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CHAPTER IT
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: ITS CAUSES
AND EFFECTS
History teaches that great reforms or energetic movements
in favour of progress, as, for instance, revolutions of a
progressive nature, are often the direct result of international
cataclysms. In Russia, the Crimean War brought in its
train, in later years, the period of the great progressive
reforms of Alexander II. The war with Japan was followed
by the October constitutional reforms. The Great War of
1914 brought about the Revolution.
It is with some reluctance that a student of public law
has to recognise the quasi-legal aspect of revolution. No
one acquainted with history can deny, however, that such
an aspect exists, and that it must be taken into practical
consideration. The English Revolution of 1688 gave birth
to the Declaration of Rights, which, up to the present,
forms the corner-stone of the English constitution, while the
great French Revolution was the parent of the principles
of freedom, equality before law, and brotherhood amongst
the citizens of a State, which constitute part of the laws
and the public order of modern civilised communities.
De facto, if not de jure, revolutions are creators of State
rule and law, and as such must be recognised as legal, not
in the ordinary sense of the word, but in a broader meaning,
taking into account the manifestations of the will of the
nation, outside the frame of the existing State constitution.
Herzen, a Russian revolutionary writer of the last century,
said that the government of Russia was despotic, mitigated
accidentally by the murder of the head of this form of
government. This statement can be enlarged upon by
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