There is one other consideration which cannot be passed over in silence.
In Russia many are convinced, and others instinctively feel, that a
victorious war will contribute to the internal recovery and regeneration
of the State. Many barriers have already fallen, national and political
feuds have been softened, new conditions are being created for the
mutual relations of the people and the Government. There is every reason
to think that some members of the Government--unfortunately, it is true,
not all--have understood that at the present time of complete national
union many of the old methods of administration and all the old
Government psychology are not only out of place, but simply impossible.
In one question, the Polish, this conviction has received the supreme
sanction of the sovereign and of the Commander in Chief, and a striking
expression in the latter's manifesto to the Poles. Further than this,
the actual attitude of Russian Liberals and Radicals toward a whole
series of problems and relations cannot fail to be changed. Thus the war
will help to reconcile and soften many internal contradictions in
Russia.
How far we are, with this state of public opinion and these perspectives
of the internal development of Russia, from those fantastic pictures of
civil disunion and revolutionary conflagration which were anticipated
before the war and have sometimes been, even since the war, portrayed in
the German and Austro-Hungarian press! Our enemies counted on these
domestic divisions, and they have made a bitter mistake.
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