Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/19

 Rh selves anxiously: "Where is the army of the Tsar? Why do the Soldiers not rush to rescue their beloved Chief? Why are the peasants so indifferent? Why do they suffer this humiliation? Why do they allow themselves to be robbed of the Tsardom which is the means and end of their perfection?" The Revolution was in fact a day of great anxiety and bitter disappointment to the whitewashers. Their ten years' labour of justification and glorification of Tsardom was torn to pieces. But they were not willing to give up their theory. When they had satisfied themselves that the Tsar's abdication was definite, they made a desperate attempt to save the glory at least of the Tsardom. They hastened therefore to assert, first, that the Revolution was a mere reaction against the treacherous Government which, under the influence of an immoral Empress, a German Princess, had contemplated a separate peace with the Enemy; and, secondly, that the Tsar's abdication was a "noble act" of his own will," dictated by his devotion to his people and the "great European cause which he served so well."

To-day we know too much about the causes and the meaning of the Revolution to need seriously to consider the attempts to save the theory of Holy Russia and to represent the Tsar as a martyr to his love for "his" people and for the Allied cause. I mention it only because it was the unfortunate origin of all the discrepancies of the Allied diplomacy towards Russia after the Revolution. Only thus can the confusion and wavering of the Allies be explained. Their badly-informed spokesmen believed in the tales about the Little Father. They had been told that a rising of the peasants in the "million of Russian villages" to restore the sanctuary of Tsardom was possible, even probable; and they therefore could not bring themselves to think that the Revolution was final. As statesmen, of course, they considered that they had to be very cautious in their attitude towards a revolution. They sent greetings to the Russian people, expressed their joy over the estab-