determination, and that, by means of artificial electoral statutes, we were left to the mercy of the German minority and of the Government of the centralised German bureaucracy.
Our brother Slovaks became the victims of Magyar brutality and of unspeakable violence in a State which, notwithstanding all its apparent constitutional liberties, remains the darkest corner of Europe, and in which the non-Magyars, who form the majority of the population, are ruthlessly oppressed by the ruling minority, extirpated, denationalised from childhood, unrepresented in Parliament and Civil Service, deprived of public schools, as well as of all private educational institutions.
The Constitution, to which the Austro-Hungarian representative refers, falsified even the justice of the general suffrage by an artificial creation of an over-representation of the German minority in the Reichsrat, and its utter uselessness for the liberty of nations was clearly demonstrated during the three years of unscrupulous military absolutism during this war. Every reference to this Constitution, therefore, means, in reality, only a repudiation of the right of self-determination for the non-German nations of Austria who are at the mercy of the Germans; and it means an especially cruel insult and injury to the non-Magyar nations in Hungary, where the Constitution is nothing but a means of shameful domination by the oligarchy of a few Magyar aristocratic families, as was again proved by the recent electoral reform proposal.
Our nation longs with all the democracies of the world for a general and lasting peace. But our nation is fully aware that no peace can be permanent except a peace which will abolish old injustice, brutal force and the predominance of arms, as well as the predominance of States and nations over other nations, and which will assure a free development to all nations, great or small, and which will liberate
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