Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Army and People (1920).pdf/28



And really the answer seems so simple: a revolution is a revolution. Many believe that a revolution means—doing away with a monarch and putting in a president; discarding one Government and calling a new parliament. But that is not a revolution.

A revolution becomes „great“ only when immense interests, not merely political, but economic, are staked; when the masses are drawn into. tile movement, when not a crown alone is at stake, but daily bread, a dessiatin of land; when the question arises of who is to own the houses, the factories, and mills; when not thousands or tens of thousands, but millions begin to take an interest in such questions. A great revolution begins from the day when great strata of the people are heaved up, when such questions come to the front as the tenure of property, ,the question of bread, the most intimate fundamental interests of the people.

So it was here, with us. When the first February Revolution broke out, our officer class played on the whole a rather innocuous part; its attitude was distrustful, cool, it stood