this question is: we are still in the same old world; it was not crushed by 
the avalanches of dynamite and steel which fell on it; it was not created 
anew or even given a new face neither by the light-winged illusions nor by 
high-sounding words. And our way leads to the aim of settling down once 
more in this very same world as comfortably as possible, — so as to make 
life tolerable and dignified. After the violent outburst, the nations returned 
to the consciousness that eternity cannot be subdued, and that there is 
no escape from to-morrow. Primum vivere, and within the limits of life, 
within the limits of the perceptible, within the results of thousands of 
years work, — lies the care of the future, the foresight obligatory to those 
who rule or reign. May be that in a distant, still undefinable future, 
Germany will again become dangerous and menacing; what can be done 
against such a contingency now- we shall not fail to provide for, but we 
cannot help allowing her to live and to get strong once more, for otherwise 
the deep chasm in the centre of Europe will swallow us all; an economic 
vacuum or social whirl-pool might easily absorb our own possessions and 
our welfare, — a local catastrophe might become general. Such is the 
import of what is happening now in the most significant spot of Europe 
and the world. This attitude of the victors against the defeated reveals 
the reasonable sobriety which has been restored to its rights, and which says 
that for a thorough re-arrangement the contemporanian world is too 
large, too bulky and too weighty, reveals the strength returning to the 
wearied nations and which prevents one from becoming paralised with 
terror at the thought that sometime or other new complications might arise 
somewhere or other. It is not by chance that the most active part in the 
reconstruction of Germany is taken by the powerful American Republic 
and by the equally powerful British Empire, nor is it by chance that 
precisely Germany, being the most weakened, should make the most of the 
Bolshevic fanthom. — 
The strength and the intelligence of Europe is growing afresh, and 
Russias salvation will also come out of these two factors inasmuch as the 
non-Russian world can, and must take part in this action. When the last 
remains of Bolshevism will have vanished from the world, it will also 
disappear from Russia, and she will be saved then, not in spite of Europe, 
but partly because of it. Sooner or later Europe will realise that an open 
abyss in the East of Europe is no less dangerous than the one which 
threatened to appear in its centre, and then the rare paladins who say 
so now, won't be the only ones to say: do not tempt us with Bolshevic 
trade, we are not for sale ourselves, and we do not trade in our historical 
destinies, — this will be unanimously proclaimed, and this call will bring 
down the walls of the Bolshevic Jericho. This is not a prophecy, it is 
only the process which has already ostensibly made itself conspicuous when 
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