Those who hailed the Revolution as the
fulfilment of all their dearest hopes, those who cursed it as the
beginning of the damnation of the world--all equally in the wrong. The
Revolution had no thought for _them_. Russian extremists might shout as
they pleased about their leading the fight for the democracies of the
world--they never even began to understand the other democracies.
Whatever Russia may do, through repercussion, for the rest of the world,
she remains finally alone--isolated in her Government, in her ideals, in
her ambitions, in her abnegations. For a moment the world-politics of
her foreign rulers seemed to draw her into the Western whirlpool. For a
moment only she remained there. She has slipped back again behind her
veil of mist and shadow. We may trade with her, plunge into her
politics, steal from her Art, emphasise her religion--she remains alone,
apart, mysterious....
I think it was with a kind of gulping surprise, as after a sudden plunge
into icy cold water, that we English became conscious of this. It came
to us first in the form that to us the war was everything--to the
Russian, by the side of an idea the war was nothing at all.
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