through which the conspiracy of
the worst reactionaries in Russia realized one part of an iniquitous
program.

The Revolution itself was a genuine and sincere effort on the part of the
Russian people to avert the disaster and shame of a separate peace; to
serve the Allied cause with all the fidelity of which they were capable.
There would have been a separate peace if the old regime had remained in
power a few weeks longer and the Revolution been averted. It is most likely
that it would have been a more shameful peace than was concluded at
Brest-Litovsk, and that it would have resulted in an actual and active
alliance of the Romanov dynasty with the dynasties of the Hohenzollerns and
the Habsburgs. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had this great merit: it so
delayed the separate peace between Russia and Germany that the Allies were
able to prepare for it. It had the merit, also, that it forced the
attainment of the separate peace to come in such a manner as to reduce
Germany's military gain on the western front to a minimum.

The manner in which the Bolsheviki in their wild, groping, and frenzied
efforts to apply theoretical abstractions to the living world, torn as it
was by the wolves of war, famine, treason, oppression, and despair, served
the foes of freedom and progress must not be lost sight of. The Bolshevist,
wherever he may present himself, is the foe of progress and the ally of
reaction.

CHAPTER IV

THE SECOND REVOLUTION

I

When the Duma assembled On November 14, 1916--new style--the approaching
doom of Czar Nicholas II was already manifest. Why the Revolution did not
occur at that time is a puzzle not easy to solve. Perhaps the mere fact
that the Duma was assembling served to postpone resort to drastic measures.
The nation waited for the Duma to lead. It is probable, also, that fear
lest revolution prove disastrous to the military forces exercised a
restraining influence upon the people. Certain it is that it would have
been easy enough to kindle the fires of revolution at that time. Never in
the history of the nation, not even in 1905, were conditions riper for
revolt, and never had there been a more solid array of the nation against
the bureaucracy. Discontent and revolutionary temper were not confined to
Socialists, nor to the lower classes. Landowners, capitalists, military
officials, and Intellectuals were united with the peasants and artisans, to
an even greater extent than in the early