The Spirit of the Russian Revolution

"The Spirit of the Russian Revolution
by Dr. Harold Williams.


PREFACE.

The following brief survey of the Russian Revolution is reprinted from The Round Table, with the kind permission of the editor. It was written last August, three months before the Allied Armies finally broke the power of Germany. A great deal has happened since then in Russia and elsewhere, but after re-reading the article I have not thought it advisable to make any alterations in the text. My general view of the Russian Revolution is unchanged, but the estimate contained in these pages of the possible effects of the Bolshevist contagion has received from subsequent events a confirmation more startling than I could have imagined.

The German danger has been removed for the time being. But the Bolshevist danger, not clearly recognized in time, has slipped into its place, and is threatening to render futile all the labours of the Peace Conference. Perhaps in the inscrutable counsels of History it is ordained that all Europe, even after the heavy strain of the war, shall pass through that cruel fiery furnace in which Russia has been burning. I do not know, and I can still only earnestly hope that my own and other peoples may be spared this terrible ordeal, and that we may find some less destructive method of sweeping away the ancient wrongs of civilisation. Yet as the months pass it becomes more and more difficult to keep that hope strong."

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