10. War cannot be ended "by desire." It cannot be ended by the decision of one side alone. It cannot be ended by "plunging the bayonet into the ground," to use the expression of one soldier-defensist.

War cannot be ended by "agreement" among socialists of different countries, by "action" of proletarians of all countries, by the "will" of peoples, etc.—all phrases of this sort, filling the articles of defensist and semi-defensist, semi-internationalist newspapers, as well as countless resolutions, appeals, manifestos, resolutions of the Soviet of soldiers' and workers' deputies—all these phrases are nothing other than empty, innocent, kind-hearted wishes of petty bourgeois. There is nothing more harmful than such phrases about "expressing the will of peoples for peace," about the queue of revolutionary actions by the proletariat (after the Russian, "the turn" of the German), etc. All this is Lassalleanism, sweet dreams, playing at "political campaigns," in practice a repetition of the fable of the Cat Vaska.

War is not born from the evil will of rapacious capitalists, though it is, without doubt, waged only in their interests, only enriches them. War is born from half a century of development of world capital, from billions of its threads and connections. One cannot leap out of an imperialist war, one cannot achieve a democratic, non-violent peace without overthrowing the power of capital, without the transfer of state power to another class, to the proletariat.

The Russian revolution of February-March 1917 was the beginning of the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war. This revolution took the first step toward ending the war. Only the second step can ensure its cessation, namely: the transfer of state power to the proletariat. This will be the beginning of a worldwide "breakthrough of the front"—the front of the interests of capital, and only by breaking through this front can the proletariat save humanity from the horrors of war, give it the blessings of lasting peace.

And toward such a "breakthrough of the capital front" the Russian revolution has already brought the proletariat of Russia right up close, by creating Soviets of workers' deputies.