The international future depends upon the possibility
of the initial creation of good will between nations.
It is in this sort of matter that revolutions are
most useful. If the Russian Revolution had been
accompanied by a revolution in Germany, the dramatic
suddenness of the change might have shaken
Europe, for the moment, out of its habits of thought:
the idea of fraternity might have seemed, in the
twinkling of an eye, to have entered the world of
practical politics; and no idea is so practical as the
idea of the brotherhood of man, if only people can be
startled into believing in it. If once the idea of
fraternity between nations were inaugurated with the
faith and vigor belonging to a new revolution, all the
difficulties surrounding it would melt away, for all
of them are due to suspicion and the tyranny of
ancient prejudice. Those who (as is common in the
English-speaking world) reject revolution as a
method, and praise the gradual piecemeal development
which (we are told) constitutes solid progress,
overlook the effect of dramatic events in changing
the mood and the beliefs of whole populations. A
simultaneous revolution in Germany and Russia
would no doubt have had such an effect, and would
have made the creation of a new world possible here
and now.
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