The six weeks march to Paris has grown into a world drama.

Mass slaughter has become the tiresome and monotonous business of the day, and the end is no closer.

Bougoir statecraft is held fast in its own vise.

It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war,

like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old

routine once it is over. Friedrich Engels once said,

Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.

This World War is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation

of civilization. In this war, imperialism has won. Its bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of

misery. The only compensation for all the misery and all the shame would be if we learn from the war

how the proletariat can seize mastery of its own destiny and escape the role of the lackey to the

ruling classes.

Rosa Luxembourg, the Junius pamphlet, published 1916.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Thank you. The

The Episode 157, A Strewin' With Roses

When the Bolsheviks issued their decree on peace on November 8th, the day after they took power,

it wasn't so much an actual invitation to the other warring powers to convene peace talks

as it was a political move. It was a statement to the world thatring powers to convene peace talks as it was a political move.

It was a statement to the world that the new Russian government was different from its

predecessors and different too from the governments of the other belligerents.

Other leaders talked peace. The Bolsheviks were ready to begin making it.

The message was directed to the socialists and other

...