I look back now at the time before the Revolution. The life of Petrograd is much as it was to outward appearances except that the new republican soldiers are now policing the streets, occasional citizens are wearing brassarts showing they are deputies of some sort or members of law-and-order committees, and there is a certain joyous freedom in the walk of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast empire, a revolt lacking all signs of terrorism, growing out of nothing into a sudden burst of indignation, knocked over the most absolute of autocracies. Just to look, it is hard to believe it true. As a Socialist said to me to-day: "The empire was rotten ready. One kick of a soldier's boot, and the throne with all its panoplies disappeared, leaving nothing but dust." I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma the other day: [Sidenote: Revolution inevitable after Duma was dissolved.] "From what date was the revolution inevitable?" I expected him to name one of the days immediately before the revolt, but he replied: "When the Duma was dissolved in December without being granted a responsible ministry." "How late might the Emperor have saved his throne?" "New Year's. If he had granted a responsible ministry then, it would not have been too late." [Sidenote: The Government brought Cossacks to Petrograd.] The Government was either blind or too arrogant to take precautions. It had fears of an uprising at the reconvening of the Duma and brought 13,000 Cossacks to Petrograd to put fear into the hearts of the people, but it permitted a shortage of flour which had been noticeable for several weeks to become really serious just at this moment. There were large districts of working people practically without bread from the time the Duma reconvened up to the moment of the revolution. [Sidenote: Situation needed a great ruler.] In the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo the seriousness of the situation was not ignored, but the preventive measures were lamentable. The Emperor, also, went to the front. If he had been a big enough man to be an emperor he would certainly never have done so. That left the neurasthenic Empress and the crafty, small-minded Protopopoff to handle a problem that needed a real man as great as Emperor Peter or Alexander III. [Sidenote: The author on the point of leaving Russia.] [Sidenote: The appearance of Cossacks.]