_The Russian Tragedy._ Was there any definite motive in the Leninist policy which led Russia to make the “painful, forced and shameful Peace of Brest”? Yes! there was. The massimalists really believe in the possibility of revolution by “contagion.” They hoped to infect the Germans with the massimalist bacillus. They did not succeed; Germany is refractory. The very “minoritaries” are far from proclaiming themselves Bolshevists. And more, these “minoritaries,” who ought to represent the fermenting yeast, are continually losing ground. In three elections there have been three overwhelming defeats. The “majoritaries” triumph. They are the same now as in the August of 1914, accomplices of Pangermanism. They want to win. After Brest-Litowsk the Socialists lay low; after the Peace of Bucharest they kept silence. We have seen what have been the results in Russia of the Leninist gospel, we have seen how the German Socialists, who accepted “neither annexations nor indemnities and the right of the people to decide their own fate,” have interpreted this doctrine. The Germans took possession of 540,000 square kilometres of territory in Russia with a population of fifty-five millions; then they went on to Roumania and plundered her. If the Peace of Brest-Litowsk was shameful for Russia, the Peace of Bucharest was not. The Roumanians were taken in the rear, and could not resist. In the meantime, Cicerin, the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, made the wireless work. A cynic might remark that if the Roman Republic had a Cicero in a critical hour of her history, Russia has a Cicerin, whom, contrary to the former, nobody takes seriously, because it is impossible to take seriously those who do not know how to take up arms in the defence of their own rights. The Russian experiment has helped us enormously, both from the socialist and the political points of view. It has opened many eyes which had persistently remained closed. It must be realised that if Germany wins, complete and certain ruin awaits us. Germany has not changed her fundamental instincts. They are the same as those which Tacitus describes to perfection in his _Germania_ in these words: “The Germans do not live in villages, but in separate houses, set wide apart the better to protect them against fire. To shield themselves from the cold, they live in underground dwellings covered with manure or clothe themselves in the skins of small animals, of which they have a great number. Strong in war, but persistent drunkards and gamblers, armed with spears and well supplied with horses, they prefer to gain wealth, when it suits them, by violence rather than by the working of their lands.”