Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/37

 Among the publicists of every nationality who were in Russia when we were there, many indeed did not seek to hide their disappointment; they had hoped to find in the Revolution a unique opportunity for obtaining good copy, and instead they were asking themselves every evening how to put together a hundred lines to send to their paper.

In short, the streets, apart from the red flags, the excessive dirt, and the trams laden with soldiers, had their usual aspect. Ministerial crises were neither more nor less frequent than in Paris. The very number of public meetings made them insipid in the end. On the surface Russian life seemed much the same as it had been before the Revolution: the staffs in the ministries were still at their posts, and in this country, free henceforward in a sense that no other country in the world has ever been, we were reminded by the doorkeepers when we visited the Hermitage Museum that we must remove our hats.

To understand really the immense and chaotic transformation that was taking place in the minds of the people and in