13
have to make way for a new order of things, under which the imbecility of the world war for the sake of gain will have become impossible.
The longer the war lasts the poorer the combatant countries are becoming. The flower of the working class has either perished or is lying eaten alive by lice in the trenches, busily at work in the cause of destruction. Everything has been demolished in the course of the war: even brass door handles have been confiscated for war requirements. Objects of primary necessity are lacking because the war, like the insatiable locust, has devoured everything. There is no one to manufacture useful articles any longer; what there is, is being gradually used up. For nearly four years factories that previously turned out useful things are manufacturing shells and shrapnel instead. And now, without men, without producing what is indispensable, all the countries have reached a state of decline where people are beginning to howl like wolves with cold, hunger, poverty, want and oppression.
In German villages, where formerly electricity was used, they now burn dried wood chips for lack of coals. Life is coming to a standstill with the general growth of poverty of the people. In such well-kept towns as Berlin and Vienna, the streets are not traversable at night because of the robberies that take place. The press is wailing over the insufficiency of police. They refuse to see that the growth of crime is the consequence of the growth of pauperism, despair and exasperation. Cripples returning from the front find sheer starvation at home; the number of hungry and homeless, notwithstanding the number of various relief organisations, is constantly growing, because there is nothing to eat, and all the while the war proceeds, demanding new sacrifices.
The harder the position of the warring States, the more friction, quarrels and misunderstandings arise between the different sections of the bourgeoisie, who formerly went hand in hand for the sake of their mutual aims. In Austria-Hungary, Bohemians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and others are fighting each other. In Germany, with the conquest of new provinces, the same bourgeoisie (Esthonian, Lettish, Ukrainian, Polish) which welcomed the German troops, are now quarrelling furiously with their liberators. In England, the English bourgeoisie is in mortal conflict with the enslaved Irish bourgeoisie. And in the midst of this tumult and general disorganisation is heard
