In the opinion of those who took part in the London Conference the comparison of these documents will be of the greatest importance. It will be a principal means of establishing whether a sufficient agreement of views exists between the proletariats of the two belligerent groups to make possible a common action against imperialism and for a democratic peace. This preliminary examination is all the more necessary, because it is obvious that no important party, conscious of its responsibility, will run the risk of having the resolutions of an international congress imposed upon it by the will of a majority. Only resolutions which were the expression of a general and common will would possess moral authority and practical effect. The sum of the matter is that the Socialists of the Entente countries request you in this grave hour, in which it is necessary to know whether the world is to be freed by democracy or to be handed over to imperialism, to ask your consciences whether a real, sincere, and effective agreement of the wills of the proletariats is possible in order to put an end to the law of violence, in order to lay the foundations not of a peace, but of the peace, and in order to help the peoples to liberate themselves from the endless chain of military war which leads to economic wars, and of economic wars which will again produce military wars. We add to the messages only one observation. Since the London Conference momentous events have taken place which constitute the gravest menace for the workers of all countries. The principles to which they appeal have been shamefully violated. The right of the peoples to self-determination has been openly disregarded. In Austria and Germany themselves Socialists have expressed the fear that Russia, disarmed and for the moment impotent, might become a battleground in which the rival imperialisms and their claims would meet and ultimately satisfy themselves jointly at the cost of the defeated revolution. The working classes have a common interest in protesting against such events and in preventing the realization of such projects. That is the wish of the authors and the signatories of the memorandum. In the same spirit we beg you to subject this document to a conscientious and thorough examination. In communicating this request to you we address to you, comrades, our Socialist greetings.