Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/195

 CHAPTER XVI

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

HE following pages were written in Moscow nine years ago under the direct impression of the Civil War which shook the Russian Empire to its very foundations. Such was the elemental violence of the political hurricane that every European publicist predicted the imminent fall of Russian Tzardom. From a close examination of the situation and from a systematic calculation of the political forces at work, I was driven to adopt quite a different conclusion. I confidently predicted that nothing would happen. Nothing did happen. Tzardom weathered the storm. The Government was stronger after the war than before. The revolution proved abortive.

The revolution collapsed. But it was easy to foresee that the revolutionary forces would only be driven back to gather strength for another and a more determined onslaught. The great Italian thinker, Vico, the father of the