It was made possible by the great war-strain. Two and a half years' struggle with Germany wore out the system. It was so weak at last, and the revolutionaries so skilful, that there was no "bloody revolution." The Tsar was removed almost, as it were, by sleight of hand or magic. Suddenly the most mighty and mysterious monarch of the world, having fled from his capital, finds himself running about the streets of a wretched provincial town unattended, unreverenced, and without mien or bearing; looking like a bewildered townsman who had lost his way. He goes into a church full of peasants praying, falls on his knees and weeps, prays ardently aloud, and then through his tears asks forgiveness of the worshipers. they for their part seem stupefied, not quite able to understand who he is or what he means. He goes out into the street once more.. A company of soldiers passes: once they were Tsarworshipers, making the sign of the cross after singing the national anthem

But

"God save the Tsar!" The emperor salutes them "Hail, my fine fellows!", But they do not return his salute or answer to his words. The Tsar was a gentle and religious monarch. But had he been an Ivan Grozny or a Nero one would have thought that the spectacle of the "sacred person" abased would have evoked partisanship, the impulse of devotion, at least in some; the Tsar's tears would have started into armed men, and such a force risen behind him that the handful of daring idealists and Socialist agitators in Petrograd would have been swept away. But no! Fate and the circumstances of the time and the addition of war-sorrows and a strange glimmering light of new destiny intervened, making the peasant more

stupid,. more blind, deaf, divided in himself. The revolution is accomplished without even the birth of a royalist movement, and without even the prospect that the poor little boy Alexis will be a Russian Prince Charles.

In 1902 Tolstoy wrote in a sort of valedictory letter to Nicholas II that however good and wise a Tsar may be, he cannot rule 130 million subjects. The rule was bound to pass out of his hands into those surrounding him. A Tsar could not choose disinterested and able helpers, for he knew only a few score men who through chance or intrigue had got near him, and were careful to ward off all who might supplant them. Autocracy. was, in reality an obsolete form of government.

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And yet it. served in time of peace, and the Tsar did find and use Stolypin and Sazonof and Bark and many another able man. It needed two and a half years of war to show in practice that the system was unfitting for the time, was in fact obsolete because of these defects which the ancient Tol stoy adumbrated to his "brother" as he called him.

In the first splendor of the opening of the war the Tsar never stood higher; he obtained apparently complete forgiveness for errors in the past. He could dispense with his enormous bodyguard and the "ten thousand soldiers" to guard him. The anthem was sung everywhere and by all classes on the impulse. There was no hint of revolution. Fortune smiled on Russian arms, and her victories and the heroic deeds of individual soldiers cast a glamour from all Russia upon the throne. At the same time the remarkable vodka prohibition appealed to Russian intelligence., Both heart and mind acclaimed the Tsardom, and who could have surmised that these splen

dors were evening splendors, that a melancholy twilight would succeed to them, and then of a sudden the night shutting off?

Yet so it happened. The diminuendo of incapacity set in. Defeat in Poland shed a lurid light from the Western horizon upon Petrograd, and showed the little, incompetent men of office, more and more dwarfed, more and more helpless. And then the strange Siberian peasant gained stature and importance.

The Tsardom became so weak that it could not look after its own elementary interests. It could not find representatives to go to London and Paris, but let its enemy Milyukof stand for Russia. It could not propagandize in the British and French Press, but let all manner of dangerous and anti-dynastic rumors, true and untrue, go unanswered. For months only revolutionary opinion regarding Russia was printed in the British press. Our strongest Conservative organs made the word "reactionary" serve instead of "conservative" as far as Russia was concerned. Our populace became of opinion that the Tsar was making tremendous efforts to secure a separate peace. Rasputin was written up in various papers, and even the person of the Empress was not spared. There was not a word of remonstrance from official Russia. The details of the plot to depose the Tsar and obtain a regency with a constitutional system were openly talked of in London, and there was a general assent both official and unofficial. On the other hand, news of Pacifists and pro-Germans in the revolutionary camp was carefully eliminated by censors or interested editors. This, excepting the swiftness of the success of the rebellion, testifies more than all else to the impotent state to which the government had been reduced.

