It was as natural as it
was for the German influence to be used against the democratic movement in
Russia, as it invariably was. Practically the entire mass of democratic
opinion in Russia, including, of course, all the Socialist factions,
regarded these royal, aristocratic, and bureaucratic German influences as a
menace to Russia, a cancer that must be cut out. With the exception of a
section of the Socialists, whose position we shall presently examine, the
mass of liberal-thinking, progressive, democratic Russians saw in the war a
welcome breaking of the German yoke. Believing that the victory of Germany
would restore the yoke, and that her defeat by Russia would eliminate the
power which had sustained Czarism, they welcomed the war and rallied with
enthusiasm at the call to arms. They were loyal, but to Russia, not to the
Czar. They felt that in warring against Prussian militarist-imperialism
they were undermining Russian Absolutism.
That the capitalists of Russia should want to see the power of Germany to
hold Russia in chains completely destroyed is easy to understand. To all
intents and purposes, from the purely economic point of view, Russia was
virtually a German colony to be exploited for the benefit of Germany.
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