"We want to be our own masters, and if it is high treason to ask for
liberty and independence, then let us say at once that _each of us is a
traitor, but such high treason is an honour, and not a dishonour_. As
regards the negotiations with Russia, we declare that _Count Czernin
does not represent the nations of Austria_ and has no right to speak in
our name; he is merely the plenipotentiary of the dynasty. _The old
Austria, based on police, bureaucracy, militarism and racial tyranny,
cannot survive this war_. We also want peace, but it must be a just
peace. The Czecho-Slovaks will under all circumstances defend their
rights."

In conjunction with this declaration we may quote two other Czech
Socialists showing the opinion of the Czechs on the Russian Revolution.

On November 29, deputy Modracek declared in the Reichsrat:

"The Revolution of the Bolsheviks is a misfortune for the Russian
Revolution, the Russian Republic and all the oppressed nations of
Europe. _So long as the German Social Democracy permits the working
masses to be brought to the battlefield in the interests of
Imperialism, the action of the Bolsheviks is not the work for Socialism
but for German Tsarism_. I do not undervalue the significance and the
greatness of the Russian Revolution: it is the German Social Democrats
who fail to perform their moral duty in this war and do not comprehend
the Russian Revolution."

Still more outspoken is the declaration of deputy Winter, who said in the
Reichsrat on February 21, 1918: