All this is undeniable. But to what is said above one must add that the war has exercised no less influence on the psychology of the ruling classes. As the masses become more insistent in their demands, so the bourgeoisie has become more unyielding.
In times of peace, the capitalists used to guarantee their interests by means of the “peaceful” robbery of hired labor. During the war they served those same interests by means of the destruction of countless human lives. This has imparted to their consciousness as a master class a new “Napoleonic” trait. The capitalists during the war became accustomed to send to their death millions of slaves – fellow-countrymen and colonials – for the sake of coal, railway, and other profits.
During the war there emerged from the ranks of the bourgeoisie – large, middle, and small – hundreds of thousands of officers, professional fighters, men whose character has received the hardening of battle, and has become freed from all external restraints: qualified soldiers, ready and able to defend the privileged position of the bourgeoisie which produced them with a ferocity which, in its way, borders on heroism.
The revolution would probably be more humane if the proletariat had the possibility of “buying off all this band,” as Marx once put it. But capitalism during the war has imposed upon the toilers too great a load of debt, and has too deeply undermined the foundations of production, for us to be able seriously to contemplate a ransom in return for which the bourgeoisie would silently make its peace with the revolution. The masses have lost too much blood, have suffered too much, have become too savage, to accept a decision which economically would be beyond their capacity.
To this there must be added other circumstances working in the same direction. The bourgeoisie of the conquered countries has been embittered by defeat, the responsibility for which it is inclined to throw