ir attitude was entirely negative, and they
possessed little or no constructive ability of any kind. Even the first
Duma, which contained the ablest politicians among the reformers, did
not succeed in passing acts of parliament, affirming the most elementary
principles of civil liberty; and it damaged itself irreparably in the
eyes of the country by refusing to condemn "terrorism" while demanding an
amnesty for all political offenders. The unique opportunity which the first
Duma afforded was frittered away in futile bickerings and wordy attacks
upon the Government.

Meanwhile, though a temporary truce was observed during the Duma's
sessions, its dissolution on July 21, 1906, two and a half months after
opening, was the signal for a fresh outburst of outrages on both sides. The
country was fast drifting into anarchy; agrarian risings, indiscriminate
bomb-throwing, _pogroms_, highway robberies carried out in the name of the
"social revolution" and euphemistically entitled expropriation, outbreaks
of a horrible kind of blood-lust which delighted in motiveless murder for
the sake of murder, were the order of the day. The revolution was
strong enough neither to crush the reactionaries nor to control the
revolutionaries themselves. The foundations of the social structure seemed
to be dissolving in a welter of blood and crime, and public opinion, which
in its hatred of bureaucracy had hitherto sided with the revolution,
suddenly drew back in horror from the abyss which opened out in front of
it. Stolypin, the Strafford of modern Russia, who condemned the extremists
of both sides, was called to the helm of the State; his watchword, "Order
first, reform afterwards," was backed by the force of public opinion; and,
as he stamped out the revolution with a heel of iron, the country shuddered
but approved. The peasants were pacified by the remission of the hated tax,
and by measures for providing them with more land; and Russia sank once
more into her normal condition.

But political incompetency is not a reason sufficiently weighty in itself
to account for the remarkable revulsion of public feeling against the
revolutionary party. Behind the narrow political issue lay the larger
philosophical and moral one; and it was the discovery by the country of the
real character and ultimate aims of the party which for a few months
in 1906 seized the reins of power that will alone provide a sufficient
explanation of one of the most astonishing