Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/132

 120 Christian country in Europe where the people have any decent respect for law and order and discipline! If the Allies crush Germany, it will lead to revolution in Germany—which God forbid—and then how long can the Autocracy hold out in Russia?

The "Black Hundred" reactionaries in Russia were certainly not averse to a victorious war. They would have welcomed any war which aimed at the conquest of "Tsargrad" (Constantinople) and the erection of the Holy Cross on St. Sophia. But what they could not abide was a war which led to the defeat of Germany—especially if it was a defeat of the German military autocracy at the hands of the Western democracies. The case of progressive society and the revolutionaries was just the opposite. They certainly had ample reason for misgivings at the prospect of a victorious and triumphant Tsarism. But their enthusiasm for a defeat of German militarism, which they regarded as the bulwark of reaction in Eastern Europe, was sufficient to outweigh such misgivings. Their fear of the consequences of a Tsarist victory was outweighed by their confidence in the results of a victory by the Western democracies. Thus we see that while progressive society advanced towards immediate revolutionism, the "Black Hundred" became more and more definite in their pro-Germanism. And the "Black Hundred" openly proclaimed their point of view in their newspapers, which were patronised and subsidised by the Government.

The chief organ of the "Black Hundreds," the "Russkoe Znamia" (The Banner of Russia), was so cynical and so unabashed in its defeatism that it was ever afterwards referred to in the progressive Russian Press as the "Prusskoe Znamia" (The Banner of Prussia). The "Rech," the organ of the Cadets, made a speciality of exposing the anti-national doctrines of the "Prusskoe Znamia," and it is significant that the "Black Hundred" organisations did not sue the "Rech" for libel, nor did the Government prosecute