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upon his word of honour, when we released Kerensky's minister's who afterwards organised civil war against us which cost us the lives of ten of thousands of our comrades. We reminded them how the intervention of the Allies gradually forced us to apply Terror as the extremest form of self-defence. We cited the resolution of the Eighth Council of the Social-Revolutionist Party (Dittman in his articles and reports defended Chernov) which at the time of the Czecho-Slovak revolt called on the Allies to send troops into Soviet Russia. We reminded them of the instance of the Finnish revolution, when the Finnish workers, after taking over the government were so naive as to liberate all the deputies of the Diet and the bourgeois ministers. The latter went to Berlin, hired cut-throat white guards of the Kaizer and then killed some 30,000 Finnish workers. We also hinted to the German workers, that their owe German experience, and first and foremost the treatment of their best leaders—Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, at the hands of the White Guards, are in themselves positive proof that the petty bourgeois views on terror are utterly false.
This part of my speech was specially welcomed by the overwhelming majority oi the congress. The German workers understood the motive of my words. But this part of my speech—as was shown by future events—united the whole of reactionary Germany against me—from the "Orgesch" organisation to the Right leaders of the Independents. The bourgeoisie and the "Social Democracy" started an unprecedented and savage campaign against me, precisely for uttering these words. These words of mine were represented as a blood-thirsty appeal after the style of Nero, an appeal for immediate massacre of all the bourgeoisie, etc.
Finally, Crispien formulated his view with regard to the "Soviet System" as follows:
Firstly: Only intelligent working men must be admitted to the Soviets—reactionary working men such as Christian Socialists, etc., must be excluded from the Soviets. Secondly: no party must pretend to guide the Soviets. Such guidance leads not to the dictatorship of the workers but to the dictatorship over the workers. We had no difficulty in proving that both his statements were reactionary. The Soviets are impor-
