Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/269

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE RED CONVICTS OF CHERM
217

to brood over, now assumed the wrongs of the world. They had vast programs to release their energies upon, vast visions to light their minds.

To the rich and the privileged, to those who sit on roof-gardens or ride in parlor-cars, the Revolution is a thing of terror and horror. It is the AntiChrist. But to the despised and disinherited, the Revolution is like the Messiah coming to "preach good tidings to the poor; to proclaim release of the captives and to set at liberty them that are bruised." No longer can Dostoievsky's convict mutter, "We are not alive, though we are living. We are not in our graves, though we are dead." In the House of the Dead, Revolution is Resurrection.