1. It's not just military failures
After mankind entered the 20th century, with the increasing progress of science and technology, people's livelihood and well-being have benefited a lot. However, the ambition of imperialism to dominate the world has also become more and more greedy because of the blessing of science and technology. In February 1904, the Russo-Japanese War between the two major imperialists competing for hegemony in northeast China broke out. From the beginning of the war in February, the Japanese army landed in Korea, crossed the Yalu River in March, into the territory of northeast China, at the end of May, the Japanese army occupied Dalian Bay, in early October, through the Battle of Shahe, the Russian army was defeated one after another, at the end of December, the Japanese army successively captured the forts such as Erlong and Pine Grove in the northeast of Lushun, and on January 2, 1905, the Lushunkou occupied by Russia fell and the Russian army surrendered.
The land battle was lost, russia was not satisfied, and on May 14, 1905, the huge Russian Baltic fleet from Europe was completely annihilated by the Japanese in the Tsushima Strait. The defeat of the invincible Tsarist Empire by the emerging Japan certainly did not deserve Chinese's happiness, and our territory was reduced to a contest for others to wreak havoc.
The war greatly stimulated the arrogance of Japanese militarism and dealt a heavy blow to the Russian Empire. In this war for hegemony between the two imperialist countries in China, the Russian army was killed, wounded and captured, and the direct military expenditure of the war was about 2.5 billion gold rubles, not including the loss of 500 million rubles worth of property and sunken military and commercial warships that fell into Japanese hands.
The reasons for russia's defeat were manifold, as a large empire spanning Europe and Asia, its military technology was backward, its troops on the Eastern Front were weak, most of its troops were placed in Europe, its transportation capacity was low, and its logistical support was inadequate.
Russo-Japanese War
At that time, the circumference of Lake Baikal of the Trans-Siberian Railway was not repaired, and due to poor road conditions, backward equipment and low transport capacity. There is a journey of nearly six weeks from Europe to northeast China, but only 2-3 military vehicles can be driven every day and night. Land transport was poor, and the conditions of sea and tank transport were also worse, and the Baltic Fleet reached the Far East by sea, but the journey was long, the time was high, and the ships and crew were extremely tired. Logistics are inadequate, in terms of food supply, soldiers eat even raw insect bread, food poisoning incidents occur repeatedly. Clothing supplies are equally bad, and there is not enough clothing in the harsh winter, so we have to use old clothes and shoes. The raincoats needed in the summer can only be shipped in the winter, while the cotton coats in the winter are shipped in the summer. Such terrible logistics, what a battle to fight.
In contrast, Japan's capital ships were purchased from the United States, with large size, strong defensive capabilities, stable ships, and well-equipped artillery. Therefore, when the two armies competed for firepower, Russia's backward military equipment could not match Japan's equipment. With the help of the nominally neutral Anglo-American shipping, it was able to deploy a large number of supplies, and it also had the advantage of geographical location.
The final outcome of this imperialist war was the Treaty of Portsmouth in August 1905, in which Russian forces withdrew from the Korean Peninsula and Japan dominated Korea; Russia's leasehold rights on the Liaodong Peninsula and part of the Great Middle East Railway south to Changchun, half of Sakhalin Island south of 50 degrees north latitude were transferred to Japan; both sides agreed to return Manchuria (northeast China) to China.
After entering the 20th century, the Tsarist Empire under the Romanov dynasty was actually full of crises, whether it was reform within the system or a revolution in the sense of overturning, change was a prominent feature within Russia at that time, and it seemed that every class was dissatisfied with the status quo. The rulers of the Empire, however, went to war with Japan at this time, with the aim of trying to divert the attention of the people with "a small victory", calling on the people to "shed blood and sacrifice" and "defend the motherland", of course, Nicholas II himself will not shed blood, and the blood is only the children of russian civilians.
However, the war was humiliatingly defeated, and Tsarist Russia not only lost part of the interests of the Far East, but also caused great dissatisfaction among the people, and the revolution of 1905 followed this logic. As Comrade Lenin, the great teacher of the proletarian revolution, said in his article "Overthrow":
The [Tsarist Empire] faced not only military defeat, but the complete military collapse of the autocracy.
This collapse was the collapse of the entire tsarist political system.
