Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/194

 form of hierarchy, which had become unbearable, by a new hierarchy conforming to democratic ideas, but it is equally certain that the fighting power of an army without any sort of discipline is inferior to that of a disciplined army, no matter how imperfect that discipline may be.

The Russian army is a proof of this. Some days after the Revolution the Germans, with the greatest ease, cut in pieces, on Stokhod, several Russian regiments, whose Soviet during the attack were discussing what steps it were best to take. While Bolschewiki and Menschewiki were making speeches and trying to come to an agreement, or not to come to an agreement, on the principles of strategy and revolutionary tactics, the Germans were massacring thousands of men and striking panic among the survivors.

It seems certain that the first idea of the Revolution was to replace completely this former "autocratic" rule of the officers by a new so-called "democratic" rule, that of the Soviets. During the first week of the revolutionary era, the Soviets that had been formed in the smallest units,