Last summer in Russia I often heard the opinion expressed: the old army has passed away, the army which we have now is quite a new one, and taken from a different class of people. It has far more artisans and middleclass people. There is a different spirit in it, and propaganda makes great progress. This partly though not entirely explains the military support with which the change was carried out. Then the Conservatives, persistently called Reactionaries abroad, freely backed the revolution, and some like M. Purishkeyevitch, "Right of the Right," as he called himself, gave passionate force to their backing, and led the aristocrats against the throne. They did so, not to establish a Republic, but a Constitutional Monarchy. Without their aid M. Kerensky and his colleagues would not be where they are. The British and French Governments also backed the political conspiracy, believing in the moderacy of its objects. And beyond all these things one must suppose the time had come. forces in Europe tended one wayrevolutionary idealism in Russia, military necessity for Germany, business instinct in England, the money and hate of the Jews, America's need to reconcile half her alien population to the Allied Cause. So it was easy at last, and Russia, which talks and talks, and yet never does, at last was silent for three days and did.

All the

The Tsardom has gone, and there is little prospect of its return. Nicholas II is not a conspirator by nature, not ambitious. And his child has no future. If he had wished to regain power, the voluntary writing of his own decree of abdication was most unlikely. That resignation liberates the thought and will of loyal Russia. There is no question of the Constituent Assembly voting whether they will have a Tsar. They will decide or try

to decide what form of democratic system Russia will adopt. And al

though the fifteen million or so Old Believers are said to be in favor of a Limited Monarchy, it is at present unlikely that a monarchy will be established. Russia does not care for compromise. Despite her admiration of England she has none of the English love of caution and halfmeasures. One of her grievances against Nicholas II was that he was so moderate in the use of his great power. Russia seems bound to plunge to the other extreme, namely, of democracy.

Russia is free. And what she is free for is a much more interesting question than what she is free from. It is not a leisure time in history when we can afford to concern ourselves long with what has been and I will be no more. It is a time of increasing destruction, and the future which we keep in view is a future of the rebuilding of civilization. Russia's hour is come and she is put at large. All eyes are upon her, expectant of various things, of gain, of interest, of inspiration, of revenge. What then is to be her future?

On a long view I am completely optimistic. On a short view everyone must be anxious. The long view is the more interesting, but the short view more pressing. In considering the latter, there is the urgent question, Will Russia make a separate peace? Personally I do not think she will, however extreme and unrepresentative her Government may become. It would be too difficult to find terms that would satisfy Poles, Jews, Germans, Letts, Little Russians, and so forth. But I think Russia's military effort is virtually at an end. From an immediate war point of view the Revolution is unfortunate. For it turns out there are far more proGermans on the revolutionary side than on that of the court. And from

the day of the abdication of the Tsar, Russia has ceased to do anything worth mentioning in the field of battle, and the desertions from the army have been very great. From a peace point of view the new Russia with its characteristic ideals should, however, be helpful when the time comes. The fall of Gutchkof and Milyukof in favor of extremer men bodes ill; the rise of Kerensky is an unpleasant portent. He is, however, not a strong man but a clever demagogue, and may overdo his rôle of facing both ways. On the whole one sees the worst types of politicians rising into power. That is the short view; the long view, though a maze of alternative wrong roads, is more hopeful.

One of the first phenomena of the new Russia is a general rise in wages and an increase in the value of house property in the great cities. No discrimination is to be made in the rates of wages paid to Chinese and other alien laborers. The war wage is higher than has ever been known in Russia, a rouble and a half and two or even three roubles a day being paid upon occasion for unskilled labor. The old sixty copecks a day wage vanishes. Henceforth the Russian workingman will be paid at the same rate as his brother laborers in other European countries, and with the rise of Russian industry after the war his wage should rise above even that level. One of the first meanings of free Russia is that Russia has become free for commercial exploitation. There is no longer the drag on business imposed by the old régime. It will be possible to get the coal out of the ground, to lay the necessary rails to run whole new forests of timber to the rivers. Capital will be forthcoming for the development of the butter industry on a hitherto undreamed-of scale. Russian sugar will undersell all other European sorts. She will begin to

supply herself with all the raw cotton she requires: the mills will capture almost the entire market of Asia. Discoveries of gold in Siberia will multiply, and swarms of diggers follow. Great companies like that of the Lena and Kishtim will be formed for the exploitation of Russia's marvelous wealth of copper, zinc, lead, silver, platinum, asbestos, naphtha, etc. A frozen meat and canning industry will be established and express itself in Chicagos of the East. The wool and horsehair of the innumerable herds of the nomads will find better markets. In commercial, significance what land can compare with Russia? Virginal America did not offer a richer return. Without a Tsar Russia is the land of opportunity, and not only the land of opportunity for Russians; but for all enterprising Europeans; British, Germans, Belgians, Americans, Japs. It is there, after the war, that the vultures, will be gathered together.

Of a surety, despite Russia's wretched present state materially,

she becomes prosperous without parallel within ten years of the coming of peace, attracting all speculators and investors and fortune-seekers, the commercial counter-balance in the east of America in the west.

