The
First Revolution was drowned in blood and tears.
CHAPTER II
FROM REVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION
I
No struggle for human freedom was ever wholly vain. No matter how vast and
seemingly complete the failure, there is always something of enduring good
achieved. That is the law of progress, universal and immutable. The First
Russian Revolution conformed to the law; it had failed and died in a tragic
way, yet its failure was relative and it left something of substantial
achievement as the foundation for fresh hope, courage, and effort. Czarism
had gathered all its mighty black forces and seemed, at the beginning of
1906, to be stronger than at any time in fifty years. The souls of Russia's
noblest and best sons and daughters were steeped in bitter pessimism. And
yet there was reason for hope and rejoicing; out of the ruin and despair
two great and supremely vital facts stood in bold, challenging relief.
The first of these facts was the new aspect of Czarism, its changed status.
Absolutism as a legal institution was dead. Nothing that Nicholas II and
his advisers were able to do could undo the constitutional changes effected
when the imperial edict made it part of the fundamental law of the nation
that "no law can become binding without the consent of the Imperial Duma,"
and that the Duma, elected by the people, had the right to control the
actions of the officials of the government, even when such officials were
appointed by the Czar himself.
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