The defeat of the war revealed the essence of the tsarist Empire's tough exterior and inner weakness, and also promoted the internal change of the empire. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 forced Nicholas II to compromise to a certain extent with the liberal aristocracy within the system, and the power of local self-government and the councilorship of the urban Duma were extended to a certain extent. Of course, the Tsar remained convinced that "the question of state administration is not a matter for the Local Self-Government Council." ”
Constitutionalism, or despotism, the empire is wavering.
In December 1904, in the Russo-Japanese War in China's Lushun battlefield, the Russian army suffered a decisive defeat. During this period, resentment in Russia was raging, and strikes broke out at the Puttilov factory in St. Petersburg.
On January 22, 1905, a large-scale mass demonstration took place outside the Winter Palace, demanding that the emperor end the war with the Japanese, reform politics, and improve people's livelihood, gathering more than 200,000 people. The petition eventually went from peace to bloodshed, with about 1,000 people shot dead by the Tsar's guards. That day was January 9 of the Julian calendar used by the Russians, also known as the "One Nine" Petersburg Bloodshed.
According to the Russian authorities, Nicholas II was not in the palace at the time, and he himself did not order the shooting. Originally, in order to weaken the power of the local nobility, Nicholas II has always played the role of protector of the peasants in the village community, and has even been called "the Tsar of the weak" and "the tsar of the common people". The blood of the Hermitage Square shattered the people's illusions about the Tsar!
Although Nicholas II later appointed a commission of inquiry in an attempt to give the people an explanation, the Minister of the Interior, Count Witt, tried to persuade the people to exercise restraint and calmness, promising to give an explanation. But, as Trotsky, leader of the Social Democratic Labour Party, said:
We can arouse the whole of Russia in 24 hours, and let a fire burn all over Russia, so that a nationwide fire is called a revolution!
The people did not expect the Tsar's mercy, and they "would not make a shameful and pitiful deal with the Tsar".
Tsar Nicholas II
Revolutions are coming like a tidal wave. Since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Kingdom of Poland has become a vassal state of Tsarist Russia, and the Tsar is also the King of Poland, and the polish people's resistance struggle has never stopped.
The Russo-Japanese War also inflicted undeserved suffering on Poles, with more than 100,000 Polish workers unemployed in the second half of 1904. Shortly after the Petersburg bloodshed of 1905, a Łódź strike broke out in Poland, and the workers' demand was "Down with the dictatorship!" Fight the war! "There have also been strikes, demonstrations and other anti-Russian movements in Warsaw and other industrial cities. The protests that swept almost the whole country of Poland greatly shook Tsarist rule in Poland, and under the brutal and bloody repression of Tsarist Russia, peaceful protests eventually turned into riots that lasted until June 25 of that year.
Russia's internal instability is more dangerous. Although the Tsarist government and Count Witt tried to solve the problem with a soft policy, the radical revolutionaries had no intention of compromising. On 17 February 1905, when Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was riding through the Kremlin in a carriage, he was killed on the spot by a populist Socialist-Revolutionary who dropped a nitroglycerin bomb at close range.
I don't know if it was the shock of the bomb or the influence of the liberal aristocracy. On March 3 of that year, Nicholas II issued the Edict of Bregin, promising political reforms in the direction of constitutional government, as well as improving people's livelihoods.
The Russo-Japanese War also had a great impact on Tsarist Russia's neighbor, the Qing Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty politicians, who had utilitarian beliefs in the political system, believed at this time that the constitution was the magic weapon for Japan to win, so they worked hard to promote the opening of the Diet and the implementation of the constitution. Interestingly, in Russia, where the Russian democrats with a certain historical basis are also trying to force the tsarist government to convene a state-level parliament.
On August 19, 1905, Nicholas II agreed to establish the Imperial Diet, the Russian Word for State Duma, and promulgated the Charter of the State Duma and the Law on the Election of the State Duma, but there were many severe restrictions on the election of deputies and the competence of the parliament. This reaction of the Tsar triggered larger strikes throughout Russia.
On 30 October, Nicholas II made the greatest concessions by promulgating the October Edict written by Count Witte, promising more civil rights, such as opening up restrictions on the organization of political parties, granting the State Duma the highest legislative power in the country, expanding the general election, and so on.
