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.  European reformist socialists shouldered arms in July, 1914, and shot down their comrades across the frontiers.  European revolutionary socialists, led by Lenin in Russia, Liebknecht in Germany and Jaures in France gained in strength as the war proceeded.  Liebknecht and Jaures were assassinated.  Lenin lived in exile until he went back to Russia and led the revolutionary forces that liquidated Tsarism in the closing months of 1917.

For the first time in the history of western civilization, a proletarian revolutionary force had established its authority over one of the most extensive and populous nations on the planet.  For the first time a responsible government threatened to abandon the fundamental assumptions and principles of western civilization.  Could this new “subversive” government survive in the merciless free-for-all in which western man was engaged?  Could it not only survive but build up a social system which contradicted and condemned the underlying precepts of the West?  In a word, could socialism be built in one country, surrounded by civilized monopoly capitalist powers?

Historical events have answered these questions in the affirmative.  At this writing the Soviet Government has survived continuously for more than half a century.  During that period it has transformed economically, politically and culturally backward portions of Europe and Asia into one of the most advanced areas on the planet.