Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/15



EVER perhaps in history has a great Revolution been less foreseen abroad; probably nothing in history has perplexed people more.

At first sight this is strange, because the Revolution was developing in Russia for more than two years, and no honest observer ought to have failed to see its approach. And yet people here had not the slightest idea that revolution was imminent, and when it actually occurred they were taken by surprise. And then the British public was absolutely unprepared to understand either the causes of the Revolution or its meaning.

But after all it is not unnatural that the Revolution was so great a surprise. Probably no country in the world was less known than Russia. Ideas even of Russian geography were most hazy. The ethnography of Russia was virtually a Chinese puzzle to the majority; and a good many Englishmen are now probably for the first time making themselves acquainted with Ukrainians, Lithuanians and other races and nationalities of Russia. Russian economics have seldom been touched upon, and Russian social life was less understood than that of Mexico or Japan. There were available one or two good books on Russia, but those (notably the famous Klutchevsky's "History of Russia") are little known and little read. Unfortunately other books, of a biassed character, written either by illiterate compilers or clever charlatans, have lately acquired a rather considerable influence in this country.

It sounds paradoxical, but it is nevertheless a grim reality, that the political rapprochement between Eng-