Despite the difficult start, Russia's path to democratic constitutionalism has finally begun, and authoritarian politics has finally been opened. The October Edict eased tensions in Russia to some extent, and various protests subsided after the edict was issued.
If the future Russian Empire continues to follow the path of the "October Edict", it is likely that the modern transformation of the country will be completed. But Russia, which has always hovered between conservative and progressive, has not given history a chance.
2. All in order to defend sacred Russia!
The mild-mannered Earl of Witt was weak in the eyes of the conservative aristocracy, condoning the protests and riots of 1905. In 1906, Witt resigned and the hardline Stolypin became Minister of the Interior. In the revolutionary wave of 1905, only the revolutionary movement in Saratov Province was suppressed in all of Russia, and its governor was Stolypin.
Stolypin was different from both the liberals of the time and the conservatives of the time, and belonged to the neoconservatives of Russia. His principle is "stability first, reform later". Stolypin's reforms were a modernization transformation under the premise of stabilizing and strengthening the power of the tsarist state, and reforms must be carried out under great power, and reforms must be combined with Russian traditions, combining Russian traditions with modernization.
Agrarian reform was at the heart of a series of reforms during Stolypin's administration, in his own words: "For the reform of our empire, for the reform of the empire on a firm imperial foundation, it is necessary to cultivate strong private owners in the countryside." ”
After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the structure of rural society in Tsarist Russia had in fact changed greatly, but the traditional village community (Mir) system still existed, the peasants still lived in the old patriarchal community, and Russian agriculture lagged behind Western Europe and North America with superior natural conditions.
The Stolypin agrarian reform attempted to forcibly destroy the traditional village communities, to cultivate and establish the kulak strata, to turn the poor peasant masses into a powerful reserve army of wage-labour, to ensure the needs of the workers in the rapidly rising large-scale industry, as well as the needs of the capitalist landlords and the rural bourgeoisie for the peasants, and to promote the development of Russian capitalism.
Stolypin
In the imperial Russian society of the era of imperial despotism, the Tsar was always regarded as the protector of the village community, and the village community peasants who were attached to the despotic power were more suitable for the rule of the Tsar. Stolypin's reforms to destroy the village community, although intended to strengthen state power, shook the social foundations of Tsarist rule. Nicholas II also did not like the fierce chancellor, and the Tsar was a narrow-minded man who "reluctantly tolerated only as a last resort those whom he thought were mentally and intellectually superior to himself." It was only then that he felt comfortable dealing with people whose intellect was inferior to his, or who he did not think were as well-known as he was, or who knew his weaknesses and deliberately pretended to be humble. ”
If Stolypin's reform is evaluated from the perspective of progressiveism and efficiency, it is naturally more successful, and many data on economic growth points can be used as support. However, from the perspective of social change, Stolypin's reforms actually sowed the seeds of the collapse of the Tsarist Empire. At the turn of the century, the Tsarist Empire, the foundation of Russia's grassroots society, the village community, faced the challenge of modernization.
Some of the political elites of the old system are nostalgic for the patriarchal authority and hierarchical rights and interests of the traditional village world, afraid of free competition and differentiation to break down the hierarchical barriers, of course, the peasants of the village community are even more afraid of the world that loses protection and control; while the people of Stolypin feel that the traditional commune hinders the accumulation of capital and contractual relations, and advocates emulating the West and practicing market economy and constitutional politics.
Paradoxically, both conservative and revolutionary parties in the Duma demanded the preservation of the commune. The former proceeded from the traditional ideology of the Slavics and preserved the declining village communities as part of the ancient Russian tradition. Socialist parties believe that the transition to socialism is easier than the land tenure system of millions of small peasants.
The Tsarist Empire was thus entangled between progressive and conservative, and Russia did not stay out of the power game of great power hegemony. At the beginning of the 20th century, the main drama of the great power competition was the anglo-German struggle, and Nicholas II and his empire had been oscillating between the two at first. It was not until 1907 that Russia formally joined the Anglo-French bloc, and the Entente group was formed.
Without the subsequent European wars, the Tsarist Empire might have undergone a change of government, but the national power and social development viewed from a digital perspective were moving along an upward path. Before World War I, Russia was one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, growing at a rate significantly higher than the world average and already close to that of The West. Before the war, Russia was not only a major producer and exporter of agricultural products, but also became one of the five largest industrial countries in the world, ranking behind the United States, Germany, Britain and France, of which oil exploitation ranked first in the world.
