“In general, the whole manner of life of the intelligentsia was terrible; a long abomination of desolation, without any kind or sort of discipline, without the slightest consecutiveness, even on the surface.  The day passes in doing nobody knows what, to-day in one manner, and to-morrow, as a result of a sudden inspiration, entirely contrariwise—­everyone lives his life in idleness, slovenliness, and a measureless disorder—­chaos and squalor reign in his matrimonial and sexual relations—­a naive absence of conscientiousness distinguishes his work; in public affairs he shows an irrepressible inclination towards despotism, and an utter absence of consideration towards his fellow-creatures; and his attitude towards the authorities of the State is marked at times by a proud defiance, and at others (individually and not collectively) by compliance.”

As a set-off to this picture of moral chaos, it should be remembered that these people when called upon to die for their revolutionary faith did so with the greatest heroism.  Nor is the picture true of all revolutionaries; some of the noblest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet were Russian revolutionaries.  But these were the product of an earlier and sterner school, the puritanical “Nihilism” of the ’eighties; and it is impossible to deny the substantial truth of the above description as far as the rank and file of the modern revolutionary school are concerned.[1] Such people were divided by a whole universe from the peasants to whom they offered themselves as leaders and saviours; and the schemes of regeneration which they preached were not merely useless, because purely negative, but were exotic plants which could never flourish on Russian soil.  Thus the revolution triumphed for about twelve months as a purely destructive force, but when the necessity for construction arose its adherents found that they were entirely ignorant of the elements of the problem before them.  This problem was the peasant, and the revolutionaries, though they had worshipped the People (with a capital P) for years and had done their best to convert them, had never made any attempt to understand them.  And when the peasant discovered what the revolutionary was like, he loathed and detested him.  “They hate us,” a writer in Landmarks confesses, “because they fail to recognise that we are men.  We are, in their eyes, monsters in human shape, men without God in their soul; and they are right.”

[Footnote 1:  It is confirmed by all impartial observers, see e.g. Professor Pares’ Russia and Reform, chap. ix., entitled “Lives of the Intelligents.”]