Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Army and People (1920).pdf/43

 possession!“ Can one imagine a blacker treason, a more hideous downfall, a more dishonourable action that that perpetrated by the Russian officer and specialist, Nekliudov?

And so, comrades, I repeat; while there are double-dyed traitors like that around, ft is no wonder if among the peasants and workers, thrice deceived and thrice sold, we find wholesale aversion towards all military specialists whatsoever who have the littlest thing in common with such men as Nekliudov and Koltchak.

More than that, the Russian White Guards' chief crime consists in their carrying on conspiracies with foreigners. They do exactly what the refuse of the French nobility and bourgeoisie did at the time of the great French Revolution. With whom under the sun does not a considerable portion of the Russian officer class conspire, to whom does it not sell itself! First it was to Wilhelm, then to Skoropadsky, then to the French, the English, the Japanese, the Rumanians, the Turks, the Chinese, anybody at all.

Is this not the greatest ignominy? Is it not the blackest page in the history of the Russian officer class? Why, comrades, had our people even thrice erred, had they committed the greatest follies, they would still be our people, the masses of our workers and peasants. To go against them with French speculators, Rumanian landlords, Finnish White Guards, with