An American who was in Petrograd at the time gives the following account of the revolution:
Their first demand was that all prison doors should be opened and that the oppressed the world over should be freed.
The revolution was picturesque and full of color. Nearly every morning one could see regiment after regiment, soldiers, Cossacks, and sailors, with their regimental colors, and bands, and revolutionary flags, marching to the Duma to take the new oath of allegiance. They were cheered; they were blessed; handkerchiefs were waved; hats were raised, as marks of appreciation and gratitude to these men, without whose help there would have been no revolution. The enthusiasm became so contagious that men and women, young and old, high and low, fell in alongside, or behind, joined in the singing of the Marseillaise, and walked to the Duma to take the oath of allegiance, and having taken it, they felt as purified as if they had partaken of the communion.
Another picturesque sight was the army trucks filled with armed soldiers, red handkerchiefs tied to their bayonets, dashing up and down the streets, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the citizens, but really for the mere joy of riding about and being cheered. One of these trucks stands out vividly in my mind: it contained about twenty soldiers, having in their midst a beautiful young woman with a red banner, and a young hoodlum astride the engine.
No one knows, at the end of the fourth year of the World War, what the result of the Russian revolution will be. It has so far left Russia a prey to Germany, but Germany is showing such criminal greed and unfairness that she may find her easily gained plunder will be her destruction, like the drowning robber with his pockets filled with gold.
The Russian mooshik has a motto, or rather a philosophy, which is expressed by the word "nitchevo." This word has several meanings, one of which is "nothing." Just what the mooshik has in mind when he says "nitchevo" is illustrated by the following story.
When Bismarck was Prussian ambassador at the court of Tsar Alexander II, he was invited by the Tsar to take part in a great hunt, a dozen or more miles out of the capital.
Bismarck started with his own horses and sledge but soon met with a serious accident, and was obliged to call upon the Russian peasants, or mooshiki, to help him by providing a horse, sledge, and driver. Soon a peasant appeared with a very small and raw-boned horse attached to a sledge that seemed about ready to fall to pieces.
"That looks more like a rat than a horse," growled Bismarck, but he got into the sledge.
The peasant answered but one word, "Nitchevo."