Alexandra Kollontai 1915
'HEROES' The war had not yet ended, indeed its end was still not in sight, but the number of cripples was multiplying: the armless, the legless, the blind, the deaf, the mutilated... They had set off for the bloody world slaughter-house young, strong, healthy. Their life still lay ahead of them. Only a few months, weeks, even days later, they were brought back to the infirmaries half dead, crippled...
'Heroes,' say those who started a European war, who sent one people out against another, the worker from one country out against his fellow worker from another. At least now they have won an award! They will be able to walk around wearing their medals! People will respect them!
However, in real life things are different. The 'hero' comes home to his native village or town, and when he arrives he cannot believe his eyes: in place of 'respect' and joy he finds waiting for him fresh sufferings and disillusionment. His village has been reduced to poverty and starvation. The menfolk were dragged off to war, the livestock requisitioned... Taxes must be paid, and there is no one to do the work. The women have been run off their feet. They are haggard and starved, worn out with weeping. Cripple-heroes wander about the village, some with one medal, some with two. And the only 'respect' the hero gets is to hear his own family reproach him as a parasite who eats the bread of others. And the bread is rationed!
The 'hero' who returns to the town fares no better. He is met with 'respect', his mother weeps from both grief and joy: her darling son is still alive, her ageing mother's eyes have beheld him once again. His wife smiles... For a day or two they will fuss around him. And then...
Since when do working people have the time, the leisure, to look after an invalid? Each has his own affairs, his own worries. Moreover, times are difficult. Not a day passes but the cost of living rises. War!... The children are ailing; war is ...