| |
| |
Caption: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 22
This is a reduced-resolution page image for fast online browsing.
EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:
Vis ideas threatened ruin to the revolution in Russia, his itph Wa$ So l>c ir! Hut we sh.ill kindle a world revolution! We shall pas, 0n' the standard to other lands and other peoples!" He accepts the dis. mceiuJ pesce of B rest-Li tovsk, "a brigand peace" he calls 't, snd i$ re:ul> to aceeie to even more humiliating conditions for the sake of a little breathing-space in which to conduct his experiment. As for the temporary mutilation, what are five or ten years in the life of a country like liussi I'nlike other I 'ropians, Lenine does not base his hopes on faith in human nature. His incisive logical faculty penetrates into realities ami his estimate of men is pretty low. Hi finds himself surrounded by characters of all degrees of disrepute, his ideas travestied in the minds of the unintelligent multitude. For every genuine Bolshevik, he admits, there are sixty fools and thirty-nine rascals, but he is too impatient to wait tor the moral growth of men to bring about the changes be desires. 1 le has e .nfidence in his pow a to convert them into < useful tools and perhaps hasten their moral education. To a man who dared so boldly manipulate the explosive forces latent in one hundred and fifty millions of untutored and uncontrolled human beings, the game with the mechanical German bureaucrats must have seemed very trifling. In the pursuit of his aim Lenine would not have balked at more serious violations of the conventional code of h nor than was involved in accepting German money or German assistance oi any sort. This utter and cynical unscrupulousness as to means characterized every step of his propaganda before he came into power, and it has marked his policy after he gained power when his task became one of getting unruly forces under control. Lenine is not to be classed with the democratic leaders who were prominent at the beginning of the revolution. Ga'ning ascendancy by the methods of the destructive demagogue, he ripened quickly into the role best suited to his talents and after a short interval emerged before the world the self-confessed dictator. Bolsheviki in Power In the light of a clear understanding of the spirit of the parties which opposed each other, the events of the Russian Revolution appear altogether; intelligible; they even assume a kind of logical necessity. The Bolshevik, had made a test of force as early a s July, 1917, but had found that they were not yet strong enough. In a few m o n t h s > h o w e they gamed in strength and confidence. The following figures/or the voting m Moscow ,n June and September testify to the change that was taking place. The Socialist Revolutionaries fell from 374,885 in June to O
| |
