Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/196

 imperfectly organized as yet and full of illogisms of the two methods of discipline, the former hierarchy and that of the Soviet.

Indeed, there is one strong factor that we must take into account in the Russian army. It is habit, custom handed down by tradition and endorsed by common sense.

In Petrograd we were given à propos of this a typical instance. The rebel sailors of Kronstadt had massacred many of their officers, a certain number of whom were brutes, deserving no better fate; they then threw the survivors into prison. They announced that the Germans were their brothers. They declared that they would only obey those of their own class, whom they had chosen freely. Now these same sailors continued all the same their service of guarding the coast, just as before. They would have been, no doubt, rather embarrassed had the necessity arisen to attack a German torpedo boat, but as for the daily routine of service they were simply obeying an illogical but tyrannical habit.

This same force of moral inertia has made itself felt in the army.