Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/119

 war is ready made for them, largely by the folly of their discarded rulers, and the Revolution has transformed it from a dynastic pan-Slav war to a crusade for liberty and equality throughout the world. Yesterday the kings of the earth rose up and their rulers took counsel together against the Lord and His anointed. To-day the democrats of the earth rise up and their leaders take counsel together against the kings; and in this holy war lies the salvation of Russia from anarchy."

It was as the apostles of that Holy War that we were going to the front. Our visit was to be neither an amateur excursion nor simply a means of satisfying our own curiosity. The generalissimo who had invited us—it was General Alexeieff at that—time gave us to understand that he expected it to be a veritable mission of propaganda. He wished our efforts to be joined to those that had been made a little while before by the delegations from the Black Sea sailors, by Kerensky, and Albert Thomas, in order to perfect what he called the moral preparation for the offensive.