But if a simple infringement of monarchical etiquette was enough to destroy the hope of reformist co-operation with the liberal middle class, then certainly the break with the bourgeois "nation" in the moment of national "danger" would have hindered, for years to come, not only all desired reforms, but also all reformist desires. That attitude that was dictated to the routinists of the Party center by sheer anxiety over the preservation of the organization was supplemented among the Revisionists by political considerations. Their standpoint proved in every respect to be more comprehensive and won the victory all over. The entire Party press is now industriously acclaiming what it once heaped scorn upon, that the present patriotic attitude of the working class will win for them, after the war, the good will of the possessing classes for bringing about reforms.
Therefore, the German Social Democracy did not feel itself, under the stress of these great events, a revolutionary power with tasks far exceeding the question of widening the state’s boundaries, a power that does not lose itself for an instant in the nationalistic whirl, but calmly awaits the favorable moment for joining with the other branches of the International in a purposeful interference in the course of events. No, instead of that the German Social Democracy felt itself to be a sort of cumbersome train threatened by hostile cavalry. For that reason it subordinated the entire future of the International to the quite extraneous question of the defense of the frontiers of the class state--because it felt itself first and foremost to be a conservative state within the state.
"Look at Belgium!" cries the _Verwärts_ to encourage the workmen-soldiers. The People’s Houses there have been changed into army hospitals, the newspapers suppressed, all Party life crushed out.⁵ And therefore hold out until the end, "until the decisive victory is ours." In other words, keep on destroying, let the work of your own hands be a terrifying lesson to you. "Look at Belgium," and out of this terror draw courage for renewed destruction.
⁵ A sentimental correspondent of the _Vorwärts_ writes that he was looking for Belgian comrades in the _Maison du Peuple_ and found a German army hospital there. And what did the _Vorwärts_ correspondent want of his Belgian comrades? "_To win them to the cause of the German people_--just when Brussels itself had been won ’for the cause of the German people!’"