Bebel introduced a resolution in favor of the declaration of a general
strike in the event of war being declared on Russia. But this resolution
was not adopted; _members of the trade-unions voted against it_. This is a
fact which you should not forget. Bebel had to beat a retreat and introduce
another resolution. Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg were dissatisfied with
Bebel's conduct. I asked Kautsky whether there is a way to bring about a
general strike against the workers' will. As there is no such way, there
was nothing else that Bebel could do. _And if Wilhelm had sent his hordes
to Russia in 1906, the German workers would not have done an earthly thing
to prevent the butchery_. In September, 1914, the situation was still
worse."
The opposition to Plechanov on the part of some of the delegates was an
evidence of the extent to which disaffection, defeatism, and the readiness
to make peace at any price almost--a general peace preferably, but, if not,
then a separate peace--had permeated even the most intelligent part of the
Russian army. Bolshevism and its ally, defeatism, were far more influential
in the ranks of the soldiers than in those of the workers in the factories.
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