"It declined to condemn the Bolshevists and declined to say that their revolution was Socialism.... "Moscow seems to be more thorough than Berne, though as a matter of fact Berne was far more thorough than Moscow. There is a glamour and a halo about Moscow; but there are substance and permanence about Berne. "That blessed word 'Soviet' has become a shibboleth. But Berne did not say anything about it. It declared its continuing belief in democracy and in representative institutions. I hope that the Soviet is not contrary to democracy; I know that it is a representative institution. But I know more. I know that beyond its primary stage it is a system of indirect representation--the representation of representatives--and that a few years ago there was not a single Socialist in the country that would have accepted such a form of representative government. For Socialists to pretend to prefer that system to one of direct responsibility is a mere pose. "Therefore, two Internationals will be the worst thing that could happen to the revolutions now going on and to the general Socialist movement. The duty of every Socialist--especially of those of us who are not in revolution--is to strive by might and by main to get a union of the two. We may have to suffer a time of internal trouble owing to the friction of conflicting conceptions of Socialist reconstruction, but I am quite certain that no one has yet said what is to be the last word on the subject, and to split on such a controversy as this is to advertise to the world how unready Socialism is to assume command."
The Berne Conference, which had at first been called to meet at Lausanne, the Russian Bolshevik government of Lenine denounced in a manifesto which the "Chicago Socialist" of February 8, 1919, republished in part as follows: