Page:Michael Farbman - The Russian Revolution & The War (1917).djvu/25

 that the Russian Revolution was not intended merely as a means for the better prosecution of the war. Nevertheless, it has been so interpreted by the Western Allies. The first disappointment for New Russia was to find that the Revolution was regarded in the West from this utilitarian point of view. In London and Paris there was joy over the Revolution, because people expected that freedom would strengthen Russia's fighting power. It is not in my mind to-day to lay blame for this misreading of the Revolution, the less so as this utilitarian conception of Russian freedom did not originate in the West. We know that the formula "Freedom for Victory" had long been the device of the Imperialist wing of Russian Liberalism. For two years their opposition to the Tsardom had been expressly based upon the necessity of "organising victory." If the Allied Governments and Press welcomed the Russian Revolution in the hope that it would prove the great stimulus for war to a victorious end, much the same ideas prevailed in the minds of the Russian