Crowds begin to be dangerously large.
I watched the growth of the revolt with wonder. Knowing something of the dissatisfaction in the country, I marveled at the stupidity of the Government in permitting the police to handle its inception as they did. Any hundred New York or London policemen, or any hundred Petrograd policemen, could have prevented the demonstrations by the simple process of closing the streets. But they let people crowd in from the side streets to see what was going on even when the crowds were beginning to be dangerously large, and, having permitted them to come, charged among them at random as if expressly making them angry.
Ease with which Czar was overthrown.
I look back now at the time before the Revolution. The life of Petrograd is much as it was to outward appearances except that the new republican soldiers are now policing the streets, occasional citizens are wearing brassarts showing they are deputies of some sort or members of law-and-order committees, and there is a certain joyous freedom in the walk of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast empire, a revolt lacking all signs of terrorism, growing out of nothing into a sudden burst of indignation, knocked over the most absolute of autocracies. Just to look, it is hard to believe it true. As a Socialist said to me to-day: "The empire was rotten ready. One kick of a soldier's boot, and the throne with all its panoplies disappeared, leaving nothing but dust."
I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma the other day:
Revolution inevitable after Duma was dissolved.
"From what date was the revolution inevitable?"
I expected him to name one of the days immediately before the revolt, but he replied:
"When the Duma was dissolved in December without being granted a responsible ministry."
"How late might the Emperor have saved his throne?"