Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Army and People (1920).pdf/50

 wall, we may suffer defeat on this or that fromtfront [sic], we may prolong the war a year or two, but we cannot fall to conquer in the end, because I repeat of the immense majority on our side. And the workers and peasants are apt at learning, they can produce commanders of regiments, brigades and divisions, they can fight and conquer.

Yes, our victory may be delayed by the help of liberal sprinklings of French and English gold, assisted by such traitors as Nekliudov, Koltchak, Yudenitch, Ealachovitch, and the civil war may be protracted; but this war which is ruining Russia, torturing the country. this war is protracted owing to the brutes in human shape who are selling themselves right and left in order to compel Russia to go on fighting, and to those lukewarm ones who, being neither hot nor cold, chew the old stale cud, deal in the old trash, instead of definitely taking their stand on the side of the people, of the workers those burning questions of the day which we are facing; but this is not our last meeting, it is our first. This is why I should consider it preferable to limit myself to general topics. It is Impossible for me to answer all the various notes which lie before me, but I pick out one, which concerns the most painful point and is hardest to answer, because it touches on the most difficult question. One comrade, who does not sign his name, writes: „I beg comrade