Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Nicolai Lenin, His Life and Work (1918).djvu/43

 revolution, that is, a civil war, After protracted arguments, the commission of the Congress adopted his decision, but in different words. Lenin told us at the time how he had been arguing with Bebel about those words. According to Lenin, Bebel had accepted the idea, but demanded great care in formulating it in order not to alarm the enemy before the time.

Then the imperialist war actually came, but when Lenin now repeated the Stuttgart resolution, when he now submitted to the leaders of the Second International Bebel's I. O, U., the leaders only waived it aside and passed to the order of the day, that is, to their respective governments.

I remember the first manifesto of our party on the war. Naturally, it was drawn up principally by Lenin himself, as for the rest, all our most important party documents were. When we translated it into various European languages and read them out to various comrades, even the Swiss Internationalist Grimm and the Rumanian revolutionary Rakovsky, who is now in our ranks, were very indignant. They were almost horror stricken when they read the words that the imperialist war must be transformed into a civil war.

Today it is all as simple as A, B, C. We are all doing it, we are all practically transforming the imperialist war into a civil war, but at that time it seemed monstrous. We were told that only an anarchist could preach such things, and virtually war was declared upon us. Even at Zimmerwald not only moderate men, but also men like Rakovsky and the Italian Serrati were bitterly opposed to us, so that very fierce conflicts ensued at various stages. I well remember how the headstrong Rakovsky was nearly taking off his coat to fight Lenin and me for our opinion that Martoff was an agent of the bourgeoisie. "How dare you say such things," they shouted at us; "we have known Martoff for the