BourgeoisieCapitalismDemocracyRussian RevolutionSocial DemocracySocialismSocialist PartySovietTrotsky

November 30, 1918 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Chapters from My Diary By Leon Trotzky II In Switserland The German Treason. Plckha yama, yet at the same time, he was openly hos. Prussian militarism, and then was unable to NU:Greulich.
tile to the confidence, then so dear to the revolu muster manhood enough within himself to raise tionist, that the forces of Czarism would meet a voice in protest, when French militarism, repI ARRIVED in Zurich on August 4, 1914. Switz with defeat it. the war. But in 1913, when was resented in the persons of the non coms of the at Bucharest, Rakovsky told me that just at the Foreign Legion, subected the unhappy Russian erland was then already over run with fugi; time of the Russo Japanese War, Plekhanov had idealists to tives from the warring countries. The central insured him with greater frankness than he had a communerading indignitics.
Plekhanov to the Bulgarians, sumWould there or would there not be enough? The shown toward us, that in his opinion the idea that moning them to intervene in the war on the side munications of the general staffs, lists of killed should work for national defeat (to use the defense of Czarist diplomacy. Plekhanov agitat.
difficulty in obtaining in hearing, but the ques? an importation into the party that had been writing the most extravagant chauvinistic arti.
tion of the food supply was beginning to be im: brought about by the Hebrew intellectuals. This cles for the Italian yellow ojurnals. And, finally, perative. And the Russians who were stranded Assertion must have appeared all the more re. Plekhanov combined with certain backward la.
in Switzerland also conceived of world affairs, in markable to Rakovsky in view of the fact that at borites and populists, and with the renegade these early days, from the angle of the kitchen that time not only the radical intellectuals, but Alexinsky, to form the staff of the Paris Prizyv even the majority of the Liberal intellectuals, with. The Call. which, from number to number, communications with Russia were broken, the Milyukov at their head, were permeated with out stamped us, the internationalists, as the agents of banks stopped changing Russian noney, then spoken defear ist sentiments. Later, in July, the German General Station But let us return to the opening of the war. In the rate would go up, then down, and then they the war, on the occasion of the unifying Rus. Zurich met Greulich, a German, the patriarch stopped altogether.
of the Swiss Social Democracy. Not of tall They were giving 240 francs for 100 roubles a number of guarded observations made by Plekthis morning.
that he was not well disposed toward the plete contrast to his contemporary, the late Bebel, stature, but rugged; not stout, but heavy: a com You don say. anti patriotic campaign which had carried on Yes, they were. You sce England declared at the time of the Balkan War. All these things impression of importance, with his white male in my communications from Serbia and Bulgaria steel spring; Greulich produces an immediate war yesterday. Change your fifty roubles at produced in me in August, 191. 1, an attitude of and the deep furrows of his thoughtful face. Ho once, or tomorrow Italy will come in, and they ll suspicion toward the anointed leader of the Rusbegin giving us nothing again.
sian Sucial Democracy. But the actual course of the action of the German Socialists; later the was fiercely indignant in these first wecks with The Russian traveling public, the cmigrants, events far outstripped my most gloomy expecta er of his indignation went down day by day powthe students, the pleasure seekers, formed a Com tions. In Paris, Plekhanov blessed the Russian mittee of Public Welfare out of their midst, Revolutionary Volunteers in their struggle with The International no longer exists, said around which all the fugitives grouped themGreulich, and at once entered this observation of selves, the army deserter, the member of the his in my notebook. In the discharge of our Odessa supreme court, the Jewish laborer, the director of a hospital, some actresses, etc. etc. Campaign of Slander every day political labors, he continued, we feel that we are a real forse, and we really are a force, At Geneva they formed a General Administration THE Allied, including also the American capitalist But when great masses sweep over the stage for Economic Welfare, in the Russian colony, under the presidency of the Caucasian social demopress, has never shown any great inclination to tell action, when it is clear that we constitute a micrat T, who, us is the custom, was called Comthe truth in their dispatches of the present progress cal pride into political self debasement. To me, rade Chairman. Wessel, the Russian Consul, of events in Russia. If at the beginning of the Rev. that is the key to an understanding of all that is who was present at the meetings (oh, sweet were olution this press attempted to be impartial, not in the going on. Victor Adler, Austerlitz, Renner, are the days of national unity. asked his neighbor in interpretation of the event, but in the description of splendid Socialists, but even they will be lost algreat astonishment: If this is only the Comrade of the Chairman, who is the real Chairman? its movement, then, very soon, having learned the real together with the rest of the party in the welter of the politically amorphous masses.
