' ^F *' 



Photograph by C. S. Stilwell 



A BREAD LINE IN PETROGRAD 



Russia's food shortage difficulties during the last nine months have been brought about 

 not by the failure of wheat crops or a shortage in the grain markets, but by disorganized 

 transportation facilities. It was an army of hungry revolutionists which overthrew the 

 Romanoff dynasty. 



THE RUSSIAN PEASANT S FUNDAMENTAL 

 CONCEPT OF THE STATE 



Now. in all of the centuries past there 

 have been just two ideas in Russia which, 

 in the minds of the peasants, have stood 

 for the State. They were the Tsar and 

 the Church, of which the Emperor was 

 the head. The psychology of the Russian 

 of the lower class is extremely simple. 

 It is necessary for the Russian to see in 

 order to appreciate anything. The men 

 who created and built up the Greek 

 Orthodox Church in Russia no doubt 

 clearly realized this phase of the Slav 

 mind, and hence that religion has been 

 founded on the worship of God through 

 the pictures of Christ, the Virgin Alary, 

 and the saints. The direct conception 

 of an abstract idea seems hardly to exist 

 in Russia. Hence the Church provides 

 the almost innumerable list of saints 

 whose pictures, or ikons, are the me- 

 diums through which the peasant mind 

 conceives the idea of his God. 



\.s travelers in Russia will recall, there 

 is in almost every public room some ikon, 

 and all over Russia the mind of the peo- 

 ple has in this way been focused. In an 

 analogous way, the idea of the State was 



expressed to the people in the person of 

 the Tsar and in the institution of the 

 Church. Pictures of the Emperor were 

 as common as the ikons and exercised 

 almost the same function toward the gov- 

 ernment as the religious pictures did to- 

 ward the Church. It is clear, then, that 

 the Emperor and the Greek Church rep- 

 resented the keystones of the arch of 

 government in Russia. 



In a day, and with the country entirely 

 unprepared in thought for any such 

 change, the Emperor ceased to exist, and 

 the Church as a political influence was 

 eliminated. As far as the millions of 

 common people in Russia were con- 

 cerned, the State as a whole practically 

 ceased to exist. They had never thought 

 of the national idea save in terms of 

 Church and Tsar, and with both removed 

 their minds lapsed into immediate solu- 

 tion where any tangible conception of the 

 State was for the time being difficult, if 

 not impossible. 



It is obvious that any government to 

 be strong and effective over any length 

 of time must represent the combined 

 strength of the individuals that compose 

 it. In a week, Russia, as far as the opin- 

 ion of the bulk of her people was con- 