After the involvement of Tsarist Russia in World War I, both liberals and conservatives within Russian politics magically took the position of nationalism, and the liberals gave moral significance to the great war as a war between the so-called democratic state and the autocratic empire, and if the Allies won, it would accelerate the democratization process in Russia itself; while the conservatives, the more conservatives, hoped to use the victory of the war to consolidate the tsarist autocracy.
A voice permeated the whole empire:
All in order to defend sacred Russia! All for the sake of our country, our faith and our tsar!
On July 26, 1914, Nicholas II came to the Russian Duma Parliament. Together, the parliamentarians paid a fanatical tribute to the Tsar and supported the government in waging this imperialist war.
After the crushing defeat to Japan in 1905, Tsarist Russia did carry out some military reforms and armaments reorganization. In May 1905, Russia established a National Defense Commission, independent of all government departments, with broad powers in formulating military regulations and deciding on all military policy.
In November 1907, the Third State Duma established the National Defense Conference, chaired by Ya Guchkov. At the same time, state military appropriations are subject to approval by the State Duma and reviewed and supervised by the State Duma Financial Council, which may also be part of the constitutional reform of the Russian State.
An important achievement of the military reform in Tsarist Russia was the adoption in 1908 of the Report on State Defence Measures to be Implemented in the Last Decade, prepared under the auspices of the then Chief of the General Staff, Fedor Paritsian, with the aim of restoring military strength and military modernization, vigorously reorganizing the army, restoring the fleet in the Baltic and Pacific, increasing the regular army in peacetime, supporting the troops with modern military technology and improving the quality of the equipment of the various services.
It is undeniable that between 1909 and 1912, Russia's military strength was greatly restored and even increased. In the subsequent World War I, the total wartime strength of the Army reached 3.268 million people, with an annual expenditure of 306.7 rubles. In 1909 and 1910, the Army was also rearmament, equipping the Army with a 122mm howitzer of the 1909 type, a 107 mm heavy gun of the 1910 type, and a 3-inch gun of the 1910 type to the Mountain Artillery Unit. At the same time, by 1910 each of the 352 infantry regiments had formed machine gun teams, of which 123 machine gun teams each had 8 machine guns and the rest had 4 machine guns each. By 1912, 126 flight instructors had been trained and 8 aviation teams had been formed. In the artillery unit, the number of field artillery companies was increased, reaching 442. 74 howitzer companies were also formed. The total number of artillery companies added was 120, half of which were heavy artillery companies.
Two major groups
Naval construction is faltering. In April 1908, a task force headed by the heads of the two major general staffs of the army and navy came to extremely disappointing conclusions after inspecting the Baltic Fleet. In their view, once the war began, the German fleet could land in any Russian coastal area within 3 days:
Our Baltic Fleet will be completely unable to conduct combat operations in the baltic waters and will be forced to confine its activities to the Gulf of Finland... There is no justification for some serious resistance of our standing fleet: it may be destroyed by a single blow due to a great imbalance in power.
Whether it is shipbuilding technology or naval training, the Russian Empire is far from the European powers.
After 1910, as the international situation became more tense, the pace of Russia's strong army entered a more critical stage. The actual financial support was not coordinated with the plan for the reorganization of the army, and from the end of 1910 to the beginning of 1911, the Minister of War, B.A. Sukhomlinov, and the Minister of The Exchequer B. H. Kokovtsov had a serious controversy, and the army department's demand for increased financial support was clearly in contrast to the financial department's inadequacy.
Due to the lack of financial support, the situation of the Russian Army at that time was not optimistic. There were only food, military supplies and health reserves, and although the most common engineering equipment was plentiful, they needed to be replenished in 1913-1914. Rifles, revolvers, and bullets also supplied the troops in sufficient quantities, but the models were old, the hulls and warheads were bulky, and the shooting performance was poor.
The situation was even worse for the artillery: only the light guns had the necessary number, the mortars were nearly 50 percent absent according to the prescribed configuration, the new heavy guns were completely absent, and the old artillery of the 1877 type could only be replaced by the end of 1914; the rearmament of the fortress guns could not be half completed until 1916; the siege guns were still only on the drawings, and the time to equip the troops was far away...
