me has written. We must not forget
that the educated class in Russia is almost as numerous as in the
other great nations, and perhaps plays an even more important role in
Russia than it does in other countries. What Russia has lacked has
been neither an educated class nor masses capable and ready to be
trained to any kind of modern employment, but a great technically
trained, free and organised "intellectual middle class"--an expression
I am forced to coin for my present purpose. It is hardly necessary to
prove this assertion. The world is well acquainted with Russian genius
in literature, art, music, philosophy, sociology, economics, history,
and the higher realms of science. Moreover Russia is not without
technological schools, but the proportion of her population employed
in the scientific organisation of industry and business is
insignificant in comparison with that of other countries--owing, of
course, to the backward state of Russian industry and Russian
government. But this fact, important as it is, must not obscure the
equally important fact that the educated and cultivated class in
Russia, speaking several languages, and personally familiar with the
civilisation of one or more foreign countries, exercises an influence
over Russian society and Russian public opinion undoubtedly stronger
than that of any other educated class whatever--with the possible
exception of that of Germany. We cannot hope to understand the new
Russia unless we understand the character and point of view of the
Russian "intellegentsia," and this is nowhere so clearly, succinctly
and interestingly set forth as in "The Shield."

WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING.

Greenwich, Connecticut.

PREFACE

Published by the Russian Society for the Study of Jewish Life under
the joint editorship of three eminent men-of-letters, Gorky, Andreyev,
and Sologub, the original Shield saw the light of day last year in
Petrograd. The book consists of numerous studies, essays, stories and
poems, all these contributions to the symposium on the Jewish question
coming exclusively from the pen of Russian authors of non-Jewish
birth. In making a selection for the present volume, I have thought it
advisable to give decided preference to the publicistic articles of
the original collection. Thus, the present version contains
practically all the various important studies and essays of the
Russian _Shield_, while most of the stories have been omitted