Russia After the St. Petersburg Massacre
THE seriousness of the present situation in Russia can be appreciated only in the light of the fact that the terrible affair of Sunday, January 22, in St. Petersburg, is understood by the people to have been a deliberate massacre. The volleys that mowed down the hapless victims also shattered forever the traditional sentiment which had enshrined the czar in the hearts of the Russian people as the “little father.” “The patient, loyal, devoted Russian people,” says one paper, “no longer possess a czar in the traditional, tender, venerable sense of the name.” And will there be any longer “a patient, loyal, devoted Russian people” to carry out the will of an autocratic government? This is the paramount question, and many observers in Europe and in this country are answering it in the negative.