war, could no longer be attacked; and next, a continuance of the
organised revolution. Only one point the Government could gain, and
that was a name. The dreadful revolutionary title was dropped, and
the body, with its branches, acted under the respectable name of the
'Board of Conciliation and its local offices.' Carrying this name,
it became the leader of the people in the civil war which soon
followed."

"O," said I, somewhat startled, "so the civil war went on, in spite
of all that had happened?"

"So it was," said he. "In fact, it was this very legal recognition
which made the civil war possible in the ordinary sense of war; it
took the struggle out of the element of mere massacres on one side,
and endurance plus strikes on the other."

"And can you tell me in what kind of way the war was carried on?"
said I.

"Yes" he said; "we have records and to spare of all that; and the
essence of them I can give you in a few words. As I told you, the
rank and file of the army was not to be trusted by the reactionists;
but the officers generally were prepared for anything, for they were
mostly the very stupidest men in the country. Whatever the
Government might do, a great part of the upper and middle classes
were determined to set on foot a counter revolution; for the
Communism which now loomed ahead seemed quite unendurable to them.
Bands of young men, like the marauders in the great strike of whom I
told you just now, armed themselves and drilled, and began on any
opportunity or pretence to skirmish with the people in the streets.