sed in Russia, whose sixteen provinces are under the Prussian heel!_
I do not understand this exclusive solicitude for Germany's interests."

To those who advocated fraternization, who were engaged in spreading the
idea that the German working class would refuse to fight against the
Russian revolutionists, the great Socialist teacher, possessing one of the
ripest minds in the whole international Socialist movement, and an intimate
knowledge of the history of that movement, made vigorous reply and recited
a significant page of Socialist history:

"In the fall of 1906, when Wilhelm was planning to move his troops on the
then revolutionary Russia, I asked my comrades, the German Social
Democrats, 'What will you do in case Wilhelm declares war on Russia?' At
the party convention in Mannheim, Bebel gave me an answer to this question.
Bebel introduced a resolution in favor of the declaration of a general
strike in the event of war being declared on Russia. But this resolution
was not adopted; _members of the trade-unions voted against it_. This is a
fact which you should not forget. Bebel had to beat a retreat and introduce
another resolution. Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg were dissatisfied with
Bebel's conduct. I asked Kautsky whether there is a way to bring about a
general strike against the workers' will. As there is no such way, there
was nothing else that Bebel could do. _And if Wilhelm had sent his hordes
to Russia in 1906, the German workers would not have done an earthly thing
to prevent the butchery_. In September, 1914, the situation was still
worse."

The opposition to Plechanov on the part of some of the delegates was an
evidence of the extent to which disaffection, defeatism, and the readiness
to make peace at any price almost--a general peace preferably, but, if not,
then a separate peace--had permeated even the most intelligent part of the
Russian army. Bolshevism and its ally, defeatism, were far more influential
in the ranks of the soldiers than in those of the workers in the factories.
Yet the majority was with Kerensky, Tseretelli, and Plechanov, as the
following resolutions adopted by the convention prove:

The first convention of the Delegates from the Front, having heard
reports on current problems from the representatives of the
Provisional Government, members of the Executive Committee of the
Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, and from
representatives of the Socialist part