the ranks of the landowners prevented them from demonstrating on their
own estates the value of applied knowledge as well as from teaching the
peasants how to increase the productivity of the land through intensive
farming. Thus it came to pass that the vast majority of landowners, both
conservative and liberal, remained strangers to the people among whom
they lived, whose labor they employed, and for whose welfare many were in
earnest concerned. The Constitutional Democratic party is strong in the
cities. In the country it has no followers and in the sweeping incendiary
fires of 1905-06 estates were burned which belonged in several cases to men
who spent their life in fighting for freedom against the tsar's government.

No less unfortunate is the party in its relation to the class of factory
workers. That part of its program which relates to the labor question
embraces a number of important reforms meeting almost all demands of the
working class. The barrier between them is the capitalistic principle. A
perusal of the lists of Constitutional Democrats who have subscribed large
sums for the Russian liberty loan will show why workmen speak of them as
capitalists even though the party has accepted the principle of progressive
income taxation. There is a feeling of intense hatred toward all
Constitutional Democrats on the part of all workmen.

Nothing is more instructive than the rapid change in the position which the
Constitutional Democratic party occupied in the eyes of the people after
the revolution. Before the outbreak of hostilities all parties were against
war. But soon, under the influence of the German methods of warfare in
Belgium, France, and Russia, the feeling changed. Even the Mensheviki among
the Social-Democrats declared themselves in favor of war and the only
party remaining firm in condemning all war was that of the Bolsheviki. The
entrance of the Turks into the war was almost considered a godsend by
the Constitutional Democrats, Octoberists, and Conservatives in the Duma