General war presented twentieth century man with a dilemma, an
opportunity and a choice. Should he continue the grab-and-keep society
that had flowered in Europe and elsewhere during the previous century,
with its consequent poverty for the many, unemployment, exploitation and
the power-struggle of the empires, or make a revolutionary change? As
the stalemated war of 1914-18 with its frightful destruction of life and
property continued year after year, the determination in favor of
revolutionary change grew and crystalized.
David Lloyd George, Britain's Prime Minister, put the situation into
words presented to the Versailles Peace Conference on March 25, 1919:
"The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.... The
whole existing order in its political, social and economic aspects is
questioned by the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the
other." (Memorandum of Lloyd George to the Peace Conference, 1922 Cmd.
1614.)
Lloyd George proved a true prophet. Mass discontent and the spirit of
revolt spread rapidly. Soldiers at the front mutinied. The armies of
Tsarist Russia dissolved as the privates and officers alike returned to
their homes, determined to stop war, end Romanoff tyranny and build a
better life for the Russian people. To gain these results they replaced
the Tsarist absolutism by local, regional and nationally elected
people's Soviets.
Before the War began in July, 1914, the socialist parties of Europe were
divided between moderates who were willing to accept welfare-state
reforms and allow the grab-and-keep structure of monopoly capitalism to
continue in authority, and revolutionaries who demanded the abolition of
capitalist imperialism and its replacement by socialism.
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