Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Army and People (1920).pdf/32

 several tens of millions of people tearing at each other's throats, with Europe continuously flooded with blood for more than four years, all her economic life sacrificed to that war, universal destruction in honour of it. And see: that war but just ended—what tremendous upheavals! Half a dozen thrones swept away, and a whole series of revolutions, victorious and semi-victorious. And the whole world in commotion, shaken with the fever of coming events.

Wholly hopeless, in truth, Is it to fancy that Europe and the whole world will be renovated after this slaughter. That cannot be. Every little war has brought most important social changes. And what you have just seen, that was no little war, but something never before known in history. All Europe one vast burying ground. and all the nations facing the spectre of famine!

Not Russia alone, but all Europe. In Vienna the tramways stop working, in Germany the mills stand idle, in England and in France the coal question is growing more and more acute, as it is here with us.

Could it be otherwise? During four and a half years men have been busy devastating their own countries.

But the question is: To what changes will this war lead? I can understand the average