Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/134

 As a general rule, moreover, pleasures of this kind, even in the case of soldiers who had, more wisely, returned to their own villages and houses, soon became monotonous. And so after a few days or weeks the deserters of this category began to long for the fleshpots of their regiment, and placidly returned to their barracks.

But can we honestly treat as deserters these poor wretches who simply profited by their new liberty to celebrate the event? Was it not rather a question of an irregular leave of absence that those soldiers granted themselves for a space of time limited by their money or their choice? Indeed, that was exactly what did limit it in the immense majority of cases of desertions, the number of which has been variously reckoned at one, two, three, and even four millions, but the only effect of which on the Russian army has been to diminish for a certain time by a corresponding figure the number of rations that were distributed to these idle men lounging in the depots and the barracks at the rear.