The situation in the Army was so bad, but later the additional financial appropriations were tilted in favor of the Navy. Between 1909 and 1910, at a series of government meetings to consider the strengthening of the army and navy, the army and navy received roughly equal appropriations: the army received 715 million rubles and the navy received 695 million rubles. But in fact, in the five years from 1909 to 1913, the outbreak of the War, the army's financial growth was 195.17 million rubles, while the navy reached 285.64 million rubles, almost double the former and a half.
If you look at the international situation at that time, no matter from that point of view, the European land battlefield will be the main battlefield of the Russian army, and Europe has the Zhuli of the German army and the Austro-Hungarian army, no matter which front, the Russian army must face. It was only the European land war that really determined the success or failure of the Russian military operations, and also determined the fate of Russia.
The disconnect between the investment of Russian military resources and the reality of the situation reflected the confusion of the military strategy of the Tsarist Empire, also said to be due to Nicholas II's own preference for the navy. As "the weakest link in the chain of imperialism", the Russian Empire did not have the economic strength necessary for the rapid development of military strength, and the tightening of the belt to expand the army and strengthen the army could only cause endless harm.
3. Bring down the Tsar
After participating in the War, the weakness and lack of Tsarist Russia were exposed, and even the basic arms production capacity could not meet the needs of the war. At that time, the front line needed 250 million rounds of ammunition per month, but Russia could only make 40 million rounds a month; the front line needed 1.5 million shells per month, but Russia could only make 50,000 rounds per month. In August 1915, about 1/3 of the Russian soldiers on the front line did not have guns and had to wait to receive their weapons from their dead or wounded comrades. In the face of the overwhelming superiority of the German artillery and machine guns, countless Russian soldiers turned into a tired bone on the battlefield. In the first year of the war alone, 1.4 million Russian troops were killed, and another 975,000 were sent to German-Austrian prisoner-of-war camps.
Compared with the Western powers such as Britain, France, the United States, and Germany, Russian industry is not only very technologically backward, but also very dependent on foreign countries. Before the war, Russia imported machinery from abroad for 37 percent, and the self-sufficiency rate for important equipment and lathes was less than 33 percent. 40% of the country's metallurgical industry, 50% of the chemical industry, 90% of the mining industry and almost 100% of the petroleum industry are foreign-funded. In terms of size, Russian industry accounts for only 2.7 per cent of the world's total industrial output, only 7 per cent of the United States, 17 per cent of Germany, 22 per cent of England and 40 per cent of France.
The War even dragged down the already weak Russian economy. In order to cover the huge costs of the war, the Tsarist government borrowed heavily and indiscriminately issued paper money, which led to a sharp increase in foreign debt and inflation. Under the blow of the economic policy of giving priority to the military industry, a large number of general industrial enterprises have shown a wave of closure. In 1916 alone, the total number of enterprises in Russia was reduced by one third compared to 1913, and the number of enterprises closed during the war exceeded the number of new enterprises. During the war, nearly half of the labor force was conscripted, and about 2 million horses and other livestock were transferred to the military, resulting in a sharp decline in domestic food production. Food was scarce, prices were soaring, and the people of Russia were living in dire straits, all because of the Tsar, whom they regarded as a loving father.
The Russian army at that time was dominated by illiterate and semi-illiterate peasants, who did not understand the "patriotism" of bureaucrats and politicians and nationalist intellectuals. As General Brusinov said in his Memoirs:
The Russian army is not only inferior to the enemy in military equipment, "but also the soldiers' understanding and preparation for war is even worse." It's very negative... The masses are completely unprepared psychologically for war in Europe."
Soldiers from peasant origin were motivated by a thirst for land, believing that if the war was won, Nicholas II would divide the land in Siberia and other newly conquered areas equally among the peasants as a reward for their participation in the war.
In real war, however, soldiers are often confused about "why do you need to capture swamps that can't be cultivated, why do you need to launch a frontal attack on those sparsely wooded cliffs?" What is the point of protecting the unfamiliar, muddy and impassable lands of Romania and Galicia? ”
Resentment pervaded the hearts of the soldiers. The wars of the new technological age were far more tragic than those of the 19th century, and this terrorized the simple Russian peasants. "War is madness, death and destruction, and it can be truly understood as a mad, physical and mental act of destruction." War-weary sentiment is also a common psychological trait of most Russian troops.
