Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/222

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HE moral and legal justification of the revolution manifests the legal and moral danger of absolutisrn to society and to the state, and shows how impossible it is to transform absolutism by peaceable measures—for aristocracy and absolute monarchy have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

A sanguinary revolution as the ultimate means of escape from an existing system of coercion can never be faultless, quite apart from the consideration that in every revolution those co-operate who are not chiefly aiming at the overthrow of absolutism. The Russian revolution committed faults, thereby giving absolutism specious grounds for reaction. We shall have to consider this matter in fuller detail, but it may be said here that even though it be necessary to admit that the revolutionary tactics of expropriation were erroneous, there is no ground for considering that the political revolution which aimed at the overthrow of absolutism was responsible for the occurrence of the innumerable acts of theft and robbery. The anarchical conditions which ensued upon the revolution were the fault of the government and of its police. The official education of the masses had produced general instability; the repressive measures practised by the organs of state, to which mendacity and crime had for many decades been welcome weapons, had trained up the present generation of expropriators and pogromists, and had made the most barbarous hooliganism a scourge throughout the country.

Discussion concerning the nature and significance of the revolution was carried on by all parties; the tactics of the struggle were criticised; the question as to the chief justification for the revolution was mooted; and the results of the revolution were appraised.

After the revolution a serious crisis affected Russian society.

The more conservative elements on the liberal side were content with what had been gained, and complained of the utopianism of the radicals. To the reactionaries it seemed