From tyrannical autocracy to a most radically socialistic régime, from an empire oppressing subjugated peoples to a country proclaiming the principle of "self-determination of nationalities"-such has been the remarkable record of Russia

during the past year. These changes, which have come to many as a surprise, were to those acquainted with the ferment permeating Russian life but the logical outcome of Russia's historic development.

In order to be able to interpret the trend of recent events there, events which since the overthrow of Tsarism have been moving with such bewildering rapidity, it is necessary to know what have been the forces that have shaped the life of the country. Russian evolution has come through periods of subjugation, through century long struggles for self-assertion against invaders, through many internal uprisings and through successful wars of expansion. Beginning as a small principality in the interior of a plain, Russia spread to the north and to the south, to the west and to the east until she became a world empire, in area the greatest compact country on the face of the earth, occupying 8,505,000 square miles, or larger in size than all of North America, and having a population of over 175,000,000 people.

It is a long story from the time when over a thousand years ago a delegation of Russian Slavs went to Scandinavia in search of a ruler and, according to a legend, said: "Our country is large and abundant, but there is no order in it; come and rule over us." Thus an alien dynasty, that of Rurik, established itself in the Russian land. In the seventeenth century the house of Rurik was superseded by that of Romanoff, the first Romanoff having been elected by the boyards, or nobility.

Russian Slavs in the early periods of their national existence were democratic; witness one of the oldest of Russian sayings: "If a prince is bad, into the mud with him!" Their economic and social structure was communal in character. Spreading their settlements over the plains they subjugated weaker neighbors, but they were not strong enough to withstand the onslaught of the Asiatic tribes who conquered them. It was at this time that oriental despotism, alien to the spirit of the people, was superimposed on them. The Mongolian invasion was the underlying cause of autocracy which has characterized the government of Russia until the present revolution. At first the autocratic régime was a political necessity, because a strong centralized government was needed in order to defeat Russia's enemies, the Tatars. Owing to the vastness of the sparsely populated country and to the inertia and ignorance of the inhabitants, autocracy continued to impose its will upon Russia down into the twentieth century.

The struggle against despotism has been going on for almost one hundred years, the first attempt to overthrow it and to establish a constitutional form of government having been made in 1825. The participants in this abortive movement to emancipate Russia were a few nobles, some high army officers and some intellectuals, imbued with the ideas of the French revolution. The next important uprising that of the seventies-was led by the representatives of the bourgeoisie and the landowning nobility, mostly students in the universities and in the women's colleges. It found no support in the mass of the people; the peasants, brutalized by heavy toil, half drunk from vodka, stood aloof. During the past thirty years conditions have greatly

changed. The growth of large scale production attracted many mujiks from their poverty stricken hamlets and villages to industrial centers; there, because of natural intelligence and inherent love for freedom, they quickly learned the lessons of discontent; they were taught to understand what was really going on in the palaces of the Tsar and in the forbidding offices of his hirelings, and they became eager to follow the revolutionary leaders.

The revolt of 1904 was the first to derive some of its support from the proletariat, the laborers of the mills and factories, and from a certain part of the enlightened peasantry. The mental horizon of many mujiks was broadened by the persistent, selfsacrificing labor of those young men and women who braved the dungeon and the scaffold in order to spread throughout Russia the gospel of freedom. Although this revolution was drenched by the blood of many victims and failed to attain its object, it led, for the first time in the history of Russia, to some concessions on the part of the Tsar. The Duma came into existence, and Russia became what the Almanac de Gotha so aptly defined as a constitutional monarchy with an autocratic ruler.

It has been unfortunate that most people have viewed the Russian Empire through the eyes of either superficial observation or of willful misrepresentation. They have thought of Russia's masses either as homogeneous, peaceful, religious, living a life of self-contemplation, or as ignorant, servile, semi-barbarous Asiatics, threatening to descend at an opportune time upon prosperous Western Europe. In reality, the Russians are neither homogeneous, nor Asiatic, neither devoutly religious and somnolent, nor wickedly aggressive.

