Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2025
The national character of the Russians of today and their social structure, both of which are in process of evolution, are reflected almost completely in the changes which are going on in one class.
The doctor of medicine and philosophy raised a pair of strong hands which had been used in surgery at one of the war hospitals in Moscow during the afternoon, and to accompany oratory at a meeting of the Constitutional Democrats - the Cadet Party - in the evening. “You will learn at last in America that this Great War will have its benefits,” the Doctor said. “It is teaching us that we are strong; it has issued a call to us commanding us to learn to organize and act, not only in war but also in peace; it has taught us to see a world larger than the world of our family doorsteps. It has shown us that we can do all that is necessary to the old and true duties and, at our best, have energy and desire to accept new labors. The war has taught us! This morning at breakfast my children spoke of Russian victory. I said to them that the great Russian victories were in the new thought and visions of the people.”
The Doctor did not speak of any class; the words were without any suggestion of distinction between different kinds of Russian hearts and Russian heads. There are almost twice as many men, women and children in the Empire than there are in our States; the Doctor seemed to include them all. The Doctor was nearing middle age but was still pretty, even in a severe woolen suit. She is an attractive and competent woman.
The reason for her unconsciousness of sex is not difficult to define. Russia is the foremost undeveloped country in the world. It is the Potentiality of our time. Like its own flat gray expanse of physical surface beneath which untouched treasures of resource lie, a crust of mystery covers the human resource of the Russian millions; the call and the charm of Russia is not in its romantic, hazardous, youthful past, nor in its picturesque customs of the present, but in the suppressed seethe of human force beneath the crust.
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