What strike-breakers are in a workers' strike against the bourgeoisie, deserters are in relation to a fighting army. Our war is wholly and exclusively directed against the bourgeoisie. Our army is the army of the workers and peasants. The struggle is being carried on for the sake of the whole future destiny of the working people of Russia and of the whole world. This war is disrupted by deserters, who try to shift the weight of war and its sacrifices from their shoulders on to those of the steadfast and honourable fighters, who thus have to carry a double burden.
Deserters are military strike-breakers.
But the crime of the deserter is incomparably more serious than that of the strike-breaker. A strike against capitalists is always waged by a section of the workers and on some sectional issue. The war is being waged by the whole working class, and on no sectional issue but for the entire destiny of our country. If the hatred felt by the conscious workers towards strike-breakers was justified, how much more justified and holy is the wrath of the soldiers against deserters. By weakening the army, deserters prolong the war and increase the number of its victims.