We do not want
to kill you. Why should you kill us? We are all of us the slaves of
bloodthirsty castes, who use our flesh for their ambitions. Do not
shoot us, brothers, but join hands against the common tyranny which
enslaves our peoples." They went forward with outstretched hands, and
were shot, down like rabbits by some Germans, and by others were not
shot, because German soldiers gaped, wide-eyed, at this new gospel, as
it seemed, and said: "They speak words of truth. Why should we kill
one another?"
The German war lords ordered a forward movement, threatened their own
men with death if they fraternized with Russians, and dictated their
terms of peace on the old lines of military conquest. But as
Ludendorff has confessed, and as we now know from other evidence, many
German soldiers were "infected" with Bolshevism and lost their
fighting spirit.
Russia was already in anarchy. Constitutional government had been
replaced by the soviets and by committees of soldiers and workmen.
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