assistance of every able man, without distinction of parties, as people had done in the West in France and in England. Prince Lvov spoke in the same strain on June 5 at a meeting of delegates of the Zemstvo Union. " At this great historical juncture," he said, " what is needed is not criticism, but energetic work. We do not want to produce irritation, but a bold spirit and combined efforts. We must strive to concentrate all the forces of the land and to in- spire Government and society with mutual confidence." (Vinogra- doff, Self-Government in Russia, 116, 117).
Technical committees were created with the participation of leaders of industry, Zemstvo workers, representatives of the working class: they displayed fervid energy and achieved good results. But the main condition demanded by Riabushinsky and Lvov mutual confidence between the people and the Government was conspicuously absent. Subordinate officials joined in the efforts of the unions, but the central Government continued to flounder in the morass of Court intrigues and supine reaction. The worthless Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, was indeed dismissed and put on his trial; the ancient bureaucrat Goremykin had to resign the premiership; but the appointment of his successor, Sturmer, provoked a general outburst of indig- nation. He was known for his reactionary opinions, and had shown his mettle in helping to coerce the progressive Zemstvo of Tver. His great merit was his subserviency and affected devotion to the Imperial family, especially to the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. This obstinate and hysterical lady meddled more and more with affairs of State, particularly after the assumption of the supreme command by the Emperor. And behind her stood various favourites, chief among whom was the astute peasant Gregory Rasputin, whose exploits had made the Petro- grad Court a place of scandal for the whole world. No wonder that the opening of the Duma in Feb. 1916 gave rise to manifestations very different from those which had occurred in that assembly in July 1914. The ally of Stolypin, Shidlovsky, speaking on behalf of the bloc of progressive parties, said: " The general longing of the entire country towards a situation in which the country could entertain confidence in its Government, and feel in union with it, has been traduced as an incitement to seize power. . . . The forces of the nation, bereft of unity, aim and guidance, have been spent in vain, and the great national effort has weakened under the dissolving influence of discontent and indifference." The leader of the Progressives, Efremov, addressed the ministers in the following words: " You must understand that your duty as patriots is to go, and to clear the place for a national Ministry."
The discord between the Government and the Duma found expression on many occasions in connexion with important ques- tions of internal policy. The Duma rejected a bill as to the organization of cooperative societies because it placed them at the mercy of the administration. A strike at the Putilov works, suppressed by military force, gave rise to a heated discussion in which the Duma, while condemning the strike as " a stab in the back," expressed the desire that the legal activity of trade unions should be given free scope and that chambers of arbitra- tion should be founded for the settlement of trade disputes. Perhaps the most significant pronouncement was made in the course of the debates on the budget of the Holy Synod. The Duma voted a resolution to the effect that it considered neces- sary a reform of the Church administration on the principle of the supremacy of Councils and of a wide application of local self-government. For this purpose a national Council should be convoked without delay. The reform should extend to central and to local administration, to ecclesiastical courts, especially in the matter of divorce procedure, and to the ecclesiastical schools; the parish should be developed as much as possible; bishops should not be transferred from one See to another, more particularly if the consent of the Church had not been obtained. The State should cease to look upon the clergy as a political instrument, and all circulars and orders in this sense should be revoked.
The Government seemed to take delight in ignoring and thwarting all these resolutions. Sturmer was called to one minis- terial post after the other. In Feb. he was appointed Home
Secretary in succession to N. Khvostov, in July Foreign Secre- tary in succession to S. Sazonov, who was dismissed because he had urged the necessity of settling the Polish question in the sense of definite and real autonomy. Altogether ministerial portfolios were shuffled like cards at the bidding of the Empress. According to the winged word of Eugene Trubetskoy, ministers were following each other like " fleeting shadows." It may be sufficient to notice the advent of M. Protopopov, a convert from the ranks of the Liberal bloc to the Ministry of the Interior (Sept. 16). The dismay and indignation of the country found expression in a series of resolutions demanding the appointment of a Cabinet supported by the confidence of the people. Even conservative institutions like the Council of the Empire and the Association of the United Gentry joined in the chorus.
The Popular Leaders. Before proceeding with the narrative of events which led up to the actual revolution, let us consider the various currents of thought and party organization of the intellectuals who were preparing for the coming conflict.
It is not necessary to dwell at any length on the Octobrists and the Cadets. The former drew their main strength from the provincial gentry and the Zemstvo institutions, the latter from the urban middle class and the liberal professions. The Octo- brists pleaded for gradual development from local self-govern^ ment, while the Cadets placed their hopes on the introduction of . a constitutional democracy in which actual leadership would fall to the representatives of Western culture. The importance of far-reaching social and economic reforms was fully realized by the Cadets, and they were prepared to place them in the fore- front of their political activity, but in spite of a recognition of the " four-tails " formula (i.e. universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage), the Cadets had no hold on the mass of the people, and relied on the selection of the educated by the uneducated.
Socially and psychologically, the leading groups of the years of upheaval were bound to come from the midst of the extreme revolutionary intellectuals, and it is to them that we have to turn our attention. Three leading currents may be distinguished in the history of revolutionary thought in Russia: militant ideal- ism born of bitter resentment at the backward state of Russia in comparison with the West; the tendency to seek regeneration in a closer contact with the folklore of the common people; the economic materialism proclaimed by Marx and transplanted by various Russian thinkers. In theory, the views of the first group were most vividly expressed by writers like P. Lavrov and N. Mikhaiilovsky. The stress was laid by them on the propaganda of progressive ideas of European civilization among the intel- lectuals, especially among the youth, in order to form the minds of irreconcilable fighters for emancipation in all fields of human activity. Lavrov had initiated a philosophical theory (anthro- pologism) somewhat akin to the humanism of the modern prag- matic school; Mikhaiilovsky had preached " subjective " ideals with great effect as a journalist and literary critic. His violent radicalism was directed not only against the " powers that be," but also against agitation among the masses without correspond- ing enlightenment. He repudiated " class struggle " as a " school of bestiality," from which men issued as " live corpses with faces distorted by rage." In contrast to these " Westerners " appeared a group of writers who clung to the conception of a special apti- tude of the Russian people for social brotherhood and communal economics (Zlatovratsky, Korolenko, Oganovsky, Kacharovsky): their antecedents must be sought in the romantic teaching of the Slavophils as well as in emotional motives in sympathy with the toil and struggle of the peasantry.
In the case of active revolutionaries like Chernov, the radical- ism of the Westerners was allied with the romanticism of the Populists, and in various combinations both tendencies helped to shape the views and the policy of the Social Revolutionary party. In the beginning of the 2oth century one could distin- guish some five groups representative of this party. The struggle with the Government in the first revolution (1905-6) welded these sets into a more compact body, the principal organ of which (the Messenger of Revolutionary Russia) proclaimed the necessity of a close alliance between revolutionary intellectuals,
