of Russian policy, journalists are constantly reasoning on the childish assumption that the ultimate success or failure of political and social reform must entirely depend on the will, weak or strong, just or wicked, enlightened or obscured, of some one man or group of men, the Tsar or the Grand Dukes, their supporters or opponents. If Russia could only be got rid of these Grand Dukes, and "of a few corrupt officials," then all would be right. Not only do they forget that behind the Tsar and the Grand Dukes, and the high court officials, there is the large army of the bureaucracy, millions strong, with their immense power, with their vested interests, who are capable of paralyzing and neutralizing all the efforts of the most enlightened rulers, and of wrecking all the programmes of reform if they so choose, but they also forget that behind both autocracy and bureaucracy there is a factor infinitely more important still, and that is the passive resistance or active co-operation of one hundred and fifty millions of peasants, whom we totally ignore in our calculations, as if they were absolutely of no account. Unfortunately for our speculations and calculations, these one hundred and fifty millions, whether active or pas-
