Wars are practically never
popular with the great mass of the people in any country, and this is
especially true of autocratically governed countries. The heavy burdens
which all great wars impose upon the laboring class, as well as upon the
petty bourgeoisie, cause even the most righteous wars to be regarded with
dread and sorrow. The memory of the war with Japan was too fresh and too
bitter to make it possible for the mass of the Russian people to welcome
the thought of another war. It cannot, therefore, in truth be said that the
war with the Central Empires was popular. But it can be said with sincerity
and the fullest sanction that the war was not unpopular; that it was
accepted by the greater part of the people as a just and, moreover, a
necessary war. Opposition to the war was not greater in Russia than in
England or France, or, later, in America. Of course, there were religious
pacifists and Socialists who opposed the war and denounced it, as they
would have denounced any other war, on general principles, no matter what
the issues involved might be, but their number and their influence were
small and quite unimportant.
The one great outstanding fact was the manner in which the sense of peril
to the fatherland rallied to its defense the different races, creeds,
classes, and parties, the great tidal wave of genuine and sincere
patriotism sweeping everything before it, even the mighty, passionate
revolutionary agitation.
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