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 After the experience of the occasion of April 20 and 21 and July 3 and 4 this consequence should be regarded historically as inevitable. "Rivers of blood" cry the Cadets! But "rivers of blood" would grant victory to the proletariat and poor peasants. This victory would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to substitute peace for the imperialist war, that is to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of men who shed their blood at this moment to settle the question of the division of profits and territorial conquests (annexations) among the capitalists. If the movement of April 20 and 21 had ended the transference of power to the Soviets and had given the victory in them to the Bolsheviks allied to the poor peasants, that seizure of power, even suppose that it had let flow "rivers of blood," would at least have saved the lives of the half-million soldiers which the disastrous offensive of June 18 certainly cost us.

All the conscious workers and soldiers, when they seriously approach the question of civil war, about which there is so much noise at present, will make this reckoning. And surely the workers and soldiers who have gained a certain amount of experience and acquired the habit of thought will not be frightened by the shouts of the men, parties and groups who argue about "rivers of blood," while they themselves prepare again to sacrifice the lives of millions of Russian soldiers for Constantinople, Lvov, Varsovie—for the victory over Germany. All the rivers of blood caused by civil war would not bear the remotest comparison with the seas of blood which the Russian imperialists have shed since June 18 (in spite of the considerable opportunity that they had to avoid these hecatombs by transferring the power to the Soviets).

Be a little more discreet in your reasoning about the "rivers of blood" of civil war, my gentlemen—Miliukov, Potressov, Plekhanov and others, for during the war the soldiers have already seen seas of blood.

Now in 1917, in the fourth year of a frightful and criminal war that has exhausted all the peoples, the international situation of the Russian revolution is such that proposals for a just peace through the Russian proletariat, victorious in civil war, would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to end in an armistice and peace—without it being necessary to shed any more seas of blood.

In fact, the alliance of the rival Anglo-French and German