did not stop with kings. It began with them
because they were in such plain sight, but when it had finished with
them it went right on to the bankers and the business men.

War is destruction, organized and directed by the best brains
available. It is merry sport for the organizers and for some of the
directors, but like any other destructive agent, it may get out of hand.
The War of 1914 was to last for six weeks. It dragged on for five years,
and the wars that have grown out of it are still continuing. In the
course of those five years, the war destroyed the capitalist system of
continental Europe. Patches and shreds of it remained, but they were
like the topless, shattered trees on the scarred battle-fields. They
were remnants--nothing more. In the first place, the war destroyed the
confidence of the people in the capitalist system; in the second place,
it smashed up the political machinery of capitalism; in the third place,
it weakened or destroyed the economic machinery of capitalism.

Each government, to win the war, lied to its people. They were told that
their country was invaded. They were assured that the war would be a
short affair. Besides that, there were various reasons given for the
struggle--it was a war to end war; it was a war to break the iron ring
that was crushing a people; it was a war for liberty; it was a struggle
to make the world safe for democracy.

Not a single important promise of the war was fulfilled, save only the
promise of victory. Hundreds of millions, aroused to the heights of an
exalted idealism, came back to earth only to find themselves betrayed.
With less promise and more fulfillment; with at least an appearance of
statesmanship; with some respect for the simple moralities of
truth-telling, fair-dealing, and common honor, there might have been
some chance for the capitalist system to retain the confidence of the
peoples of war-torn Europe, even in the face of the Russian Revolution;
but each of these things was lacking, and as one worker put it: "I don't
know what Bolshevism is, but it couldn't be any worse than what we have
now, so I'm for it!"

Such a loss of public confidence would have proved a serious blow to any
social system, even were it capable of immediately reestablishing normal
conditions of living among the people. In this case, the same events
that destroyed public confidence in the capitalist system, destroyed the
system itself.

The old political forms of Euro