The Russian Review Publishers

“ If American capitalists were sufficiently possessed of constructive imagination, they would study the country and realize that they are face to face with an opportunity for the peaceful economic conquest of a vast country, with a population of over 180,000,000. Such a conquest would mean, as far as Russia is concerned, the maximum development of her enormous productive forces, while, for the United States, it would mean an unparalleled opportunity for the application of American capital, skill, and genius for organization. ”

“ The horrible war is undermining the very substance of Russia's national life, and the men of letters, the whole intellectual army of the land, should rise, and, instead of the 'liturgy to Beauty', should sing and cry about the war, ring the alarm-bells, blow the trumpet, and arouse the Nation's conscience. ”

“ No other country presents such a wide, impassable gulf between its government and people as is found in Russia, and, in addition, there are well-defined divisions among the different classes of the people. And yet, in this war, so far, the country is undoubtedly united. Here is a marvel to wonder at; but all who know modern Russia can easily explain it by the universal, deep-rooted fear and hatred of Germany. ”

“ Every nationality in Russia has contributed to the intellectual wealth of the country, and it is in this blending of the whole country's thought that lies the glorious promise of a great Russia,—a promise that is bound to be fulfilled when the spirit of intellectual lethargy is conquered, and mystic Russia awakens from her slumber. ”

“ This political domination, attained by military strength, flattered the German people, and turned its thought from the lofty, humanitarian ideals of the beginning of the nineteenth century to the arrogant assertion of new idols: the Kaiser, the State, and the Army. The idea that power alone produces results, while sentiment and humanitarian notions weaken a nation, became prevalent in Germany, and created these new, inexorable gods. ”

“ She spends two years at Moscow, and when she returns with her diploma, eager, feeling that she is now a fit companion for her "man," and a fit mother for her children, she finds that her place has been taken by a common servant. The colorless life on the farm in Little Russia has transformed the man, never very intellectual or ambitious, into a dull clod, seeking nothing but the satisfaction of his lower desires. ”

“ During the half century of its development, the Russian cooperative movement has selected,—and, in fact, it could not help doing this,—those elements of the population which are capable of energetic, independent activity, the elements which have some economic foundation to work on. Therefore, the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian cooperative movements is a triumph for the whole of economic Russia. The development of the movement has proceeded on such a mighty scale, because the whole country is economically powerful, young, full of inexhaustible economic might. ”

“ One is the Russia of the sturdy, enterprising classes, of the progressive elements in every walk of life, fully alive to the opportunities of modern civilization; the Russia of the "intellectuals," of the enthusiastic and productive Zemstvo-workers in the field of education and social amelioration, school reform, co-operative movements, workingmen's and peasants' organizations. This Russia is revealed to us through the her rapid industrial growth, through her whole political and social development. ”

“ The Prussian victories of 1864, 1866, and 1870-71 destroyed the former organization of the many German States, and built on its ruins the German Empire of the Hohenzollerns. That new combination of State and dynasty, by the energetic, persistent, and consistent work of forty-four years, succeeded in concentrating the mind of the German people upon the idea that the State is everything and that its welfare requires of the individual blind obedience to its dictates. Modern Germany thinks and acts as one man so far as the State is concerned. ”

“ After the War the whole of Europe will have to pass through a period of reconstruction, and it is to Europe, most probably, that the American capital will flow. There seems to be no doubt that the foreign trade of the United States will continue on the same high level for some time after the war is over.
Europe will need American capital for its reconstruction, but it is obvious that not all of Europe will need it in the same degree. No matter how impoverished, economically and financially, England, Germany and France will be, they will still remain potentially powerful and developed. ”

“ The slow evolution and metamorphosis of the Germany of Kant, Hegel, and Schiller into the Germany of Wilhelm II., Krupp, and Bernhardi could not be hidden from intelligent Russians, who are, as a rule, acquainted with the German language. They have frequently visited Germany, by tens and even hundreds of thousands, the older people going because of Germany's many famous watering places, the younger, as students in her technical schools and universities, as Russia herself has not half enough of these institutions to supply the fast-growing demand of her people for higher education. ”

“ The present great War, in its countless ramifications and influences, has shaken the Russian Empire to its very foundations, and its ultimate results probably will affect the future of the Russian people more than that of any other belligerent. Many are the peculiarities, even oddities, of the history of the internal political, economic, and social structure of modern Russia,—and they are but little known and understood in the Western world, especially in America. ”

“ The Diploma is the story of the regeneration of a woman, and the degeneration of a man. So much of modern literature deals with the rising of the fallen and the falling of the risen. A woman of the servant-class has awakened within her the desire for better things through her association with her master, a weak-willed bachelor who has deserted the gay life of the cities and come to his estate in the provinces to live. When the consciousness of her individuality comes, Anna Timofeevna, the woman, leaves the estate and her two children, and goes to Moscow to study. ”

“ The Hohenzollerns fought democracy at home with better success than any reigning dynasty in Europe. They maintained the divine rights of kings persistently and openly, and sustained and helped the reactionary forces of Russia in their fight against political freedom all through the nineteenth century and up to the outbreak of this war. The Russian people had no more bitter foes anywhere. ”

“ Few people in America realize what a tremendous shock to Russia's most cherished ambition was the acquisition by Germany of complete control over Turkey's affairs, and especially the appointment of German generals to command the Turkish army. Yet Russia submitted. It is fully understood now that the Russo-Japanese War was brought about chiefly by German mischief-making in both countries. And when the Portsmouth peace was concluded, the real pound of flesh was taken from Russia by the German-Russian commercial treaty of 1905-Russia was prostrated by the war and by the revolution. ”

