Vol. XXXII, No. 2 WASHINGTON 



August, 1917 



THE 



MATEOMAL 

 OG1AIPMDC 

 AGAZQ 



RUSSIA FROM WITHIN 



Her War of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow 



By Stanley Washburn 



For Three Years Special Correspondent with the Russian Armies 



NOW that the United States of 

 America is committed to the 

 prosecution of the great war to 

 its final conclusion in every respect as 

 deeply as are the other Allies, it is of 

 paramount importance that the Ameri- 

 can people have as full and complete an 

 understanding as possible of all of the 

 factors in the war which make for final 

 victory. 



Russia with her great front, which, 

 including Roumania, extends from the 

 Baltic to the Black Sea, and which today 

 is detaining somewhere between two and 

 three million enemy troops, is such an 

 important part of the whole theater of op- 

 erations that what is going on in Russia 

 becomes of the most vital interest to all 

 of the Allies, and perhaps to the United 

 States more than any of the others. 



In the final analysis the defeat and 

 elimination of Russia would mean that 

 ultimately the vacancy made by the ab- 

 sence of her troops on the eastern front 

 would have to be filled by substituting 

 American troops on the French or some 

 other front where pressure might be 

 brought against the forces of the Central 

 Powers. 



It would be folly to minimize the dan- 

 gers of the present situation in Europe ; 

 but equally is it criminal and harmful for 

 us to magnify these dangers by the unin- 



telligent acceptance by press and people 

 of this country and of the countries of 

 the Allies of rumors of disaster and 

 stories of a pessimistic nature about Rus- 

 sia and her future. 



It is, of course, stupid at present to 

 attempt to prophesy what is going to hap- 

 pen in Russia ; but it is legitimate to trace 

 briefly what has happened in the past in 

 Russia, and from the precedence of her 

 history and the knowledge of the present 

 in some measure gauge an estimate of the 

 future. 



UNFAIR TO JUDGE RUSSIA BY DAY-TO-DAY 

 EVENTS 



In all war situations, both at the front 

 and in the political centers, one must ex-, 

 ercise the greatest possible restraint in 

 making any day-to-day judgments. So 

 vast are the political and military changes 

 that occur almost overnight in all of the 

 warring countries that one must guard 

 against any conclusions save those based 

 on fundamental elements gathered over 

 long periods and attuned to the perspec- 

 tive of the war as a whole and to what 

 we know of the detailed history of the 

 armies and people engaged therein, not 

 for the last few months, but for the en- 

 tire length of the war to date. This per- 

 spective is more necessary in judging 

 Russia than in forming opinions of any 



