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Autocracy and Revolution in Russia by Baron Sergius A. KorffThe North American Review, Vol. 218, No. 815 (Oct., 1923), pp. 574-576Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25113140 .

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574 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

to suggest that there is anything antiquated about military ideals and military virtues, still it may be thought that whereas Sir John Moore was undoubt

ingly brave, many a modern soldier doubted and was brave. Military glory has become, one supposes, a slightly tarnished ideal, and pro patria mori became in the trench a deadlier affair, if possible, than it was on the fields where Wellington fought. But what a deal is accomplished in this world by

accepting as final one's own instinctive ideals, or even loose current ideals, and

by being absolutely true to them! Through artful faithfulness to fact Moore's

biographer brings out the natural tone of his life and character, placing the

emphasis upon simple manhood, disinterested performance of duty, and that unselfish ambition which is so often the mainspring of great actions?the traits of an unsophisticated and not wholly Wordsworthian "happy warrior".

Thus the book puts us in touch with a part of our great tradition?a part that we should not lose sight of in our preoccupation with larger social problems.

Autocracy and Revolution in Russia. By Baron Sergius A. Korff,

D.C.L., LL.D., Professor of Political Science, School of Foreign Service,

Georgetown University. New York: The Macmillan Company.

For years before the European war the Western world had fallen into the

habit of making something of a mystery of Russia and of the Russian race and

character. Though no event might have been more easily predicted than the

overthrow of the Czarist regime as the result of the breakdown of Russia in

the war, the issue of the revolution in the Bolshevik experiment has appeared to Western eyes as strange as it is unprecedented. A lack of authentic in

formation from the interior of Russia since the second revolution has deepened the feeling of mystery about that unfortunate country, and the tendency to

regard the whole Russian people as unaccountably perverse is somewhat per sistent.

It is easy enough to see that the old autocracy was vicious and that in the

reign of Nicholas II it was becoming decadent. It ought to be easy enough to

perceive, moreover, that this autocracy bred parasites in the body of the peo

ple. To be sure, revolutionary motives were in many cases sound and justi fiable. Yet the reactions produced by oppression are not all those of a purely noble resistance. Autocratic Russia appears to have been a natural breeding

place for those political diseases which disintegrated society almost as soon

as the autocracy was removed. The process was helped forward by German

intrigue, and it was favored by the loose social and geographical structure of

the nation.

There is no need, therefore, for our holding up our hands in surprise over the

state of Russia or for attributing to the Russians peculiar motives or states of

mind. Those explanations of the course of events which Baron Korff gives in his book are in the main remarkable for their convincing simplicity.

In the first place, there is no great difficulty in understanding the psychology

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NEW BOOKS REVIEWED 575

of Lenin and his associates, who accepted German money as a means toward

setting up the Bolshevik Government in Russia. They undoubtedly expected to have their revenge upon the German Imperial Government by inoculating

Germany with the Bolshevik virus, and they came much nearer to success in

this attempt than is generally known. While their motives were those of

fanatics, and were no nobler than those of the terrorists who preceded them, it is not necessary to suppose in them a peculiar inconsistency, an unthinkable

form of treason.

But why did the Russians succumb to and tolerate the Bolshevik control?

The constitutional government, Baron Korff believes, was at one time possible, but it failed on account of the personal shortcomings of Count Witte, who was

at heart reactionary, though by comparison with other bureaucrats he was

esteemed a Liberal. At the time of the Bolshevik revolution the weak Govern

ment of Kerensky, striving to maintain a position that had become unclear

and untenable, was easily upset by "the only small group that had a distinct

policy, that knew for what they were standing and what they wanted, wanting it very strongly. They had no moral scruples; they did not stop at the details

of daily life, but went straight forward to their beloved aim?the establishment

in Russia of a Socialistic state."

Surely, it seems scarcely necessary to seek a remote explanation for the

failure of the attempt to restore order on the part of such men as Kolchak,

Wrangel, and Denikin. An abstract enthusiasm for good government could

hardly be expected to overcome the natural prejudice of the Russian against

enterprises smacking of the old regime, or supported by Foreign Powers. But

it has often been supposed that the communistic experiment has been tolerated

in Russia longer than it would have been endured in any other country just because the Russian peasant is by nature and training a Communist. This

assumption, Baron Korff points out, is wholly erroneous. The peasant mir was not originally a spontaneous organization of rural life in Russia, but was

in fact a device of the Central Government to facilitate tax-collecting and re

cruiting. As soon as the Government felt strong enough to dispense with it, the mir at once began to deteriorate; the peasants themselves had never been

attached to it. Of course, as long as the Communist mode of life was in a

manner thrust upon them the peasants scarcely realized the meaning of private

property. But with the revolution, the peasants obtained possession of the

land. "As soon as they got it, they meant to keep it; hence Communism was

doomed." The peasants, constituting eighty-five per cent of the population of Russia, remain the key to the whole situation, though of course no real

change will come until these masses accept leadership, which must be drawn

from the intelligentsia. That such leadership is forthcoming and may be

eventually accepted, there are already encouraging signs. Communism is doomed in the country supposed to be inherently Com

munistic! What we see before us is the spectacle of a nation never well or

ganized and now completely disintegrated, lacking all sufficient leadership?a

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576 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

country mutely and with inner protest accepting such leadership as there is,

fearing worse things. When the peasants found that they were not really to own the land which they had seized, they simply turned their backs on the Bolshevik Government.

" The same happened with labour. The new regime

did not bring with it the anticipated millenium; improvement of the conditions of life did not set in. On the contrary, these conditions steadily became worse.

This caused a great disillusionment among the workingmen and forced many of them to change their views of Bolshevism, weakening in consequence the

position of the Government."

There is, then, nothing very wonderful about the present disorganization and paralysis of Russia. There is no occasion, in view of all this, for

supposing that the Russian is by nature and by race a lover of anarchy and a

creature of perverse thought. There are on the contrary two very striking reasons for thinking quite otherwise. Despite appearances to the contrary, "the Russian people," writes Baron Korff, "have acquired in the new, stronger, and better bonds of family life, a remarkable assurance of a more promising future." Moreover, "private property emerges from the Revolution much

better guaranteed and much more stable than ever it was in the Czar's times."

It is just in respect to its chief doctrine, the abolition of private property, that

Bolshevism has already most conspicuously failed.

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