capitalists" who help them. But let Trotzky explain the destiny of the Russian workers in his own words, as reported by Eyre in the "World" of February 25, 1920:
"The workers and peasants will insist, once the revolution is no longer in peril, on returning to their factories and farms and making Russia a fit land to live in. Frontier guards will be maintained, of course. The framework of our (military) organization must also be preserved in order that with the experience they have received in the past eighteen months our proletarian fighting men can be remodelled in two or three months if the need arises. There will also be some form of military training for the working class, that it may always be ready to defend itself against the bourgeoisie."
Will not this be "militarism?" Of course not; for, in Trotzky's words in the same interview, "Militarism, striking as it does at the very roots of Communism, cannot possibly exist in Soviet Russia, the only truly pacific country in the world!" Thus facts disappear behind words. Conscription was militaristic under the Czar, but it cannot be under a Trotzky, for he has labeled his system a Soviet Republic and since Soviets are never military their military arrangements, though apparently more severe than the other kind, are really only a form of pacifism! Thus the happy Russian workers must serve as "frontier guards," keep up the framework of their military organization, and submit to "some form of military training," but may whistle as they groan, knowing that the yoke they bear "cannot exist."
Other contradictions in these interviews will be discussed later in this book. For example, we shall find, in Chapter XVI, that the Soviet Republic at Moscow can make peace with "capitalistic countries" and form partnerships with "foreign capital" while at the same time the Third