Ekaterinburg reveals a destiny that swept to its finale with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. A thesis common in monarchist and émigré circles labors to prove that the Bolshevist revolution was an unnatural, un-Russian phenomenon artificially created by two foreign influences, German militarism and Jewish hatred, and then imposed by treachery on a demoralized and exhausted people. But on the strength of the record, and in view of documentary evidence now becoming increasingly available, I am obliged to reject that theory. Though the instrumental rôle played both by Jews and by Germany was considerable and active, and though I am familiar with the remarkable work of Mrs. Webster tracing the revolutionary movement, through Lenin and Marx, back to Bakunin, Anacharsis Clootz, Gracchus Babeuf, and the Illuminati of Weishaupt, I maintain that Bolshevism is a natural phase in the evolution of a strictly historical process originating in the soil, the culture, and the politics of Russia itself. When one disentangles the matted roots of that gnarled and knotted growth he will discover many domestic causes: one philosophic, another geographic, some political, economic, and racial, one religious, and the final, psychological and emotional. The first six can only be touched upon lightly here and will form the subject of a later and more detailed study. The last will be examined more minutely in the present paper.

1. The impetus and direction given to revolutionary thought by the morbid pessimism of so many Russian intellectuals during the latter half of the nineteenth century only served to tighten the noose around their own necks. Despite the prophetic warnings of true lovers of the fatherland, like Dostoievsky and Ivan Bunin, they

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popularized a philosophy of despair that helped Russia into the abyss.

2. The 'land hunger' of the peasants, that perennial thirst of all predominantly agricultural communities, was but poorly satisfied, nay, was aggravated, by the terms of the political emancipation of 1861, which still left them, to all intents and purposes, economic serfs.

3. The 'constitution hunger' of the moderate and truly patriotic liberals was answered by a stupid policy of savage repression and a reassertion of autocracy that drove the revolutionaries underground, thus creating a multiplicity of secret organizations dedicated to the overthrow of Tsardom through ruthless direct action and political assassination.

4. The rapid growth of industrial and factory life in Russia, notably from 1867 to 1897, without a corresponding improvement in the status of labor, gave rise to a surly class consciousness. And class consciousness is the fertile soil where professional agitators sow the bitter seeds of class hatred. Class hatred is the herald of revolution.

5. The bewildering ethnological composition of a population which was nothing more than a loose agglomeration of over two hundred unassimilated nationalities will, I think, bear me out in believing that Russia was probably the only land on the face of the earth that could have produced so swiftly and so completely the chaotic enigma she now presents to the civilized world. Walk with me through the streets of Moscow, that mart where East and West meet, but blend not. Let your gaze range from the fair-haired Slav or Aryan from Great Russia and Siberia to the semibarbaric countenances and Asiatic types discernible among the slant-eyed soldiers, worshipers of Buddha, who thronged the streets in 1922. Kirghiz, Kalmuks, Chuvashes,

Tatars, and Chinese! In a word, visualize the component human elements of the far-flung empire of the Tsars and you will begin to appreciate what Kipling meant when he wrote that Russia must be considered, not as the most eastern of western nations, but as the most westerly nation of the East. And you cannot but agree that this heterogeneous admixture of races, religions, and antagonistic interests contained within itself the fatal germs of domestic discord, the seeds of fratricidal strife and bloody revolution, to end eventually in complete economic and social disintegration.

6. The influence of sectarianism cannot be overlooked in any complete account of the progress of revolution in Russia. Apart from the twelve million Roman Catholics residing within the confines of the Empire, mainly of Polish origin and consequently treated with hostility as tolerated aliens, and the seven millions or more of Protestants, there existed a bewildering complexity of dissident sects. Tenacious of their old and new beliefs, fanatically opposed to the state religion, the sectarians were prepared to die, as they frequently did, for their religious practices. If we add to the strictly Orthodox communities of Raskolniks (Separatists) and Starovyeri (Old Believers) the rationalist and chiliastic groups, the Adventists and the New Adventists, the Nemoliakhi and Neplatel'shchiki (nonpayers of taxes), the Stranniki (pilgrims), the Medal'shchiki (medalists), the Jehovists (universal brothers), the Sviatodulkhovsti (adherents of the Holy Ghost), the Dukhobors and Molokani (Zionists), the Fire Baptists and Morel'shchiki (self-immolators), the Khlysty (scourgers), the Skoptsy (selfmutilators), and the Trudnoviki (cloistral communists), a total is reached which embraced probably a third of the population. And since orthodoxy and

autocracy were inseparably linked i the Russian idea of the State, noncom formers were penalized and systema ically oppressed. The victims were i moral and intellectual rebellion lon before the armed revolt of 1917. The constituted a sociopolitical factor truly elemental power, smoulderin with resentment and ripe for explosion

