Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-06-30
Reviews of New Books

THE BIRTH OF THE RUSSIAN DE-
q MOCRACY. By A. ]. Sack. New
York: Russian Information Bureau.
E1HE Russian revolution, now in
full blaze, took its start
hundred years ago. Like many
another movement of ultimate
national magnitude, it was thing
Of small beginnings. No more, in
fact, than the audacious revolt of a
handful of young Russian officers
against an autocratic czardom. These
rebels were counted a mere group of
hot-headed enthusiasts stirred by per-
freedom. Short shrift was made of
that Decembrist movement of 1925.
Its leaders were executed. Their few
followers were sent into Siberian
exile. The fire was out-only a false
alarm at the most. And despotic Rus
STA crawled comfortably back under
the snug covers from which it had
been needlessly led forth. But it was
not a false alarm. The fire was not
out. Little licking flames flashed up
here and there. Showers of sparks
1I6hlcu up lHt OdTh
Russian sky. Execution and exile
did their best, or worst. But their
best, or worst, was not good enough,
or bad enough. The universities be-
came white-hot furnaces of sedition.
The intellectuals, the intelligentsia,"
became forcing-beds of DEMOCRATIC
doctrine. In 1905, following the war
with Japan. the discomfort had gained
enough of conference and volume to
precipitate the startling revolution
of that year. And this revolution
Opened the straight and direct path to
the momentous one now in progress
The volume in hand is the story Of
this century-long movement Of Rus
STA toward democracy and the elm
nation of the Romanov dynasty. Is
sued by the Russian bureau of infor-
una alton in the United States, its first
aim is, obviously, to give an authentic
and comprehensive account of Rus
kia's advance toward a larger political
freedom. Its secondary purpose is ID
set the present critical stage of that
advance in full perspective 50 that one
may discover an order of progress in
this outer maze of confusion, SO that
one may wrest out of this external
turmoil definite purpose and special
characteristic of endeavor. To meet
this aim the writer gives review of
the earlier phases of the revolution,
summing briefly the effects Of each re-
volt as these 1urnlShed the motive and
increased the momentum of each sue
ceeding one. Here, too, the author
describes the work, the personality
and the-political vision of the leaders
in the revolutionary movement. The
second half of the story deals with
Russia since the upheaval of March,
1917 The various experiments in gov
eminent are set down here, each ac-
,companied by it's inevitable crisis and
followed by fresh experiment. The
relation Of the divers social elements
to the revolution here step out in as
clear an array as it is possible to Sc
cure-the relation to the revolution of
the organized soldiery, of labor. of the
peasantry. of the Industrial middle
class, of the intellectuals. The work
ends with an Illuminating analysis of
Russia in the hands of the bolshe-
Wiki. Much of it comes to on of first
hand-speeches, addresses and gen.
.eral propaganda from the revolution
;2ry leaders. The whole Of it is ami
mated, without question, by the single
purpose of giving an orderly and in
telligible account of the Russian