We also note the vague and hesitating policy of the Provisional Government;
the lack of political education among the people, ready to follow him who
promises the most; small development of civic sentiment; the want of any
attachment whatever to the state--that of the Romanov having never given
anything to the people and having taken all from them. Czarism took from
the miserable peasant his last penny under form of taxes; it took his
children from him for war; for the least act of disobedience to authority
he was whipped. He wallowed in misery and in ignorance, deprived of every
right, human or legal. How could he, this wretched and oppressed peasant
develop civic sentiments, a consciousness of his personal dignity? On the
other hand, we must take into account the immense weariness caused by the
war and by the disorganization which it brought into the whole cycle of
existence (to an incomparably greater degree than in western Europe). Such
were the causes which had established a favorable scope for Bolshevik
propaganda; to introduce their domination they knew how to make use of the
shortcomings of the people and the defects of Russian life.
In fine, what is Bolshevism in its essence? _It is an experiment, that is
either criminal or that proceeds from a terrible thoughtlessness, tried,
without their consent, on the living body of the Russian people_.
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