What Are You Doing - Where Do You Stand?

Marquette Law Review, Dec 1920

By Gilbert E. Brach, Published on 01/01/20

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What Are You Doing - Where Do You Stand?

Issue W hat Are You Doing - W here Do You Stand? Gilbert E. Brach Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Law Commons Repository Citation - Published quarterly during the School Year by the Marquette Law Review Subscription Price, $1.00 per year 50 cents per number EDITORIAL BOARD GILBERT E. BRACH .................................. Edtor-n-Chief SYLVESTER F. DONOVAN, EDWARD T. CURLEY ...... Associates JOHN T. LINDSAY .............................. Advertising Manager EDWARD C. PLANTZ, JOHN C. SUTTON ................ Assistants HERBERT C. HIRSCHBOECK..................... Business Manager MATT F. BILEK, JAMES C. DUTTON.................... Assistants THOMAS C. DWYER ............................ Circulation Manager VICTOR I. MINAHAN, JR., LEO J. COHEN............... 4ssistants CLIFTON WILLIAMS ............ Faculty Advisor WHAT ARE YOU DOING -WHERE DO YOU STAND? It is the prevailing sentiment in this country that the revolution in Russia in March, 1917, was the awakening of the Russian nation from its lethargy of centuries. True, the shackles of feudalism were thrown off for a new order of government, but the revolution was the direct result of the protesting peoples whose opposition to the oppressive system had been met with deaf ears, or perhaps, a free trip to Siberia. Russia had been plodding along in a rut, because she had been kept ignorant by the minority in power, who ruled not for the people, but for themselves. The strong arm of force was used to keep the people in line with the existing system. But as history points out to us, force cannot keep down the spirit of a subjected peoples. The Russians met secretly to discuss their plight. I am told they met in dug-outs, in thick forests, in attics, and from these places disseminated their doctrines. They formed various parties, the two leading ones being the Mensheviki (meaning minority), and the Bolsheviki (meaning majority). The former proposed to change the existing political order by slow progressive action. It was the latter's motive to set aside the old order and establish a new based upon the doctrines as laid down by leading German radicals. Those in power in Russia knew that the people were very much dissatisfied over their, condition, but made no effort to improve it. The sentiment of the ruling minority correctly expressed in the words of Milukov, who, upon looking from his window and seeing a throng of the revolutionists carrying the red flag said: "There goes the Russian revolution and it will be crushed in fifteen minutes." But he was mistaken, for he had misjudged. The very forces upon which the Tsar's government had relied were swayed by the passions of the masses. The Cossacks joined the revolution and the old regime was replaced by Kerensky and his followers. The world rejoiced, for those in power proposed to set up a Democracy fashioned after ours. The people were told to go back to work, for the next move was the formation of a state. The people went back to work. They gathered together into small organizations and elected one of their number whom they could trust to represent them as a delegate at Petrograd. These organizations were formed according to the trade in which a man earned his livelihood as, for instance, the machinists, engineers, teachers, farmers, and so on. This action was spontaneous wherever there was a group of Russians, even to the warships in the foreign waters. At Petrograd the delegates elected formed the All Russian Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers. The Soviet was the natural organization of the Russian people. It would appear to have its origin in the mir of the village and the artel of the city. The assembly of the mir under the old regime was made up of all the peasant householders of the village community, who elected a headman called (starosta). This organization governed the village community from very early history. The nmir was dominated by police commissioners representing the government. The artel clearly manifests the co-operative spirit of the Russians. It has been one of the prominent features of the Russian social life, and is characteristic of the very people who formed it. When any workmen would migrate from any of the provinces to an industrial center, they would immediately unite info groups of .from fen to fifty, settle in a house together, and each was then obliged to pay his share to the elected elder of the artel. Wherever there was a gathering of Russian people, whether in industry, in the forests, on journeys, there was a network of artels. 58 After the successful political revolution the people of Russia were not satisfied. They demanded the land, the factories, for they claimed that everything should be nationalized for the people. It is at this juncture of the turmoil that followed the revolution that the Bolsheviks saw their opportunity, for the minds of the great mass of the people were neutral, as the psychologist woul (...truncated)


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Gilbert E. Brach. What Are You Doing - Where Do You Stand?, Marquette Law Review, 1920, Volume 4, Issue 2,