Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/246

 river, we could see the fortress of Peter and Paul, with the red flag flying from the ramparts. Sturmer, Protopopoff, Soukhomlinoff, the dethroned ministers, were there awaiting judgment. On our balcony, on the contrary, were those men, ministers to-day, who four months before had been prisoners over there. An amazing turning of the tables! Those who had lived in the palace in prison, while the men who had spent years in prison were now installed in the palace. And at the same time others—Tseretelli, for example—were coming back from Siberia, while the Czar was on his way to that land of exile.

Need we be astonished that after such an upheaval, such a turning of the tables both socially and politically, the disorder of these early days should have allowed the enemy to gain certain advantages and to profit from the inevitable disorder following on the Revolution? On the contrary, the astonishing part is that his gains have not been greater, his action more decisive. He has delayed and hesitated. He has miscounted once again his adversaries' capabilities, and left the