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 but absolutely nothing is known of the historical development of Socialism in Russia or of the Social Revolutionary movement—in other words, of the currents and tendencies which produced the fall of Tsarism last March and all that has followed from it.

In these circumstances it is a positive disaster that one of the great books of the century—Professor Masaryk’s “Russia and Europe” should be virtually inaccessible to this country, and, what is even worse, available as a vade mecum ''to the all-too-well-informed directors of German policy. With a profound historical and philosophical mastery of his subject and with an astonishing wealth of detail, the great Slav scholar analyses the many obscure currents of Russian thought which are now reacting upon Europe no less surely than the French Encyclopædia in the late eighteenth century. In accordance with a long overdue promise we propose in this and subsequent numbers to extract some of the most notable and illuminating passages of his book.'']

can only be understood as the product and the victim of Russian conditions under Nicholas I. Brought up from childhood in the memories of the Decabrists, he found his way to Europe, drank very deep of Hegel’s philosophy, and was driven towards revolution by the Hegelian Left and Proudhon. The period before 1848 and the year 1848 itself provided him with all kinds of revolutionary employment, for he thought it would be possible to realise everywhere his ideal of free humanity by taking part in the revolution. His experiences in European and Russian prisons and in Siberia strengthened him in his hatred of the existing order, and he became a revolutionary by profession. The world—in concreto Russia, but Europe also with its civilisation and institutions—roused him to fury: his head was full of revolutionary ideas and plans.