Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/135

Rh ideals of morality, having lost the sense of womanly dignity, she subjects herself to the regulations of the non-issued decree, the news of which perturbed and revolted the whole world. And the world is still unaware that, although never passed, the decree is enforced in Russian life.

In the villages the life of the peasant woman is one long round of cruel treatment at the hands of a drunken or savage husband, who uses infamous and disgraceful language, and thrashes her almost to death.

The children lose their respect for their mother, they deny her all moral authority, and when they grow up they begin to insult and beat her, forgetting that all her life she was thrashed like a dog by the father, the head of the family, the lord and master.

It is sure that nowhere else is the gulf separating parents and children so impassable as in Russia. If in the educated classes this may be explained by the progress of learning and intellectual advancement, in the villages its cause is patent to every observer; it is the decay of morality amongst the younger generations.

Having lived in Tsarist and later on in Soviet Russia, I have had the opportunity of observing such a decline of morality among the workmen and peasant youth, that I could not, without offending the ethical sense of my readers, describe adequately the terribly filthy, abominably criminal life of the Russian youth, which will replace the present generation in the social