Russia was an ethnological museum superintended by a vigilant autocra and policed by the Third Section o Chancery, the Political Police. With the downfall of the overseer and the murder of the policeman, bedlan broke loose. Russia was a pyramid but an inverted pyramid with a huge unwieldy, and inert superstructure o discontented, illiterate masses balanced unsteadily on that slender apex furnished by the fraction of the population included in the nobility, the aristocracy, and the bureaucracy. With the crumbling of the demoralized autocracy, upon which practically the whole of organized life was balanced, human society turned turtle. As the area affected was one sixth of the surface of this planet, and as the human element then involved numbered over 170,000,000 people, the resulting chaos was proportionate to the possibilities for disorder and destruction, which were boundless, inherent in such an unstable system, never far from the surface and only outwardly controlled by the Okhrana, the secret police of the Tsars. Consequently, when the crash came, it marked the most stupendous single political event, I believe, since the break-up of the Roman Empire. Not only did the ensuing human wreckage cover the plains of Muscovy, but the flotsam and the jetsam have been washed up on every shore of the civilized world, so that the Russian émigré - that most tragic and, be it truthfully said, that most amiable personagecan claim kinship with Vergil's Æneas

when he says, 'Quae regio in terra nostri non plena laboris! - What corner of the earth has not known our sorrow!' Russia was the last island fortress of absolutism in the rising tide of democracy, the outstanding anachronism of the twentieth century. Ringed round by the bayonets of the Preobrazhenski and Volinski regiments, its ukases executed by the knouts of Cossacks and the flashing sabres of the Hussars, it defied the elements for three hundred years until the deluge came. Whose hand unloosed the flood gates? In my opinion, a woman, all unconsciously, had more to do with the final debacle than any other single cause.

III

The part played by this unhappy woman in the final catastrophe cannot be overestimated. A German princess of the House of Hesse, it would appear that she never completely won the sympathy and confidence of her adopted people, but, like her equally unfortunate prototype, Marie Antoinette, she was vaguely distrusted by the Russian people as a foreigner and a Germanophile. Of the charge, however, of treason, history probably will clear the memory of Alexandra Feodorovna, if it can never clear her memory of tendencies, practices, and imprudences that contributed notably to Russia's ruin. The domination which this imperious, proud, aloof, and resolute woman exercised over her irresolute and impressionable husband became such a menace that more than one grand duke, duchess, and general cried out in warning against it. They were usually exiled to their estates, far from Petrograd.

Russia had touched the nadir of misfortune and corrupt administration. Food supplies were insufficient; transportation, the nerves of the body

economic, was paralyzed; the supply of ammunition was not only inadequate, but systematically sabotaged; shells were manufactured in Russian factories that fitted no Russian ordnance; soldiers were sent to the front barefoot. Mr. Francis, the American Ambassador to Russia during the Revolution, recounts in his correspondence that Russian troops were sent to battle with but one rifle for every two men. The unarmed trooper was instructed to seize the rifle of a comrade as the latter fell. The defeatists destroyed the morale and confidence of the people and evoked the gaunt spectre of national disaster.

Intelligent ministers, who realized the gravity of both the internal and the external situation and dared to protest, out of loyalty to Russia, were summarily dismissed at the bidding of 'dark forces' and 'invisible influences,' acting through the Empress. Twentyone cabinet members followed each other to disgrace during the merry game of 'ministerial leapfrog.' The head and front of the offending was the unspeakable Rasputin, whose sinister influence over the Tsarina gave rise to a mass of scandalous reports that discredited the monarchy, encouraged the enemies of the throne, and drove patriotic Russians to desperation.

Unsavory as this episode must ever be, it cannot be dismissed as a legend. Gregory Rasputin was one of the contributing causes of the Russian Revolution.

This coarse and depraved adventurer was born a Siberian peasant. While posing as one inspired of God, a staretz, as the type is called in Russia, he was 'discovered' by the wife of a wealthy Moscow merchant during a pilgrimage to a Siberian shrine. Under her auspices he was introduced to the most exclusive circles of the capital. It should be noted at this point that

Rasputin, though frequently called a monk, was not a priest of the Russian Church, nor was he even in holy orders at any time, but was one of the wandering pilgrims so frequently met in the country districts of Russia. As regards ecclesiastical jurisdiction, he was absolutely a free lance and the authorities found it impossible to control his actions. His chief title to preeminence seems to have been a certain power of healing the sick by the application of personal magnetism.

The possession of occult powers, and the mysticism of charlatans, never failed to exercise a fatal fascination for the intellectuals of Russia. Philippe, the butcher's boy of Lyons, whose vogue at the Russian court ceased as Rasputin came on the scene in 1905, is a case in point. And historians of the Russian Revolution will find a curious confirmation of the same psychic abnormality in the quacks, charlatans, spiritists and mesmerists, 'table-rappers' and 'table-turners,' who overawed French society with their dabbling in the supernatural on the very eve of the French Revolution. "They danced to death along a flowery way.'

