Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/127

 Rh And the war came in to break the strain; all the accumulated tension found an outlet.

Let it be granted that in the case of other countries this interpretation of the prevailing war enthusiasm is merely speculative. At any rate, in Russia there is no doubt that the war was a presentiment of great things to come. The people set out to war, yet it was not victory but a free life which loomed large in their eyes. They had a very hazy conception of the way in which this would come about; but the desire, the ideal, was undoubtedly present. To the Russian people, Germany represented the bulwark of reaction, and the Russian Autocracy was continually drawing fresh power from its adherence to the German Court. More than once the Russian reaction brandished over the heads of the revolutionaries the threat of Kaiserism and its legions. The war against Germany was thus a war against reaction, against the source of reaction. It was revolution by means of war. That accounts for the war enthusiasm of the Russian people.

But this first war enthusiasm was very short-lived. The war against the sources of reaction unexpectedly strengthened the reaction in Russia. So also the hopes that the alliance with the free Western democracies would help to bring about a Liberal era in Russia were disappointed. The war strengthened reaction in all countries, but nowhere so much as in Russia. The very heights of reaction were reached in Russia during the early stages of the war. The greater the efforts of the armies, the more glorious their victories, the more powerful became the reaction and the more ruthless the suppression of the people. The first great military disaster in East Prussia led to a short wavering in the attitude of the reaction; but the steady advance of the armies into Galicia, their great successes in the Carpathians and the fall of Lemberg and Przemysl, once more gave the Government the necessary prestige and moral force to oppress the people. Only after defeat in Galicia was the Government really shaken, and forced