Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/345

Rh and in mountains, in caves and in dens of the earth."

It was a cold selective killing of the keymen of the revolution, a massacre of its future builders. An incalculable loss to Russia—for these were men who could withstand the corruption of office and the poison of power. Men who could live as valorously as they died.

They went to their death in order that the Revolution might live. And it does live. Tho crippled and compromised, out of the long ordeal of famine, pestilence, blockade and war, the Russian Revolution emerges victorious.

Is the Revolution worth these sacrifices? These are its assured results:

One. It has destroyed root and branch the State apparatus of Czarism.

Two. It has transferred the great estates of the crown, the landlords and the monastic orders into the hands of the people.

Three. It has nationalized the basic industries and begun the electrification of Russia. It has fenced off Russia from the unlimited exploitation of freebooting capitalists.

Four. It has brought into the Soviets 1,000,000 workers and peasants and given them direct experience in government. It has organized 8,000,000 workers into trade unions. It has taught 40,000,000 peasants to read and write. It has opened the doors of tens of thousands of new schools, libraries and