COMMUNISM AND THE PROBLEM OF NATIONALITY

figures of the first epoch of the revolution, appealed to all the peoples of the world on behalf of deliverance from every form of tyranny; the Marseillaise, written by Rouget de l’Isle, and sung by the armies of the revolution, is dear to the hearts of all oppressed peoples. But this same French bourgeoisie, having entered the second phase of its revolution under the regime of Napoleon, subjugated the peoples of Spain, Italy, Germany, and Austria, to the strains of the aforesaid Marseillaise, and continued to plunder them throughout the Napoleonic wars. When the German bourgeoisie was subject to oppression, such writers as Schiller with his Wilheim Tell voiced the struggle of the peoples against foreign tyrants. But this same German bourgeoisie under the leadership of Bismarck and Moltke forcibly annexed the French provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, seized Schleswig from the Danes, tyrannised over the Poles of Posen, etc. The Italian bourgeoisie, having delivered itself from the yoke of the Austrian aristocracy, was perfectly ready to shoot down the conquered Bedouins of Tripoli, the Albanians and the Dalmatians on the shores of the Adriatic, and the Turks in Anatolia.