Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/110

 98 mercilessly have cleared the army of all reactionary elements. It was imperative to create an army permeated from top to bottom by unity of thought and revolutionary feeling. To achieve this end no price was too dear, and the revolutionary democracy ought if necessary to have sacrificed the majority of the reactionary generals and high officers. A smaller army with younger officers, but united in spirit and devoted to the ideas of the new Russia, would have been infinitely more effective than the huge and broken military machine permeated by mutual distrust. The so-called discipline of the old régime and the pre-revolutionary organisation of the army were not only useless but harmful. So long as these outworn and rotten elements were retained, they only prolonged the decomposition of the army.

The revolutionary democracy saw the danger perfectly clearly, but they had not sufficient courage and will-power to accomplish what was necessary. Many times they boldly attempted the great task of thoroughly reorganising the army. But the shoutings of the Russian and Allied Imperialists and reactionaries led them astray. Therein lay the weakness of the Revolution. ''The revolutionary democracy had not courage enough to reorganise the army, and it compromised on this great question with the Imperialists and reactionaries. That was the greatest misfortune of Russia.''