New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-25
Russia Resolves to Garry On


mier. and the appointment Of man IN
sympathy with the Duma is the most I'M
portant incident in Russian history since
the Car took the command Of his armies
after the great defeats that began at the
Dunaiec and ended at the Bereslna. This
act Of the Gar put the prestige Of the
DYNASTY at stake and was a final answer
10 the German hope and the Russian fear
that the GermanophNe influences Of the
court and the bureaucracy had triumphed'
and that Russia would make a separate
peace.
When Sturmer succeeded TO power and
Sazonof went into retirement, the world
was again filed with reports that the Ger
man influences had triumphed, and Berlin
once more began TO hint broadly at a sepa-
rate peace. What has happened since that
time has been hidden from the world All
that has come through has been the grow
ing suggestion of unrest and even of revolt
in the Duma.
Broadly speaking, the Duma represents
the national and the popular emotion OF
Russia 1t not only represents the domes-
tic demand for liberty and progress, 1t
represents the national demand for the
prosecution of the national war against
the German. who is for the mass Of the
Russians the true enemy. II Is the Ger
man. associated in his mind with the
agents and forces of reaction and absolut-
ism. who has the whole-hearted hate Of the
Russian.
The real peril, so far as the Russian
participation in the alliance against Ger
many is concerned, has always been that
the court party would gain control, and
there have been many moments when 1t
seemed possible. Germans have never for
gotten that a change in Cars saved Fred
erick the Great, and German hope Of
change in Russian policy that would elimi-
nate the great Slav foe has endured to the
present hour.
Yet we have had many signs recently
that the Germans were abandoning this
hope. Recently it was pointed out here
that the proclamation Of an autonomous
Poland was a recognition by Vienna and
By Berlin that there was no chance Of a
separate peace. Still more recently Count
Apponyi, in discussing the question Of
peace. expressed the view that all differ
cnces between the Central Powers and
their foes, save for Russia, could be &C
commodated. but that the Russian question
would remain and Russia would continue
am enemy, TO be feared and fought.
At bottom, the present war is war Of
Liberation for the Russian people, and the
Russian people are fighting it with the
spirit that marked the French in their
own wars to protect the revolution from
monarchial Europe. Germany is the
stronghold Of reaction and absolutism in
the world, and it is Germany that has
been the friend of the Russian reaction
and the Russian despotism.
But not merely has the German influ-
ence IN Russia tended 70 strengthen the
arm of the bureaucracy, it has also
brought about situation where Russia has
been ruthlessly exploited by German in
dustry. The German merchant and the
German manufacturer have dominated
Russia, and by virtue of treaty wrung
from Russia at the moment Of the Jap
anese war Germany obtained practical
monopoly in Russian trade, TO the very
great injury of Russians.
When the war came it caught on in Rus
sia instantly. not merely because of the
racial and religious sympathies between
Russia and Serbia, not merely because of
the age-long ambition to possess Constan-
tnoplc, bat also because the German was
hated and the war TO exclude the German
from Russia was instantly popular among
the masses Of the Russian people. When
German victories led to the invasion Of
old Russian soil, the Russian people re-
sponded as did the French in 1892.
In a very real sense the present is the
first national war in Russia since the Ma
poleonic struggle, but now, in addition to
the patriotic emotions reused then, there
is the emotion stirred by the unmistaka-
bic desire Of the Russian people to free
itself from the old bureaucratic and alb
solute system under which it has lived
so unhappily in recent decades.
Already a revolution has taken place
and some acute observers suggested when
Che Car took command after Russian dis
astors that his choice was the front or the
road Of exile. Whatever the personal
wishes Of the Car, those about him, his
wife and his court, are German, and it is
not hard TO believe that these influences
would have triumphed had there not been
national sentiment and emotion too
strong 20 be ignored and too powerful 10
he suppressed.
In the eyes Of the European world
StGrmer, when he came 10 power, came as
The representative Of the court and the
friends of Germany. lie represented the
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