The Russian Revolution Author:Isaac Don Levine Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY AND THE GREAT WAR IN June, 1914, Russian democracy as an active political force was practically extinct. The arm of reaction had halted... more » all progress. The fourth Duma, in which the conservative Octobrists predominated, was virtually a governmental appendix retained by the bureaucracy for decorative purposes. The radical Social-Democratic and Social-Revolutionary parties no longer existed as national organizations. The liberal Constitutional-Democratic, or Cadet, party was not permitted to develop its activities. The nightmare of the j preceding eight years' reaction, with its torrents of blood, had paralyzed all the muscles of democracy. The latent energy was there. Deep in its breast the fuse of revolution still burned. But under the overwhelming pressure of Czar- ism the gases of revolt were not allowed to expand. It would have taken decades for these gases to have flamed into a national conflagration. Autocracy's continued grip on the democratic elements of the country therefore seemed assured to its supporters as well as to its enemies. The outbreak of the Great War in July, 1914, thrust Russian democracy into the process of a swift regeneration. The events that led up to the war, the causes of the war, and its issues infused a new spirit, new life, into the prostrate body of democracy. Hope replaced pessimism, idealism succeeded skepticism, union—division in lightning-like evolution. Popular Russia sensed immediately the great meaning of the war. It realized what bureaucratic Russia failed to realize—namely, that the supreme struggle between democracy and autocracy in Europe was at hand, and that the interests of Russian democracy demanded its utmost exertions in the great conflict. And it rose to the occasion. Numb and lifeless a month ago, ...« less