“ At the present time, when all the military resources of the country are strained to the utmost, it is necessary to lay an equal stress upon the financial resources of the country. For this purpose, it is necessary not only to realize loans and issue paper currency, the burden of which will fall upon future generations, but to shift a part of this burden upon those living to-day by the introduction of an extraordinary military tax, which would serve to bring into the treasury a considerable sum of money that would cover at least a part of the war expenses. ”

“ Russian industry is to-day thoroughly organized and mobilized, and even the school-children are at work. The cool heads prevailed; all political parties, the two principal Socialist ones included, issued manifestoes to the people to set political issues aside, to keep at peace, and at work. This feverish activity keeps up wonderfully, and the army is better provided than ever before. And it is a totally different army from the one with which Russia started the War. ”

“ The United States have become the most powerful industrial country of the world, and Russia can become almost as powerful, if American capital will play the same creative part in its economic development, that European capital has played here. ”

“ In most of the stories in the present volume, Chekhov has chosen for his theme the hopeless contrast between the ideal and the real. A great hope awakens in the heart of some man or woman, only to be dashed against some grim reality. ”

“ There exists no more miserable and oppressed tenantry anywhere in the world to-day, and the Russian military forces frequently had to suppress bloody local revolts against the German masters. During the eighteenth century, Russia annexed all these regions to her Empire, reorganized the descendants of the Knights as local nobility with all the special rights they claimed, and up to the present, has upheld all their privileges. This German nobility in the Baltic provinces is the only remnant of any nobility in the world which has retained all its mediæval privileges. ”

“ It was Bismarck who said, "Ohne Kaiser kein Reich," "Without Emperor, no State." He believed in absolutism combined with military strength, and upon these two pillars of political faith rested his policy of "blood and iron," inaugurated by Prussia as early as 1863, when she was as yet a small State disputing with Italy the right to be counted as one of the five great powers of Europe. Modern German imperialism is built wholly upon this combined formula. ”

“ After the abolition of serfdom, capitalism began to develop rapidly in Russia, and the capitalistic system set up before the producing peasant a whole series of most difficult economic problems. It became necessary to adapt production to the needs of the market, and the need of increasing the productivity of labor and land became fundamental in the rural economy of Russia. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to have loan and savings associations and credit societies. Moreover, it was essential for peasants to unite into cooperative groups for purposes of buying and selling. ”

“ Manufacturers should be prepared to grant liberal credits to dealers—three, six, nine, or twelve months, according to the article and the customer. Thus the foreign manufacturer is asked to help to carry trade, because the majority of the wholesale dealers have not sufficient capital to pay for their imports until the ultimate users of these goods, in the main the peasant consumers, are able to discharge their obligations to the retailer, which they can do only after gathering the crops. As has been seen, the German houses were assisted by the cooperation of the banks in meeting the situation. ”

“ Peter the Great was the most cruel and violent reformer known in history, and the hosts of foreigners whom he invited to help him civilize his subjects took their cue from him, treating the people of Russia harshly and offensively. The large majority of these foreigners were Germans, and, while some of them were educated and useful people, the greater number belonged to the class of the adventurer who roams over the world seeking to acquire riches by any and every means at the expense of the native. ”

“ German arrogance often bordered on insolence. It is sufficient to remember several of the Kaiser's speeches to the Reichstag and to his army, his despatch to Paul Krüger, Admiral Dietrich's behavior in Manila Bay, and the Agadir incident.
Energetic efforts of both the Government and the people, led by identical impulses and concentrated upon identical aims, evolved a very high degree of efficiency in all directions and produced a mighty and a highly disciplined power. It is a machine blindly obedient to a central rule, unscrupulous, and devoid of any human feeling. ”

“ The first nine months of the war were to a considerable degree prosecuted successfully by the Russian armies,—but they exhausted all military supplies, especially arms and munitions. The bureaucracy proved once more its utter inefficiency and shortsightedness. Last April, when the Germans began their drive in Galicia, the Russian artillery had no shells, and some regiments of infantry at the front had, instead of rifles, iron clubs with which to fight. Only history will reveal in its true light the valor and the helplessness of the Russian army during that drive. ”

“ Rosenthal's opinion in this matter is based largely upon his conviction that the United States "is probably the best republic which the human race has so far been able to establish." The United States, as the inheritor of a democracy that has advanced from "the primitive conquering state, through a thousand transitions, to a state of free citizenship," has luckily escaped the curse of the dynastic and territorial dissensions and the Chauvinism that subverts the interests of whole nations to the ambitions of "militaristic bureaucracies and autocracies." ”

“ No doubt, after the storm of war has gone by, the whole political countenance of Russia will undergo momentous changes, and, from that moment on, Russia will surely take her place among the commercially progressive nations of the world. ”

“ Among them there are few men of great vision and broad outlook. They are easily satisfied, and seldom go beyond the limits of one, or, in unusual cases, two or three cities. Thus it is that the vast, rich, and interesting country still remains poorly organized commercially, and still awaits the awakening touch of men who are capable of doing business on a large scale.
In some ways, Russia has already caught up with the other countries of Europe. ”

“ Archbishop Andronicus of Perm, in a prelate's message to his diocese, condemned the rapacity of the merchants who raise the prices of necessities of life. "Like German murderers, or wild jackals," says the archbishop in his message, "they attack the people of Russia. By the power, granted to us by God, we say to these men, who are so fond of money: 'Your silver shall be your ruin. Your riches will rot away. ”