as throughout the rest of Europe. These forces were inexorably leading capitalist mankind to a bloody catastrophe. But in the great imperialist countries there likewise operated a mighty inertia of resistance both in domestic as well as foreign relations. Imperialism found it easier to push the Balkans into war precisely because on this peninsula there re smaller weaker states. wu a muc ower level of capitalist and cultura development - and consequently with less of the inertia of 'peaceful' development.
The Balkan war - which arose as a consequence of subterranean earthquakes, not of Balkan but of European imperialism, as the direct forerunner of the world conflict - attained, however, an independent significance for a certain period. Its course and its immediate outcome were conditioned by the resources and forces available on the Balkan peninsula. Hence the comparatively brief duration of the Balkan war. A ten months sufficed to measure the national capitalist forces on the poverty-stricken of the French bourgeoisie in its corelations with the French proletariat and, conversely, this same fact engendered a certain incremental social force advantageous to the Russian proletariat in its relations with the Russian (but not the world) bourgeoisie.
What has just been said applies essentially to all old capitalist countries exporting capital. The social might of the English bourgeoisie rests on the exploitation of the English proletariat but also of the colonial toiling masses. Not only does this make the bourgeoisie richer and soclany stronger, but unis also secures l the possibility of a much wider arena for political manoeuvres, DOLl TOUCI rather far-reaching concessions to its native proletariat as well as through exer ting pressure on it by means of the colonies ...
In view of the foregoing reciprocal relations, our October Revolution was an uprising not only against the Russian bourgeoisie but also against English and French capitalism; and this, furthermore, not only in a general nistorical sense — a: the beginning of the European revolution - but in the most direct and immediate sense. In expropriating the capitalists and refusing to pay Czarist state debts, the Russian proletariat thereby dealt the diose will be the power generated for their revolutionary onslaught by the prolelarlal or mese countries .. The dictatorship of the Russian working class will be able to finally intrench itself and to develop into a genuine, all-sided socialist construction only from the hour when the European working class frees us from the economic yoke and especially the military yoke of the European bourgeoisie, and having overthrown the latter, comes to our assistance with its organisation and its technology. Concurrently, the leading revolutionary role will pass over to the working class with the greater economic and organisational power.
If today the centre of the Third International lies in Moscow - and of this we are profoundly convinced - then on the morrow this centre will shift westward: to Berlin, to Paris, to London. However joyously the Russian proletariat has greeted the representatives of the world working class within the Kremlin walls, it will with an even greater joy send its representatives to the Second Congress of the Communist International in one of the Western European capitals. For a World Communist Congress in Berlin or Paris would signify the complete triumph of the proletarian revolution in Europe
Socialist Action dependent, 11 April).