political debacles of modern
history. The revolution was nothing less than an attempt by a small
minority of theorists and moral anarchists to force Western civilisation
upon Russia, and not Western civilisation as it actually is but a sort of
abstract "Westernism" derived from books. For the revolutionaries were far
more Western than the Westerns. They had not merely swallowed wholesale
the latest and most extreme political and social fads, picked up from the
literature of England, France, and Germany, but they possessed a courage of
their convictions and a will to carry them out to the logical conclusion
which many "advanced thinkers" of the West lack. They were not modernists
or new theologians but atheists, not Fabians or social reformers but
revolutionary socialists armed with bombs, not radicals but republicans,
not divorce-law-reformers but "free lovers." A remarkable book was
published in 1910 called _Landmarks_. It was written by a number of
disillusioned revolutionaries, and gives a vivid picture of the effect
which the foregoing principles had upon the lives of those who upheld them.
Here is one extract:

"In general, the whole manner of life of the _intelligentsia_ was terrible;
a long abomination of desolation, without any kind or sort of discipline,
without the slightest consecutiveness, even on the surface. The day passes
in doing nobody knows what, to-day in one manner, and to-morrow, as a
result of a sudden inspiration, entirely contrariwise--everyone lives his
life in idleness, slovenliness, and a measureless disorder--chaos and
squalor reign in his matrimonial and sexual relations--a naive absence of
conscientiousness distinguishes his work; in public affairs he shows an
irrepressible inclination towards despotism, and an utter absence of
consideration towards his fellow-creatures; and his attitude towards the
authorities of the State is marked at times by a proud defiance, and at
others (individually and not collectively) by compliance."

As a set-off to this picture of moral chaos, it should be remembered that
these people when called upon to die for their revolutionary faith did so
with the greatest heroism. Nor is the picture true of all revolutionaries;
some of the noblest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet were
Russian revolutionaries. But these were the product of an earlier and
sterner school, the puritanical "Nihilism" of the 'eighties; and it is
impossible to deny the substantial