Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/358

296 the fundamental law of yesterday? Is it not natural, that tens, hundreds, thousands of men should be killed, after being accustomed for years to kill them by millions? The seed of yesterday brings the fruit of today.

We should understand that in the midst of the dust and mud and chaos of today, there has already begun the great work of liberating mankind from the strong, iron cobweb of the past. It is as painful and difficult as the pangs of a new birth; but it is the death of the evil of yesterday, going through its last hours together with the man of yesterday.

It has so happened that the peoples marching to the decisive battle for the triumph of justice are led by the least experienced and weakest fighters,—by the Russians, a people of a backward land, a people worn out by its past more than any other people. Only yesterday the whole world looked upon them as semi-barbarians, and today, almost dying from hunger, they are marching toward victory or death with the ardor and courage of veterans.

Everyone who sincerely believes that the irresistible aspiration of mankind toward freedom, beauty, and a sensible life is not a vain dream, but that it is a real force which alone can create new forms of life, the lever which can move the world,—every honest man must recognize the universal significance of the activity now carried on by the earnest revolutionists of Russia.

The Revolution should be interpreted as a gigantic attempt to incorporate in life, the great ideas and watchwords created and enunciated by the teachers of mankind. Yesterday the Socialist thought of Europe pointed the way to the Russian people; today the Russian worker is striving for the triumph of European thought.

If the honest Russian revolutionists, few in number, surrounded by enemies and exhausted by starvation, shall be conquered, the consequences of this terrible calamity will fall heavily on the shoulders of all the working class of Europe.

The Russian worker is confident that his brothers in spirit will not permit the strangling of the revolution in Russia, that they will not permit the resuscitation of the order, which is