Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/79



[''By Government I mean those who, availing themselves of established authority, can change the existing laws and put them in operation. In Russia, these people were and still are: the Tsar, his Ministers, and his nearest advisers.'']

The acknowledged basis of all Governmental power is solely the promotion of the welfare of the people over whom the power is exerted.

But what are you who now govern Russia, doing? You are fighting the Revolutionists with shifts and cunning such as they employ against you; and, worst of all, with cruelty even greater than theirs. But of two contending parties the conqueror always is not the more shifty, cunning, cruel, or harsh of the two, but the one that is nearest the aim towards which humanity is advancing.

Whether the Revolutionists rightly or wrongly, define the aim towards which they strive, they certainly aim at some new arrangement of life; while your only desire is to maintain yourselves in the profitable position in which you are established. Therefore, you will be unable to resist the Revolution, with your banner of Autocracy, event though it be with constitutional amendments, with perverted Christianity called Orthodoxy, a renovated Patriarchate, and all sorts of mystical interpretations.