A great many races and nationalities are included in the 175,000,000 inhabitants comprising the population of this vast country. Furthermore, not only is the population of Russia heterogeneous, but Russian Slavs are themselves divided into different groups. We have heard so much of the inert, homogeneous people spread over vast horizonless plains that the dismemberment of Russia after the revolution has confused us. We knew of the relentless policy of russification carried on under the

Romanoffs, but we thought that only a few small national units were outside of the body politic representing the Russian element in the population; we did not question the homogeneity of the Russians themselves. But there are Russians and Russians, and in many respects they are homogeneous. Homogeneous in the manifestations of those feelings and emotions which are common to all of us, whether we come from the Ural mountains or from the sunny valleys of California; homogeneous also in the wretchedness of their surroundings, in their primitive methods of agriculture, in a certain melancholy passive submissiveness to fate as well as in outbursts of hilarious joy when the opportunity presents itself; homogeneous also in certain externalities, such as a liberal use of the samovar, fondness for schtchi and kvas, the facility with which they proclaim anathemas against real and imaginary foes, the indulgence once in a while in a hot steam bath.

Notwithstanding these common characteristics there have existed since their earliest history three distinct branches of Russians. In the eighth century, perhaps earlier, a stream of slavic colonization advanced east from the Danube and occupied the plains of southwestern Russia; these are the Little Russians or Ukrainians who number at present about 27,000,000. Another stream of colonization, the Great Russians, came from the Elbe, through the basin of the Vistula and occupied the central and northern parts of Russia; the Great Russians represent the largest single element in the Russian population, numbering over 60,000,000. The smallest group are the White Russians, about 6,000,000 souls. The original differences between these branches of Russians were increased by contact with different nationalities, the Great Russians with the Finns, the Little Russians with the Turks and the White Russians with the Lithuanians.

An important element in the Russian population has been the Cossacks, who dwell on the steppes of Southern Russia where the rivers Dnieper, Don and Volga empty themselves into the Black, the Azov and the Caspian seas. As hunters and fishermen they led a semi-nomadic existence and because of the danger of

attacks by the Tatars they were always armed. As time went on the Cossacks increased in numbers through their acceptance of every outlaw, every runaway serf, every discontented nobleman. In the free life of the steppes they developed those qualities of restless aggressiveness which later made them a menace to the Turks, to the Poles and to the Muscovites. Through centuries they were the keepers of the crude Russian conceptions of liberty and of equality, and later on as the deputies in the Duma they proved radical and fearless. Most of the Cossacks are Little Russian in speech and but a few of them, the Kalmucks, are Mongolian in origin; the Kalmucks were subdued by the Don Cossacks and became a part of their organization.

Amongst other races and nationalities that dwell on Russian territory may be mentioned in the order of their numerical superiority-the Poles, the Finns, the Jews, the Lithuanians, the Tatars, the Kirghiz, the Germans, the Roumanians, the Bashkirs, the Georgians, the Armenians, and the Circassians.

One of the contributory causes to the success of the present revolution was the autocratic policy of oppressing not only individuals but entire nations, and not only alien nations, but nations of Russian stock; and one of the first results of this revolution was the separatist agitation in all parts of the empire. It was the oppressed, embittered peoples that led the movement for revolt and helped to throw off the yoke of despotism, and the leaders of New Russia recognizing this were from the very first willing to accede to claims for separation. The dismemberment of Russia is not due to the Bolsheviki. It started before the seizure of power by the Maximalists and it would have occurred under any government of freed Russia.

The idea that Russia is Asiatic was "made in Germany." It is the product of German Junkerdom concocted partially in order to intimidate the German people into bearing the heavy burden of militarism placed upon them, partially to alienate from Russia the sympathies of the Western world thus leaving her an easier victim to German machinations. Official Germany ceased fearing Russia long ago. In the eighteenth century and during the first half of the nineteenth century, when Germany was a nation