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.