after which he respectfully addressed his remarks character of the event, it changed its front. Into stead of facts it is giving the reader fruits of leisure We are entering upon a period of great crisis After the food crisis had abated, there began fancy from its special correspondents; instead of at for the International. It may be reborn later, but a discussion, among the political emigrants, as it will not be on the same foundations. We must to the conduct of the Socialist parties of the least a show of truth in the reports it gives fictions acknowledge before everything else that the polit full of slander, insinuations fabricated by its merce ical parties have compromised themselves. The various countries. The agreement of the Gier.
man Social Democratic Party to vote the first naries. Until recently this was done with the purtrade unions have kept aloof, but they cannot exfive milliards of war credits, created imprese pose of distorting the actual meaning of the Russian ist without international bonds between them. It is, therefore, my opinion, that the International sion of dismay. Many would not believe it, and Revolution and discrediting it in the eyes of the masswill be reborn after the war on the basis of the insisted that the August 5th number of the Rer es of the Allied countries. Now it is being done in trade unions.
lin Vorwaerts, which brought us Blaase dec.
order to justify the attack of the Allied governments laration, was creation of the German But Greulich was only partly right in these General Staff, intended to confuse the enemy as on the Soviet Republic.
words. Numerically, to be sure, we Socialists are to the internal conditions of Germany.
The American capitalist press shows especial zeal, in the minority. But the class that is waging the The first rather indistinct tendencies were als in the slanderous campaign the Allied press is waging there are still great masses of the population that ready observable toward the formation of groups against Revolutionary Russia. It lies, lies meanly and upset by the treason of the Germans. for that shamelessly. Almost every telegram from Russia is view, that is, who in normal times have no kind a vile invention, every report on Russian events an political life. The conditions of Capitalism do is what we called the consent of August 4th in our private conversations. If Bebel were still abominable libel on the Revolution and Russian people. not permit and never will permit of the elevation In connection with the developing Allied intervenof these lowly petit bourgeois, semi proletarian, permitted it. The action of the French Social. tion in Russia the American newspapers fill their pages pation in the destinies of society: These classes actly what the Germans had done, namely, voted with all sorts of absurd fairy tales, such as, the po revolution.
the war credits, made much less of an impression. ulation of the regions where the troops advance hail such catastrophes as with joy and enthusiasm their liberators. But who War shatters the fetters of the commonplace, Socialism inferior to the German, and others, will believe it? Who will believe that a people who and consequently the oppressive, debasing, unenAxelrod among them, found extenuating cir: has made the greatest revolution in the history of man. lightened conditions. War destroys the existing cumstances pleading for the French in the cir.
kind will with joy hail oppressors who are trying to equilibrium, tears one out of the accustomed cumstances of the war itself.
We began to receive news of the position of take away from them the conquests they have achiev es all classes, and, consequentiy. those who are Plekhanov, who, at the beginning of the war, was ed? Who will believe that a Revolution will hail its oppressed and overburdened feel themselves on in Paris. This news was not very definite at own executioners? Who will ever think that there an equal footing with the wealthy and powerful.
first, but what there was of it was calculated to is truth in the assumption that the Russian worker These powerful hopes for decisive changes are a numone of the reasons why war so often brings revoand the peasant, freed from their oppressors, will be lution in its train. Because war alone can never ber of conversations with Axelrod on this subject and he would never admit the possibility that sors to profile for because ele power of the oppres. make good the hopes which it arouses. Having admit that he will make distinctions in his esti The American press picturing the Russian people physical crises, war invariably deceives them in the of French and German Socialism, and that as naive primitive men who with joy will exchange ordinary times are scarcely touched by very same time sections of society, heater he wi come out for a victory of the Czar armieseign liberation, this press is lying and slandering lutionary party for the realization of the hopes never! did not share this confidence. Already at the And it knows that it lies. It does it consciously for, it which not so long ago they hoped the government time of the Russo Japanese War. Plekhanov occu. has no other means to justify intervention.
would make good, with its apparatus of war. The pied a position by himself in the Iskra Group of those days. To be sure, he did not voice hio pa. keep silent! Let her not abuse the honor of the RusLet then this mistress of the imperialistic bourgeoise success of the Revolution depends to no slight do gree on the extent to which the Socialist party is able to convince these masses that their hopes are triotic feelings aloud, and at the Amsterdam Connot illusions.
gress he ostentatiously shook the hand of Kata sian people!
simple core war or