J. Ramsay MacDonald, commenting upon the Berne Conference in "Glasgow Forward," in the spring of 1919, said:
"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."