The German and Austrian Social Democrats lay much stress upon this question in the arguing they do about the War. The crushing of a small neutral country, the ruin of France--all this is justified by the need to fight Czarism. Haase gives as the reason for voting the war credits the necessity of "defense against the danger of Russian despotism." Bernstein goes back to Marx and Engels and quotes old texts for his slogan, "Settling with Russia!" Südekum, dissatisfied with the result of his Italian mission, says that what the Italians are to blame for is not understanding Czarism. And when the Social Democrats of Vienna and Budapest fall in line under the Hapsburg banner in its "holy war" against the Servians struggling for their national unity, they sacrifice their Socialistic honor to the necessity for fighting Czarism. And the Social Democrats are not alone in this. The entire bourgeois German press has no other aims, for the moment, than the annihilation of the Russian autocracy, which oppresses the peoples of Russia and menaces the freedom of Europe. The Imperial Chancellor denounces France and England as vassals of Russian despotism. Even the German Major-General von Morgen, assuredly a true and tried "friend of liberty and independence," calls on the Poles to rebel against the despotism of the Czar. But for us who have gone through the school of historical materialism it would be a disgrace if we did not perceive the actual relations of the interests in spite of these phrases, these lies, this boasting, this foul vulgarity and stupidity. No one can genuinely believe that the German reactionaries really do cherish such a hatred of Czarism, and are aiming their blows against it. On the contrary, after the War Czarism will be the same to the rulers of Germany that it was before the War--the most closely related form of government. Czarism is indispensable to the Germany of the Hohenzollerns, for two reasons. In the first place, it weakens Russia economically, culturally and militaristically, and so prevents its development as an imperialistic rival. In the second place, the existence of Czarism strengthens the Hohenzollern Monarchy and the Junker oligarchy, since if there were no Czarism, German absolutism would face Europe as the last mainstay of feudal barbarism. German absolutism never has concealed the interest of blood relationship that it has in the maintenance of Czarism, which represents the same social form though in more shameless ways. Interests, tradition, sympathies draw the German reactionary element to the side Czarism. "Russia’s sorrow is Germany’s sorrow." At the same time the Hohenzollerns, behind the back of Czarism, can make a show of being the bulwark of culture "against barbarism," and can succeed in fooling their own people if not the rest of Western Europe.