Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/463

 We will not win the war by killing the Russian Revolution. By committing such a crime we shall not accomplish the task towards civilization which the Allies have set before them, and we shall not realize a democratic and just peace, the principles of which have been enunciated by our Socialist Party and so eloquently developed by Wilson.

The Ministers of the Entente, misinformed through the blindness of their Intelligence Service, were in a position to easily delude the masses of workingmen, and now direct them against the power of the Soviets. But the day will come when the lies will be swept aside and the truth proclaimed. What bitter reproaches will then be addressed to the guilty governments for not having known better, or not having wanted to know better.

What resentment, what hatred will accumulate, and what terrible and unnecessary fights are in store for the future! But the crime will be irreparable! New ruins will not make old ruins look less ugly.

Men like you who have helped so forcefully in the intellectual and moral development of my generation, have the power to prevent this. It is also their duty.