THE LAND OF RIDDLES
(RUSSIA OF TO-DAY)
THE LAND OF RIDDLES
(RUSSIA OF TO-DAY)
I INTRODUCTION
Shortly before my departure from Vienna I chanced to meet an acquaintance, a Viennese writer.
"Are you really going to Russia?" said he. "I almost envy you, for it is to us a land of riddles. It has great artists and writers and undoubtedly a highly educated upper stratum of the nation; at the same time it displays political conditions really barbarous in their backwardness. How are these co-ordinated? How is the maintenance possible, in the close proximity of comparatively free governments, of a régime which knows no personal liberty, no privacy of the mails, and in which there is but one master—namely, the absolute police?"