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INTRODUCTION
when it has found a new and more independent position
in the State. Bearing these ideas in mind it is easy to
understand that the Russian Revolution could only drift
into chaos and destruction. The Bolshevik Government,
which assumed the heavy responsibility of concluding a
treacherous and ignominious peace with the enemy, have
tried to excuse their action with the subterfuge that it was
forced upon them. Of course it was forced upon them,
but not so much by the enemy as by the deplorable methods
of the Bolsheviks themselves, who had made resistance
impossible by undermining the whole State fabric with
their incompetency and systematic disorganisation.
When disaster broke over Russia, English public opinion
committed the further error of abandoning itself to utter
pessimism, never having fully understood the Russian
psychology. An English friend of mine writes : "I fear that
much time must elapse before English people forgive Russia."
But Russia needs not so much forgiveness as compassion
for the calamity that has befallen her, in direct consequence
of a revolution which, as already stated, was acclaimed and
encouraged in England ! Russia—the Russia of established
order and authority—was a bona fide ally and did not shirk
any of her obligations. Did she not send her soldiers to
fight side by side with her allies in Greece, Mesopotamia,
and other battlefields ? Did not Russia save France in the
beginning of this war by the invasion of Eastern Prussia
at her own terrible cost ? The peace which Bolshevism has
concluded with the enemy is not the work of the educated
classes, which alone have articulate and sound political
opinions. Russia’s present dismal conditions involve, of
course, serious drawbacks, but to all intents and purposes
they cannot affect the intrinsic value of Russia as an ally,
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