Isvolsky, in his Recollections of Foreign Minister, records the influence of the Comte de Saint-Germain over the Landgrave of Hesse, of the 'unknown Philosopher' over the Duchess of Bourbon, and of Cagliostro over Cardinal de Bourbon. Similarly, the influence of Rasputin over the Tsarina was based upon his mysterious but conceded ability to heal the young Tsarevitch by means which still remain an open question.

It is a matter of history that the Tsar and the Tsarina had been long disappointed in the birth of four daughters but of no male heir to the throne. This situation continued until 1904, when a boy was born. The Tsarevitch, Alexis, was, consequently, the child of pre

dilection on whom the affections father and mother were unsparingl lavished. But the rejoicing at his birt soon turned into bitter grief and des peration, for it was found that th infant son suffered from the strang disease often found among royal chil dren in Europe, known as hæmophilia Victims of this malady are known i medicine as hæmophiliacs, or 'bleed ers.' It shows itself in a certain weak ness of the veins and of the arterie of the skin, so that the sufferer i liable, at the slightest injury or con tusion, to bleed profusely. The slight est scratch, or the bumping of a hand or an ankle against a projection, wil cause either bleeding or a discolored swelling on the afflicted member, ac companied with the most excruciating pain. This mysterious disease is trans mitted through the mother and only to the males. The sister of the Tsarina Princess Henry of Prussia, had transmitted it to all three of her sons. One of the Tsarina's younger brothers also suffered from it, likewise her Uncle Leopold, Queen Victoria's youngest son. The oldest son of the King of Spain, the Prince of the Asturias, is likewise a sufferer, and grave doubt is now entertained if he will live to succeed King Alfonso.

Everything known to medical science was done for the precious heir to the Russian throne, in whom were concentrated all the hopes of the Romanov dynasty. In fact, the care lavished on her only son gave rise to the criticism at court that Alexandra was more of a nurse than an empress. It is at this point that Rasputin enters on the

scene.

I consulted many persons in Moscow and Petrograd, among them physicians and scholars familiar with the current reports involving the Empress and Rasputin. I likewise discussed this and allied topics in London last July with

Sir Bernard Pares, whose lifelong study of Russia and residence in Russia during the Revolution make him one of the world's leading scholars in the field of Russian history. Alexander Kerensky, former Premier of Russia in the Provisional Government, who personally visited and conversed with the Tsarina in her imprisonment, likewise gave me several hours on the same subject. The consensus of opinion is that Alexandra was, in point of morality, above reproach and cannot be accused of improper relations with the greasy muzhik. The same cannot be said of other high personages in her entourage.

Gregory Rasputin was simply a clever adventurer, a habitual drunkard, and a licentious roué who utilized for his purposes some hypnotic or mesmeric power not definitely catalogued. Whatever the explanation may be, the outstanding fact upon which all agree is that Rasputin could stop the paroxysms of pain into which the young Tsarevitch was so often thrown by his dread affliction. The maternal love of the Tsarina for her boy and her terror when she realized the danger to his health, complicated by an emotional religious fervor, furnished the foundation for Rasputin's influence at court. On one occasion Rasputin was actually sent away from Petrograd by order of the Emperor. The Tsarevitch fell ill. The doctors tried every known remedy, but the hemorrhage grew steadily worse and death was expected at any moment. The distracted Tsarina had Rasputin recalled to his bedside. Over the blood-soaked bandages Rasputin made the sign of the cross, mumbled some incantations, laid his hand upon the still, white face, and the bleeding stopped. He was never again to leave the court, as he himself had prophesied on receiving the order of' expulsion.

The manner and secret of his success are still debated. Out of the welter of hypotheses advanced by his contemporaries I select two as the most probable. The first group attributes his influence to a species of mesmerism or personal magnetism, the application of which soothed and hypnotized the sufferer until nature itself was enabled to exercise its recuperative power. The second group advances a more complicated and more subtle explanation. They suspect that Madame Viroubova, one of Rasputin's admitted devotees and lady in waiting to the Tsarina, administered an irritating physic or drug to the Tsarevitch at stated intervals. This drug is supposed to have been supplied by a mysterious Badmaiev, a doctor of Oriental origin who flits in and out of the scene. The potion was administered so as to coincide with the appearance of Rasputin, who timed his visits shrewdly. As the effects wore off, the impostor made it appear that the cure was due to the hocus-pocus which he pronounced over the suffering child.

The hypnotic explanation receives added force from the testimony of several Russian statesmen not likely to be influenced by romantic tales. Rodzianko, Speaker of the Duma, — a huge man, physically robust, and of demonstrated will power, confesses that Rasputin, on one occasion, gave him a disconcerting exhibition of occult power. It was at the Tercentenary Celebration of the Romanov dynasty. Rasputin, uninvited, had wormed his way into the place for honor guests at a service in the Kazan Cathedral in Petrograd. Rodzianko ordered him

out:

'I drew quite close to him and said in an impressive whisper, "What are you doing here?" He shot an insolent look at me and replied, "What's that to do with you?" ""If you

address me as 'thou' I will