r, waste, inequality, exploitation. After 1917 it became
a movement to end imperialism, war and exploitation and substitute a
planet-wide social system that would give every human being a chance to
play a meaningful part in utilizing nature, improving society and
creating socialist women and men, capable of cooperating for the general
welfare of mankind.

The Enlightenment had diminished ignorance, spread information and
brought elementary education to the masses. Self-government had given
people confidence in their ability to make the phrase "we, the people" a
working formula for social improvement. The Industrial Revolution had
converted millions of superstitious, frustrated peasants into craftsmen
and professionals confident in their ability to use nature effectively,
to advance their own interests and to improve society. These and
secondary social forces laid the foundation for the social revolution
that mushroomed across the planet during the opening years of the
present century. The occasion for the revolution was four years of
destructive war (1914-18) during which two rival gangs of imperialists
led their dupes and victims to shed blood and destroy property in a
struggle to decide which band of plunderers should exploit natural
resources and labor power for its own advantage.

General war presented twentieth century man with a dilemma, an
opportunity and a choice. Should he continue the grab-and-keep society
that had flowered in Europe and elsewhere during the previous century,
with its consequent poverty for the many, unemployment, exploitation and
the power-struggle of the empires, or make a revolutionary change? As
the stalemated war of 1914-18 with its frightful destruction of life and
property continued year after year, the determination in favor of
revolutionary change grew and crystalized.

David Lloyd George, Britain's Prime Minister, put the situation into
words presented to the Versailles Peace Conference on March 25, 1919:
"The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.... The
whole existing order in its political, social and economic aspects is
questioned by the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the
other." (Memorandum of Lloyd George to the Peace Conference, 1922 Cmd.
1614.)

Lloyd George proved a true prophet. Mass discontent and the spirit of
revolt spread rapidly. Soldiers at the front mutinied. The armies of
Tsarist Russia dissolved as the privates and officers