Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/118

 106 accuse it of undermining the discipline and confidence of the army. In reality it had precisely the opposite effect. It had an immediate quieting effect, and put an end to excesses on both sides. It restored some measure of confidence at a moment when confidence was entirely lacking.

From the very first hours of the Revolution, the revotionary democracy were anxiously concerned with the task of preserving the fighting fitness of the army. Their first thought was to stop the process of disintegration in the army. Notwithstanding this fact, the slanderers of the Revolution, both in Russia and in the Allied countries, have hissed and hooted at the revolutionary democracy, blaming them for the decomposition of the army. They began this slanderous misrepresentation in the first hours of the Revolution, and have continued it to this day. In their hatred they have not hesitated to accuse the revolutionary democracy—the really best men among the Russian workers and thinkers, whose devotedness to the people was proved by many years of suffering and persecution—of being mere servants and hirelings of German militarism and German autocracy. They have made the meanest insinuations to the effect that the leaders of the democracy were in German pay. Even to-day, when nothing is left of all these calumnies and slanders, when they are no longer believed in by any honest man in Russia, and no honest Russian would repeat them, there are still people in this country and in France who unashamedly give these calumnies out for the truth. I decline, as any Russian would decline, to make these things a subject of polemics. They are too mean. But one thing I would say: let those people be ashamed who, while professing their love of Russia, yet have a malicious joy in affirming and disseminating every kind of base calumny against Russia.