But once more the influence of
the reactionaries triumphed, and on September 3d came the defiant answer of
the government to the people. It was an order suspending the Duma
indefinitely. The gods make mad those whom they would destroy.
Things went from bad to worse. More and more oppressive grew the
government; more and more stupidly brutal and reactionary in its dealings
with the wide-spread popular unrest. Heavier and heavier grew the burden of
unscientific and unjustly distributed taxation. Worse and worse became the
condition of the soldiers at the front; ever more scandalous the neglect of
the sick and wounded. Incompetence, corruption, and treason combined to
hurry the nation onward to a disastrous collapse. The Germanophiles were
still industriously at work in the most important and vital places,
practising sabotage upon a scale never dreamed of before in the history of
any nation. They played upon the fears of the miserable weakling who was
the nominal ruler of the vast Russian Empire, and frightened him into
sanctioning the most suicidal policy of devising new measures of oppression
instead of making generous concessions.
Russia possessed food in abundance, being far better off in this respect
than any other belligerent on either side, yet Russia was in the grip of
famine.
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