Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/245

 and brutal of tyrannies, and breathes at last the pure air of liberty.

And this liberty, so eagerly longed for, so dearly bought by the martyrdom of thousands of martyrs, is such a conquest, such a great boon and blessing, that it were to despair of all human nature not to believe that to defend it the Russian nation will make just such an effort as was made in 1793 by the people of France.

We cannot too often draw attention, indeed, to the similarity between these two periods. With this outstanding difference, that the Russian Revolution is hastening headlong forward, and counting in weeks and days instead of in years.

That is what we said on the evening of our departure in our last conversation with Kerensky, Teretscko, Prince Lvoff, and other members of the Provisional Government.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs received us in one of the ministerial palaces on the bank of the Neva. It was eleven o'clock at night, but the sky on this beautiful June night was still red with the last rays of the setting sun. Opposite, across the