Poor empires could not afford to wage resource-intensive wars. As early as December 1914, General Kuropatkin, supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Northern Front, repeatedly said that soldiers on the front line did not have enough to eat, "many people did not have boots, and their legs were frostbitten." An infantry brigade had not been supplied for three months, and in the battle with the Germans, the right flank of the position 1. 40,000 soldiers had no rifles. "In the summer campaign of 1915, due to the general lack of weapons of the front-line troops, a large number of soldiers had to go to the front line unarmed to face the German artillery fire, and the Russians lost 2.4 million soldiers, of whom nearly 1 million were captured.
Russian army
In the war with the Germans, poor Russian soldiers saw German concrete trenches, waterworks, fireplaces, pianos, swimming pools, etc. The social welfare and public measures in Germany were far better than in Russia, and with the help of these personal life experiences, the soldiers learned more about the superiority of German firepower.
In desperation, more and more soldiers hated not only the war, but even the Russian Supreme Commander Tsar Nicholas II himself, and this sentiment spread among the soldiers...
In the cold winter of 1916-1917, on the 1,200-mile-long Russian front, millions of soldiers endured the cold in the ice and snow, and the people in the rear were also hungry.
The Tsarist Empire, which was trapped internally and externally, sat on the crater. Beginning in January 1917, a workers' strike broke out in almost all major russian cities, and the demonstrators no longer prayed for the Tsar's mercy, but shouted "oppose the war" and "Down with the Tsar."
On International Women's Day on March 8, 1917, under the organization of the Bolshevik Party, the women workers of St. Petersburg took to the streets, "Down with the war!" "Down with the Tsar!" "Give us back your husband in the trenches!" These slogans shook the skies over the imperial Russian capital, and more workers and citizens joined in, with more than 90,000 marchers.
On March 10, the number of marchers increased to 250,000. Almost all factories have been shut down, and even shops have closed their doors. Thousands of people dressed in all colors poured into the streets. Most notably, numerous university students, intellectuals, petty officials and even military officers joined the march singing Marseillaise.
Having learned the lesson of 1905, in response to possible riots, the Tsar's Petersburg Military District was equipped with military forces to suppress the people. On 10 March, Nicholas II ordered Khabalov, commander of the Petrograd Military District, to quell the unrest in the capital. It seems that the bloody slaughter is about to begin. However, the Tsar never dreamed that in the face of the surging public opinion, the soldiers put down their guns and even fell to the side of the protesters.
The revolution in the capital thus began, the important government offices of Tsarist Russia were taken by the insurrectionary people one after another, almost no decent resistance was encountered, the people's backlash was already very obvious, tens of thousands of soldiers from St. Petersburg joined the uprising camp, and the destiny of the empire was coming to an end.
February Revolution
Nicholas II was not only spurned by the people, but also lost the support of bureaucrats, capitalists and even generals. At this time, no one in the State Duma cheered any more long live the Tsar, and only hoped that the Emperor would abdicate quickly. Many important generals also abandoned the Tsar at this time, the commander of the Northwest Front, Ruzsky, the commander of the Southwest Front, Brusilov, etc., all advocated the abdication of the Tsar, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Kolchak, did not express his position, and only the commander of the Romanian Front, Sakharov, supported the Tsar.
On 15 March, Nicholas II signed an abdication edict, which was passed on to his younger brother Archduke Mikhail, who also announced his abdication on 18 March, bringing down the Romanov dynasty that had ruled Russia for 304 years and the tsarist system that had existed for 371 years.
March 8, 1917, in the Russian calendar is February 23, so this revolution is called the "February Revolution". In the familiar narrative of revolutionary history, the next revolution in Russia is about to take place. As a Russian writer who once held a prominent position in the Soviet government said:
In Russia on the eve of the 20th century, there was not a word that fascinated Russians as much as "revolution." The propertied are full of fear and hatred for the idea of revolution, while those who yearn for freedom are full of love and admiration for it. For Russians who yearn for a new life, the word 'revolution' is full of magic. As they envisioned the "revolution" and chanted the sacred slogan "Long live the revolution," the Russians seemed to have a vague sense that they were already on the road to freedom.