Page:Michael Farbman - The Russian Revolution & The War (1917).djvu/50

 when the force of logic alone would have failed. I remember how forcibly I was struck at the time by the instinctive and immediate foresight and resource of the revolutionary leaders. Instinct had been the driving power of the Revolution from the outset; it did not fail it now. The most wonderful manifestation of this instinct was the decision then taken by the Executive of the C.W.S.D. to take part in the Provisional Government. That date—May the 6th—when the Executive Committee decided to share the responsibility of Government was perhaps the most fateful day in Russian history. The risk was enormous; and the courage to face it was correspondingly enormous. It meant life or death for New Russia. It gave Lenin's Extremism the chance that it might have prayed for; and in the unhappy event of this new Provisional Government failing to solve the situation it was inevitable that a period of rash social experiment in Russia would follow with its equally inevitable consequences of civil war and collapse, first into anarchy, and then into