io 3 



The movements of heroic nationalism which 

 in our century have reconquered for Italy and 

 Germany their unity and independence, have 

 been really a great advance, and we are 

 grateful to those who have given us a free 

 country. 



But our country cannot become an obstacle 

 to the progress to come, to the fraternity of 

 all the peoples, freed from national hatreds 

 which are in reality either the residue of 

 barbarism or a simple theatrical scenery to 

 conceal the interests of capitalism which has 

 known how to realise for itself the greatest 

 internationalism. 



It was true moral and social progress for us 

 to go beyond the phase of communal wars in 

 Italy and to feel we were all brothers of the 

 same nation ; it will be the same for us when 

 we shall have passed beyond the phase of 

 "patriotic" rivalries, to feel we are all 

 brothers of the same humanity. 



It is, however, not difficult for us to pene- 

 trate, thanks to the historical key of class 

 interests, into the secret of the contradictions 

 in which the classes in power move. When 

 they form an international league the banker 

 of London, thanks to the telegraph, is master 

 of the market at Pekin, New York, St. 

 Petersburg it is a great advantage for this 

 dominant class to maintain the artificial 

 divisions between the workmen of the whole 

 world, or even only of old Europe, because 

 the division of workmen alone renders possible 

 the maintenance of the power of capitalists. 

 And to attain this end, it is sufficient to 



