Page:Pavel Ivanovich Biryukov - The New Russia - tr. Emile Burns (1920).djvu/14

 active part in the struggle, went abroad or into the distant provinces, where opposition to the existing Government was concentrating. Their empty places had to be filled by newcomers, and these newcomers were not equal to the difficulties of their position. Hence errors were committed, and signs of the temporary disorganisation of the great social organism became evident. But there was even worse to happen. The far-reaching ramifications of the new administrative mechanism suffered severely. The people in the provinces and in the country were at first hardly conscious of the nature of their new task, and it was with great difficulty that the personnel necessary to fill the vacant positions was found. But it was absolutely essential to set the machine going, and so the first comers had to be taken, although they were sometimes ex-convicts who brought discredit on their position.

Meanwhile the counter-revolution was not asleep. Plots more or less well organised threatened the new regime, which resorted to the weapon of the Terror in self-defence. As a result of all the imperfections to which I have just alluded, the Terror in many cases took the form of murder and confused pillage in which innocent victims suffered. But this unhappy period has gone by.

The Red Terror was cruel, but not more cruel than the White Terror. Everywhere that the counter-revolution was triumphant, unheard of cruelties were perpetrated. Every government which is in course of setting up a new regime acts by terror, and liberal reforms come only when the people begin to get accustomed to being afraid. It is in just the same way that savage beasts are made gentle and docile, tamed by the red steel. The tamer is then able to embrace them in the