Eager to strike a
spectacular pose in history, he had finally afflicted the world with the
greatest of calamities.
"Why must the tyranny that weighs upon my country necessarily be
Russian? The worst Czars were imitators of Prussia. Every time that the
Russian people of our day have attempted to revindicate their rights,
the reactionaries have used the Kaiser as a threat, proclaiming that he
would come to their aid. One-half of the Russian aristocracy is German;
the functionaries who advise and support despotism are Germans; German,
too, are the generals who have distinguished themselves by massacring
the people; German are the officials who undertake to punish the
laborers' strikes and the rebellion of their allies. The reactionary
Slav is brutal, but he has the fine sensibility of a race in which many
princes have become Nihilists. He raises the lash with facility, but
then he repents and oftentimes weeps. I have seen Russian officials kill
themselves rather than march against the people, or through remorse
for slaughter committed. The German in the service of the Czar feels no
scruples, nor laments his conduct. He kills coldly, with the minuteness
and exactitude with which he does everything. The Russian is a barbarian
who strikes and regrets; German civilization shoots without hesitation.
Our Slav Czar, in a humanitarian dream, favored the Utopian idea of
universal peace, organizing the Conference of The Hague.
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