decree, but that was of very little importance, for the radical press had
thrown off all its restraints, simply ignoring the censorship. The
government of Nicholas II was quite as helpless as it was tyrannical,
corrupt, and inefficient. The army and navy, demoralized by the defeat
suffered at the hands of Japan, and especially by knowledge of the
corruption in high places which made that defeat inevitable, were no longer
dependable. Tens of thousands of soldiers and marines had joined with the
workmen in the cities in open rebellion. Many more indulged themselves in
purposeless rioting.

The organization of the various councils of delegates representing
factory-workers and peasants, inevitable as it seemed to be, had one
disastrous effect, the seriousness of which cannot be overstated. As we
have seen, the cruel, blundering policy of the government had united all
classes against it in a revolutionary movement of unexampled magnitude.
Given the conditions prevailing in Russia, and especially the lack of
industrial development and the corresponding numerical weakness of the
industrial proletariat, it was evident that the only chance of success in
the Revolution lay in the united effort of all classes against the old
régime. Nothing could have better served the autocracy, and therefore
injured the revolutionary cause, than the creation of a division in the
ranks of the revolutionists.

This was exactly what the separate organizations of the working class
accomplished. All the provocative agents of the Czar could not have
contrived anything so serviceable to the reaction. _Divide et impera_ has
been the guiding principle of cunning despots in all ages, and the astutest
advisers of Nicholas II must have grinned with Satanic glee when they
realized how seriously the forces they were contending against were
dividing. Stupid oppression had driven into one united force the