On the Internal Front

P. Krasnov’s memoirs cover the period from April 1917 to the October Revolution. He describes in great detail the picture of a collapsing Empire and the petty Napoleons flitting about against this tragic canvas—Robespierre-like types, corrupted by the Bolsheviks’ sailors, who went mad with idleness and opened up prospects, and all kinds of idealists-internationalists with long-boiled brains and rotting souls. The picture is even more frightening than a Bruegel painting, because death arrives just as inevitably—but slowly, and that’s why it creates futile hopes.