"Protopopoff is a zealous, loyal liberal, but he has been made to see
during these last months that Russia is not at this moment ready for
freedom. Stuermer--well, M. Stuermer is gone."
"So you, yourself, Baron," I asked, "would oppose at this moment all
reform?"
"With every drop of blood in my body," he answered, and his hand flat
against the tablecloth quivered. "At this crisis admit one change and
your dyke is burst, your land flooded. Every Russian is asked at this
moment to believe in simple things--his religion, his Czar, his country.
Grant your reforms, and in a week every babbler in the country will be
off his head, talking, screaming, fighting. The Germans will occupy
Russia at their own good time, you will be beaten on the West and
civilisation will be set back two hundred years. The only hope for
Russia is unity, and for unity you must have discipline, and for
discipline, in Russia at any rate, you must have an autocracy."
As he spoke the furniture, the grey walls, the heavy carpets, seemed to
whisper an echo of his words: "Unity... Discipline... Discipline...
Autocracy... Autocracy.
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