Page:René Marchand - Why I Side with the Social Revolution (1920).pdf/74

 hout warmth or beauty to which Fate had condemned them. Such, in a few words, is the summary of a work which is worthy, whatever personal political opinion one may profess, of sincere respect and admiration.

Ail this was done, I repeat, during a period when the proletarian Government of Russia was threatened on ail sides; when, under the enemy's fire, and without other sources of assistance than the irrisistible force of its own principles, of its convictions, created by the October revolution. Trotzky, on the day following the loss of Kazan and with Moscow directly menaced, was obliged to start the organization of the Red army, by means of which, in the space of a few months, he was to achieve results not less startling than those just mentioned above, namely the liberatonliberation [sic] of practically ail the former territory of European Russia and the decisive consolidation of the Proletarian Government and the conquests of the October revolution.

For any observer, not only impartial but with even a little intelligence, it was beyond doubt, from that time onwards, that the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Russia was the only force capable of guiding the destiny of this country, and that, outside this Government there, was nothing. The allied intervention, in view of the completely erroneous circumstances in which it had been launched, should have been stopped immediately, seeing that it did not and, obviously, could not achieve its only end, that of aiding the Russian people against German Imperialism, and further, that, any idea of action against the Proletarian Government