Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/158

 146 and soldiers of Russia. At the front and in the rear they passionately awaited and hoped for the German revolution, and believed in its possibility. Their own Revolution seemed to them only a prelude to the regeneration of the world. The Russian Revolution would never achieve its objects unless there was a revolution in Germany: such was the prevailing idea.

The supporters of a fight to a finish tried to exploit this idea for their own ends. They began an agitation for the continuation of the war. They said: "You want a revolution in Germany! We all want it! Then get on with the war: beat Germany, destroy German militarism, and carry the banner of Revolution into Germany." Such contentions in the Press and on the platform were, however, too obviously inconsistent with the whole policy and mentality of their authors. The democracy knew that those who gave them this good advice were the last to think of revolution in Germany, or to desire it. The whole purpose of this warlike agitation was simply the satisfaction of grabbing, imperialistic ambitions: the annexation of Galicia, the dismemberment of Austria, the destruction of the Turkish Empire, the annexation of Constantinople and the Straits, annexation of Armenia, etc., etc. The Russian democracy understood only too well that such a continuation of the war not only could not lead to revolution in Germany, but could only hinder that process of internal disruption in the Central Empires which began with the Russian Revolution and took place under its influence. The preceding years of war had proved with absolute clearness that there could be no hope of destroying German unity by fighting the German armies. The more aggressively, the more successfully the Russian armies fought, the greater became the unity of Germany. Germany began to show signs of disintegration only after the Russian Revolution. Only from the moment when Russia ceased to be a menace to Germany and Austria, from the moment when Russia repudiated the ambitious aims of