But all powerlessness, if it
is unable to prevent a crime, becomes complicity; and this was the
result: personally guiltless of any offence against my brother, I have
become in the eyes of all those unconcerned and those of my brother
himself, a Cain."
The new Russia is being born while I write these lines, and
intelligent Americans are discussing nothing else except this great
world event--comparable in importance even to the colossal war itself.
If we wish to understand educated Russia--which has brought about the
change--many-sided, large-hearted and intellectually more brilliant
perhaps than the educated class of any other nation, we cannot do
better than to read and think over what that galaxy of Russian genius
that has composed the present volume has written. We must not forget
that the educated class in Russia is almost as numerous as in the
other great nations, and perhaps plays an even more important role in
Russia than it does in other countries. What Russia has lacked has
been neither an educated class nor masses capable and ready to be
trained to any kind of modern employment, but a great technically
trained, free and organised "intellectual middle class"--an expression
I am forced to coin for my present purpose.
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