"In view of the prevailing policy directed against the Czech people, can any one wonder that _they have lost all confidence in Vienna_ and that they refuse to let this parliament decide their fate? _It is necessary to secure for all peoples, great or small, the right to decide their own destinies_. This applies also to the ten million Czecho-Slovaks who, moreover, cannot rightly be considered merely as a 'small' nation: the Czechs, too, do not desire anything more than peace, but it must not be forgotten _that our men did not shed their blood merely for imperialism or for Pan-Germanism. We do not want anything but an honourable peace which would bring equality to all peoples_, a peace assuring liberty and equality to all, and not a peace which would leave our fetters unbroken. We regret that the Pope omitted to mention the Czechs in his peace offer although he mentioned the Poles. _But we shall obtain our right without alien support. The Czechs will never swerve from their demand for an independent Slovak State with all the attributes of sovereignty. The Czechs are convinced that the question of Bohemia is too great to be solved in Vienna. It must be decided at the Peace Conference_." On November 9, deputy Stanek made it clear that the Czecho-Slovaks expect the resurrection of their independence only from the break-up of Austria: "We cannot conceive of peace or of the transformation of Europe except when _on the ruins of the Dual Monarchy_ new national states shall arise. The German-Magyar misrule must be destroyed." And when on November 21 Seidler talked about the peace conditions of the "enemy," Dr. Stransky interrupted him by exclaiming, "Our enemies are here, in Vienna and in Budapest!" _(d) During Peace Negotiations with Russia_ When peace negotiations were opened with the Bolsheviks, the Austro-Hungarian delegations were also summoned, for the first time during the war, on December 3, 1917. During the speech from the throne the Czechs demonstratively left the hall. On the same day the Bohemian Union, the Yugoslav Club and the Ruthenes issued a protest against the government having published a distorted version of the Russian peace offer. In this protest the Slav deputies asked: "How can the government answer for having purposely distorted such a highly important document as the Russian Note of November 28, and why did the government suppress just the paragraph out of it containing guarantees for national self-determination?"