Possibly more than that. If Russia decides to be free for all commercial enterprise she should offer greater, attractions than America. The flow of European emigration to the United States should turn the other way into Russia, and a great cosmopolitanization of certain parts of it set in, America being fed merely from the English Isles and colonies, and thus obtaining the necessary leisure to crystallize nationally and achieve her own cultural and spiritual ideals.

Russia if she chooses can become a great business republic, at first thought an even greater one than that of the US.A., because her population is

better spread over å vaster area, and she has ready access to the millions of China and less prejudice against them. But one result of the revolution will be to draw back population from the remote parts of Asiatic Russia and cause an emptying in vast regions.

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What sort of Russia would that be? It would be gay and thrilling, very immoral, very extravagant.. The music halls of Moscow would outshine with their star-constellations 'the Coliseum and the Palace of London and all the shows of Broadway in New York. There would be bosses and trusts and Tammany and graft and the fight against them, though the problems would be always greater and more complex. A certain Anglo-Saxon genius for simplicity has stood. America in good stead. But there is no genius for simplicity in Russia. The people love complexity. Russian psychology must be taken into account, and first and foremost comes this instinct for complexity and with it an anarchic temperament that loves to escape from its own imbroglios by extreme action; then an extreme curiosity and wish to experience new things, an adventuresomeness with regard to Providence, lack of the power of moral restraint, and a Tartar instinct for spending a long time over business. A Russia that will attract materialists, not a Russia attracting idealists. The Tsardom putting itself first, the army second, the Church third, and commerce fourth or fifth, at least exhibited to foreigners the ideal side of the Russian people and drew pilgrims from the West. But the business republic would attract seekers after "real" gold, not after spiritual gold.

The choice of taking this prosperity would seem obvious to the Western world. And possibly Russia, seeking to identify herself with the West, will take it. Great pressure will be brought on her to take it. The foundations of

this material prosperity could only be laid by foreigners. They can lay them and start Russia on the road, and it would be an immense advantage to them personally. Russia's huge debts place her moreover in a subjective state, where she can be reasonably argued with. But the Russian people, as a whole, do want something better, and especially those idealists whose voice has arisen. They did not pull down the Tsardom to instal Mammon in its place. They want a more spiritual kingdom. The Russia which is now vocal is not middle-aged Russia. "Men" and "women" of the age of twenty are to have a vote. It is young Russia, unmarried Russia, and earnest youth is always out for the ideal rather than the material. The Russia of ideas and dreams, religious Russia more than ever is to the fore. The great coming clash is not of the "old régime" or royalism with Liberals and Radicals. That old scenery can be swept from the arena. The clash will be between business and idealism, between middle-aged Europe and young Russia, but in any case between business and idealism.

The Orthodox Church swings free of the State. The new Procurator of the Holy Synod is turning out all the corrupt bishops and priests, and bringing in the earnest spiritual reformers. "The corner stone of my policy," says M. Vladimir Lvof, "is the freedom of the Church. The Church will be disentangled from the political system, and the State cease to have power to interfere in the Church system. The Church must and will become free to arrange its own life." In brief, disestablishment.

There lies no terror in disestablishment. The Church would lose some adherents to other sects, but its great natural strength would be free to develop. The puritan sects rise into prominence, though it should be

-borne in mind that the present revolution is not in any way due to them. They are too slight. But they have a root in Russia, and their chapels will now spring into being in every town. Literature, music, and fine art, with their source in national religion, ought to develop strongly, especially literature, which at this moment is in a poor way and rather below the general world standard. The opinions of men like Prince Yevgeny Trubetskoi, Merezhkovsky, and Bulgakof ought to count for more than they have done in the past. And the change which the revolution has wrought in the destinies of mankind brings to the fore the work of the great philosopher Vladimir Solovyof, with this vision of a united humanity and a universal Church.

Russia has always wished to fashion something new, to be something new in humanity. Even its most ardent reformers have urged that they did not wish to follow simply the example of the republics of the West. They wished a new synthesis.

Now the political idealists are flocking to Petrograd. There is a general amnesty to all who have suffered for the cause. Prison doors have opened and every provincial jail in Russia has discharged sufferers. The penal prisons of Siberia-including the famous Alexandrovsky Central, about which how many songs have been composed?-have been broken up. Great numbers of Vetchniki (those serving life-sentences) have been redeemed. The exiles from the fringes of the tundra, beyond the Arctic circle, and from all parts of Siberia are to come home. Red Cross trains await them at the nearest railway stations. And finally, all those languishing through political fear in England, France, Switzerland, America and elsewhere, have their passages paid. Lenine and his brother Socialists