April 5..1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
of the house tu their linkl>'account. Short of, this the 
proof will not bo given that civilization possesses- the 
power to vindicate the distinction between right and 
wrong. It is commonly assumed that the victory of the 
Allies will itself be such a vindication. ■ It will not. The 
vindication lies in the "ne.xtstep." Unless that' step be 
taken Europe will begin its new career with ;>n un- 
ptmished crime as its starting point, and with the criminals 
seated on throned; ''^ Which is as much as to say that 
the new career will bii no different from the old/ 
There is muchyVague talk about " the punishrrtent of 
(icrmany." Whatthe ])hrase means exactly I do not 
know, and I leave the explanation to those who make use 
of it. Let it mean what it will, it does not indicate the 
point of incidence to which the chief punishment needs 
to be directed. ' Moreovel", if it means that the 
reconstruction of Europe- is to begin with one half 
of its population angry and brokenhearted by defeat 
—I can only s'ay that I wish the reconstructors 
success, but I do not expect they will have any. As 
to the people of Germany, they have been punished, 
they are, being punished now, and come what may, 
for ages to come they will have their work in I'iibbing 
out the stain on their scutcheon, and that will be a con- 
tinuous punishment. As felons of the land and as felons 
of the sea they have made for themselves a name in 
the memory of man, and for many a long year their black 
ships will carry that name into every port and harbour 
of the globe and receive such welcome as crime deserves. 
W'e can well afford to leave their punishment to the gods, 
who will see to it beyond a doubt. 
We are fighting again a battle which has been fought 
a hundred times before, but never with full success, 
by the forces of freedom. Only we are fighting it- ©n an 
immensely greater scale, which covers the whole of Europe 
— Germany included. It is now as it was in the French 
Revolution. Ihe iJeoj)le are out against tiiv despots 
and when the last daspot goes the end ^^ill be won, and 
all the peoples, friends and foes, freed from the curse 
which has blighted Europe for ages, will look in one 
another's faces without hatred and for the first time in 
history will begin amicably to discuss their common affairs. 
Europe at the Revolution was full of despots, not more 
noxious but far more mnnerous than those now remaining, 
and the task of the heruic French was too great to i& 
accomplished at a stroke* ...^ The desjxits held on ; the 
New Europe passed into their hands ; they mocked the 
nations with their contemptiblu Holy Allianc<; and con- 
tinued to play their old game. Now only two arc rcr 
maining— only two that count — and their doom is fast 
approaching. 
This is the " moral deed " on which tlie energies of 
the free nations — America being one of them — should 
be focussed in a single-minded unity, all else being 
left in abeyance for the time being, with the certainty 
that this done the rest will begin to arrange itself, that 
this undone nothing can be arranged to prosper. It is 
the " next step." A simple act of justice the record of 
which, set up at the great turning of the ways, will stand 
to all ages as a monument of the power of free nations 
to vindicate the distinction between right and wrong. 
We are in danger of going ahead too fast, of attempting 
too much all at once. TJiis criticism may fairly be 
brought against the Allies' statement of their aims in the 
war. The objects stated are all admirable, but broadly 
speaking thay are all unattainable until what the 
" Vorwaerts " rightly call the "last barrier against 
reaction," the Hoheuiiollern Despotism, has been re- 
moved. About this nothing was clearly said in the 
Allies' statement. Yet it .remains the one condition 
without which the rest could ayt be' attained, or only 
attained with the certainty of provoking future wars. 
Russia's Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 
By M. A. Czaplicka 
The w nicy of this article is . a- Polish lady, famous 
lor her travels ipf Siberia. She is author of ivorfk on 
anthropology and a book " My Year in Siberia" 
TO most people in Great Britain it , is alnibst 
a profanation to link present events in l^ussia 
with thosv of 1905. From a superficial point 
of view, there would seem little ground for com- 
parison between the revolutionary movement of 1905, 
in which the figures of the heroes were overshadowed by 
those of the agents provocateurs of the type of the well- 
known Azeff and Father Gapon, and that of the present 
day, so heartily welcomed in all Allied and neutral 
countries. And here it must be said that only nations 
so devoted to the cause of freedom as Great Britain and 
France, could rejoice so sincerely at the recent news 
from Russia, even while realising that such great and 
fundamental changes at this juncture might have an 
eii'ect at least temporarily unfavourable to military 
operations. In fact this is the greatest protest Great 
Britain has made since the outbreak of war against the 
German interpretation of the " nation of shopkeepers" 
to Eastern Europe. 
The fact that Russia was not quite ready at the time 
of the outbreak of the revolution of twelve years ago, 
was known to pi;ople abroad, and made them distrustful 
of its success ; it was known also to the Russian people 
themselves, and for that reason many leaders joined 
only half-heartedly in the movement. In the more 
educated political circles it was indeed recognised that 
the numerous sacrifices of that time had as their only 
object the manifestation of the people's discontent at 
the existing state of affairs, without much hope of a 
permanent overthrow of the old regune. It was in a 
sense an attempt to pave the way for greater success in 
the future, and indeed the establishment of the Duma, 
howevev imperfect its organisation, has trained th*; class 
of intelligentsia in Parliamentary ways of thinking. 
and has awakened among • the parties of w orkmen and 
labourers a sense of responsibility for the affairs of the 
country. This is the chief link between these two 
important inik«cones in the constitutional history of 
Russia. 
A short review of points of similarity and diversity 
between them might Jielp us to realize in what respects 
the present revolutionaries have learned a lesson, and in 
what respects they have not yet learned enough. 
In both cases the outbreak of the revolution was aided 
by war — the unpopular Japanese war and the popular 
German war — for the corruption and indifierence of the 
bureaucratic administration showed up more clearly 
under the strain of war. But while in 1905 people took 
advantage of the situation to demand internal changes 
and an immediate peace with the enemy, in the present 
war they endured for a long time the ill-will of the 
Government in 6rder not to divert energy from the main 
confiict. But finally patience could endure no longer. 
It may be true that in some of the more educated 
circles the incentive to action was the rumour of a 
separate peace, but there is no doubt that the bulk of 
the revolutionaries were aroused by the dchberate 
action of the Minister for the Interior in his arrangements 
for the distribution of food in the provinces, which 
amounted to an organised system of starvation. Yet 
however immersed in their home 'troubles, the revolu- 
tionaries have proved that the last twelve years have been 
an advance in edu.cation towards statesmanship. 'Jhis 
is shown in the resolve of the vast majority, to continue 
fighting, since they understand that for Russia more 
than any other Allied nation, it would be dangerous to 
give up just now, and that the alliance with France and 
Britain is now not limited to military operations on 
land and sea, but joins the three nations in a common 
striving for the triumph of democracy. 
In both cases two main currents of thought way bf"- 
observed, One is represented by the intellectualists. 
who are the direct descendants of the Decabrists, and 
whose ideas have evolved within the limits of Russia, 
the other by the parties of more or less socialistic 
tendency, who have until now fed on the pro};rammeb of 
