brutality became second nature to the soldier. There is but a step between requisition and robbery. Private property ceased to be respected. The blockade created unbearable circumstances with regard to the food supply. The unspeakable sufferings, dangers and denials, the anxiety and excitement which were experienced by millions in the trenches and by millions at home, the cruelty and abuse, and the excess of militarism, all tended towards embitterment and hatred. Class war was engendered by these circumstances and by the fact that the officer enjoyed greater advantages than the rank and file, and that both these elements belonged to different classes.
The consumer in general became embittered against the producer and the middleman.
Moreover, anti-Semitic feeling increased from day to day. The enormous war profits excited hatred and envy everywhere, but anti-Semitism was specially powerful because the majority of the war profits went into Jewish hands. The official was unable to live on his fixed salary, and the luxury of the new rich heightened the embitterment. Ignorant, uneducated egoists became millionaires without work, by dishonesty and clever tricks; they bragged with their money, whilst others, honest patriots, were exposed to the most inhuman self-sacrifices, while the families of these heroes were starving at home. In such circumstances it is easily intelligible that the number of those who supported the revolutionary Social Democratic Party grew from day to day.
