I believe now that the Czar’s government, for all its hideousness, understood that its revolutionists not only threatened the imperial system but also menaced the lives of all the people in the Empire. Revolution may be necessary when evolution, throttled by a few who control the destiny of a people, is not permitted to operate. The aspirations of the Russian people were beyond their abilities to carry out. They accomplished a successful revolution. Will they be able to hold the good they gained by it? If not, we can only say they did not deserve the liberty they acquired. It was as dangerous in Russia under the old régime to be ahead of the times as it was to be behind them--as dangerous to be an idealist as to be a cut-throat. The people, we knew, were ahead of their system of government, and even the ignorant peasants who blamed the government for all their woes from bad crops to taxes, were theoretically right. But it is worse to pursue a theory of government and not to know what to do with it once you have it, than it is to have no idealistic theories and face conditions as they exist. Columbus had a theory that by sailing to the westward he would reach India. He discovered America. If he had sailed to destruction over the edge of the “flat” world, only his crews and the three ships of his venture, would have been lost. It is quite another matter to embark with a whole nation, or group of nations, into unknown seas. The nation and all it has gained by centuries of evolution, may be lost, and the children of a few survivors be thrown back into barbarism. That is what the idealists of the Czar’s Empire have done, directing a vast but ignorant population. And the people of Russia are still waiting for a pilot who can cry “Land ho!” XX THE SOBRANIA The city of Chita being in an unsettled condition as the result of the Bolshevist troubles passed, and not knowing when more similar troubles might occur, the people never gave up for a single night their amusements. High schools produced amateur plays, there were masque balls, banquets, benefits, motion pictures, and theatres. The empire lay shattered, and foreign flags flew over their public buildings, marking the garrisons of foreigners doing police duty for the Siberians--they gave themselves up to making merry. And when the Siberian goes out for an evening’s entertainment, he does not return home till the small hours of morning. The result is that little work or business is done the following day before noon, and there is not much activity in business after two o’clock.