Of all the countries in Europe, with the possible exception of Turkey, Russia had been the most ignorant. The great mass of the people had had no schooling and were unable to read and write. It was easier for the grand dukes and nobles to keep down the peasants and to remain undisturbed in the ownership of their great estates if the people knew nothing more than to labor and suffer in silence. There was a class of Russians, however, the most patriotic and the best educated men in the state, who were working quietly, but actively, to make conditions better. Then too, the Nihilists, anarchists who had been working (often by throwing bombs) for the overthrow of the Czar, had spread their teachings throughout the country. Students of the universities, writers, musicians, and artists, had preached the doctrines of the rights of man. While outwardly the government appeared as strong as ever, really it was like a tree whose trunk has rotted through and through, and which needs only one vigorous push to send it crashing to the ground. It is generally in large cities that protests against the government are begun. For one thing, it is harder, in a great mob of people, to pick out the ones who are responsible for starting the trouble. Then again it is natural for people to make their protests in capital cities where the government cannot fail to hear them. A third reason lies in the fact that in large cities there are always a great number of persons who are poor and who are the first ones to feel the pinch of starvation, when hard times arise or when speculators seize upon food with the idea of causing the prices to rise. Starvation makes these people desperate—they do not care whether they live or not—and, as a result, they dare to oppose themselves to the police and the soldiers. There had been murmurs of discontent in Petrograd for a long time. This was felt not only among the common people, but also among the more patriotic of the upper classes. In the course of the winter of 1916-17, the monk, Rasputin, as a result of a plot, was invited to the home of a grand duke, a cousin of the Czar. There a young prince, determined to free Russia of this pest, shot him to death and his body was thrown upon the ice of the frozen Neva. About this time the lack of food in Petrograd, the result largely of speculation and “cornering the market,” had become so serious that the government thought it wise to call in several regiments of Cossacks to reinforce the police.