CHAPTER VII
RUSSIA STANDS FOR DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY
I
IF there is any truth in the Darwinian doctrine of "the survival of the fittest," the Russian people must be one of the strong nations of the earth. From early history they have been schooled in the stern discipline of privation and suffering. For centuries they have borne the brunt of the Tartar invasion. Their physical power of resistance and their moral fibre have been tested periodically by plague and famine, by war and political persecution. They have at all times been tested by poverty and by the severity of a relentless climate. In the process the weak have been eliminated and the strong have become stronger. The result has been a sturdy, hardened people, with a magnificent physique and of extraordinary vitality. The final outcome has been one of the creative civilizations of the world,
61
