The Berlin congress, 1892, adopted the following resolution, in view of the added military burdens proposed by the Reichstag: "The prevailing military system, not being able to guarantee the country against foreign invasion, is a continual threat to international peace and serves the capitalistic class-government, whose aim is the industrial exploitation and suppression of the working classes, as an instrument of oppression against the masses. "The party convention therefore demands, in consonance with the program of the Social Democratic platform, the establishment of a system of defense based upon a general militia, trained and armed. The congress declares that the Social Democratic members of the Reichstag are in complete accord with the party and with the politically organized working classes of Germany, when they vote against every measure of the government aimed at perpetuating the present military system."[48] During a debate in the Reichstag in 1907, Bebel declared, in the defense of the Fatherland, _if it were invaded_, even he in his old age would "shoulder a musket." He demanded military drill for youths as a preliminary to the shortening of military service in the standing army; if this were not done the defense of the country would be weakened whenever the service shall be reduced to one year. The Chancellor had on this occasion introduced a bill making all military service uniformly two years, and abolishing the privileges that had been granted to a few favored classes. For this action they were severely criticised in the next party convention. Bebel replied: "I said, _if the Fatherland really must be defended_, then we will defend it. Because it is our Fatherland. It is the land in which we live, whose language we speak, whose culture we possess. Because we wish to make this, our Fatherland, more beautiful and more complete than any other land on earth. We defend it, therefore, not for you but against you."[49] This patriotic declamation was received with "tremendous applause." Von Vollmar, himself a soldier of distinction, said, in the Bavarian Diet, a few years ago: "If the necessity should arise for the protection of the realm against foreign invasion, then it will become evident that the Social Democrats love their Fatherland no less than do their neighbors; that they will as gladly and heroically offer themselves to its defense. On the other hand, if the foolish notion should ever arise to use the army for the support of a warring class prerogative, for the defense of indefeasible demands, and for the crushing of those just ambitions which are the product of our times, and a necessary concomitant of our economic and political development,--then we are of the firm conviction that the day will come when the army will remember that it sprang from the people, and that its own interests are those of the masses." This makes their position very clear. VII