how antiquated is the Russian system, we shall answer "Yes; that is the
superiority of Russia." Their institutions are part of their history,
whether as relics or fossils. Their abuses have really been uses: that
is to say, they have been used up. If they have old engines of terror
or torment, they may fall to pieces from mere rust, like an old coat of
armour. But in the case of the Prussian tyranny, if it be tyranny at all,
it is the whole point of its claim that it is not antiquated, but just
going to begin, like the showman. Prussia has a whole thriving factory of
thumbscrews, a whole humming workshop of wheels and racks, of the newest
and neatest pattern, with which to win back Europe to the Reaction ...
_infandum renovare dolorem_ And if we wish to test the truth of this, it
can be done by the same method which showed us that Russia, if her race or
religion could sometimes make her an invader and an oppressor, could also
be made an emancipator and a knight errant. In the same way, if the Russian
institutions are old-fashioned, they honestly exhibit the good as well as
the bad that can be found in old-fashioned things.

In their police system they have an inequality which is against our ideas
of law. But in their commune system they have an equality that is older
than law itself. Even when they flogged each other like barbarians, they
called upon each other by their Christian names like children. At their
worst they retained all the best of a rude society. At their best, they
are simply good, like good children or good nuns. But in Prussia, all that
is best in the civilised machinery is put at the service of all that is
worst in the barbaric mind. Here again the Prussian has no accidental
merits, none of those lucky survivals, none of those late repentances,
which make the patchwork glory of Russia. Here all is sharpened to a point
and pointed to a purpose, and that purpose, if words and acts have any
meaning at all, is the destruction of liberty throughout the world.