ABSTRACT
In Russia defeat in 1905 at the hands of Japan was followed by a revolution which failed to end the autocracy; defeat at the hands of Germany in 1916 was followed by a revolution which not only overthrew the autocracy, but in the end overthrew the existing social and economic structure as well. The defeat was perhaps less at the hands of Germany, though she had checked the Brusilov offensive, Russia's last, in 1916, than at the hands of her own leaders. Their economic planning for the war had been minimal; so that by the end of 1916 the army was beginning to run short of essential supplies and the cities to run out of food. Their psychological control of the country was negligible; so that a sense of defeat needed no military disaster to create it. It existed in the rumours that the Emperor, Nicholas II, and the circle round Rasputin (a man of peasant origin who had gained the Emperor's and Empress's confidence by his ability to relieve their son, suffering from haemophilia) were betraying the country and was not alleviated when Rasputin was assassinated by Prince Yussupov in the presence of other courtiers (December 30, 1916). The sense of defeat existed because there was a vacuum where the autocracy once, under Nicholas I, had commanded and given coherence to an easily disintegrated country. The liberal Ministry had too little independent authority to fill the vacuum. In Volume One much already was said of the opposition groups ready to overthrow the liberal régime which in the dozen years of its existence had struck no deep roots. Now was their opportunity.
