Although Tolstoy waged war in this manner upon the Liberals and Socialists, it was not--far from it--to leave the field free for autocracy; on the contrary, it was that the battle might be fought in all its fierceness between the old world and the new, after the army of disorderly and dangerous elements had been eliminated. For Tolstoy too was a believer in the Revolution. But his Revolution was of a very different colour to that of the revolutionaries; it was rather that of a believer of the Middle Ages, who looked on the morrow, perhaps that very day, for the reign of the Holy Spirit. "I believe that at this very hour the great revolution is beginning which has been preparing for two thousand years in the Christian world--the revolution which will substitute for corrupted Christianity and the system of domination which proceeds therefrom the true Christianity, the basis of equality between men and of the true liberty to which all beings endowed with reason aspire."[14] What time does he choose, this seer and prophet, for his announcement of the new era of love and happiness? The darkest hour of Russian history; the hour of disaster and of shame! Superb power of creative faith! All around it is light--even in darkness. Tolstoy saw in death the signs of renewal; in the calamities of the war in Manchuria, in the downfall of the Russian armies, in the frightful anarchy and the bloody struggle of the classes. His logic--the logic of a dream!--drew from the victory of Japan the astonishing conclusion that Russia should withdraw from all warfare, because the non-Christian peoples will always have the advantage in warfare over the Christian peoples "who have passed through the phase of servile submission." Does this mean the abdication of the Russian people? No; this is pride at its supremest. Russia should withdraw from all warfare because she must accomplish "the great revolution." "The Revolution of 1905, which will set men free from brutal oppression, must commence in Russia. It is beginning." Why must Russia play the part of the chosen people? Because the new Revolution must before all repair the "Great Crime," the great monopolisation of the soil for the profit of a few thousands of wealthy men and the slavery of millions of men--the cruellest of enslavements;[15] and because no people was so conscious of this iniquity as the Russian people.[16] Again, and more especially, because the Russian people is of all peoples most thoroughly steeped in the true Christianity, so that the coming revolution should realise, in the name of Christ, the law of union and of love. Now this law of love cannot be fulfilled unless it is based upon the law of non-resistance to evil.[17] This non-resistance (let us mark this well, we who have the misfortune to see in it simply an Utopian fad peculiar to Tolstoy and to a few dreamers) has always been an essential trait of the Russian people.