m beyond praise all needs and
desires of their own are put aside for the present, our workers will
give expression to their wishes at no distant day after peace comes.
Even before this book is in print the masses in Germany, grimly silent
so long except for the ever-increasing votes for their socialistic
representatives, silent even during the disillusionment which has come
to them these last six months, may have at last spoken out. We are told
that their leader, Herr Bebel, who is said to have known the German
character through and through, declared that the first serious defeat
experienced by Germany "would produce a miracle." Social unrest is still
universal.

[Illustration: _Russian Service at the Atbazar Mine._ (See page 178.)]

We find it, therefore, as we should expect to do, in Russia; and more
general, perhaps, and more acute than at any other previous time, just
before the war was declared. This, it may be remembered, is stated to
have been one of the reasons why the curt and hurried ultimatum was
presented at Petrograd, where it was thought that social troubles and
dangers were so serious that it would be impossible for the government
even to think of going to war. We have been told,[12] though it was
probably not known outside Russia at that time, what a good turn Germany
really did to the Russian government and the Russian people by turning
their thoughts from their own grave difficulties to the dangers which
threatened them from without. At that time, we are assured, not only
Petrograd, but every big manufacturing district of Russia, was shaking
with revolt of a peculiar kind, and civil war on the point of breaking
out. In Petrograd there were barricades already erected, at least
120,000 were on strike, tramcars had been broken up, attacks upon the
police had taken place, factories were garrisoned in expectation of
attack, the Cossacks were everywhere--openly in the streets, hidden away
in places most threatened. The police arrested those who were supposed
to be leaders, but it made no difference, for the people needed no
leading. They were all so thoroughly in the movement. Indeed, we are
told, "things seemed to the Russian government to be as bad as they
could very well be; and orders were actually given for the severest
possible repressive measures, which would, perhaps, have involved a
large-scale battle, probably a massacre, and certainly a state of war in
the capital." It would have been "Red Sunday