THE RUSSIAN SPIRIT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 263, 10 December 1914, Page 6

THE RUSSIAN SPIRIT.

A PROMISE OF VICTORY. [By A. Montefiore Brice.] The Germans, and particularly the German military writers, have been in th,e habit of making light of the Russians. Berrihardi, indeed, tells us that they can easily be dealt with. He is thinking, of eourse, of the Japanese War, and miscalculating, as usual, the weakening influences of the internal politics of Russia. For Bernhardi is wrong in this as in other of his speculations. The war has united Russia in a common patriotism beyond all precedent, and 1 believe the Russian will reveal himself as a reliable factor in the rescue of Europe from the German Hun. In considering what you can count and what you should discount in estimating the capacity of the Russian, there is one tremendous characteristic which must be always reckoned with. It is not merely the confidence of the Russian in the destiny of his race—-deep-rooted though that be; it is not merely the animal stubbornness which enables him to endure the hardest of physical experiences; but it is his abiding spiritual faith in manhood—and his own manhood in particular—which makes him an enemy to be considered. Patient, modest, simple, with a huge capacity of moral endurance, he stands out individually as a fit antagonist to the emotional German with his flamboyant valour. As to his sublime'and unquenchable-faith in his- race, all I can say is that Germany and the German simply do not count when the Russian looks out beyond his country. For Russia, he will tell you, with quiet Certainty, will be a great nation when Germany is forgotten. . ■ > Moving On. Although it is the mode with the intelligentsia of Russia to deprecate everything Russian, and in this way to show the sickness of heart which follows on deferred hope, I believe thiS is more a pose than a creed; and, in any case, the intelligentsia are not the Russian people. . Nine men out of every .teii in the Russian Army are peasants, or at any rate, of the peasant class; and this class not only hates the Germans, but despises them as heartily. The veriest inujik will tell you with a wonderful scorn that "the Germans do not think of making men—they only make goods"; and you have but to realise what the individual hand worker, labouring with the rudest tools, does for the great Muscovite Empire to perceive what the mujik means by this. It has been glibly said that the Russian is a man of three parts;—body, soul, and passport. Perhaps; but the- passport is an incident and not an ingredient. Without theory, without learning, almost without co-operation, the Russian is moving on. In spite of a handicap as few races are handicapped, he lays hold on, the reality of life with a grasp that does not relax. On the surface unpractical, mentally whimsical, and too often individually inert, he carries within him an elixir which lifts him again over the most formidable of the barriers which' a lopsided civilisation heaps up against liim. And this elixir seems to me his saturated sense of the spiritual. It is the conquering impulse of his life, and envelopes every fraction of his work and being. His Spiritual Impulses.

I do not for a moment claim him as a great Christian. His theology is an unequal mixture of the crude teaching of the Orthodox Church and of the relics of an ancestral paganism. The evil spirits which haunt him through life are as real persons as his priests. If he should but yawn, lie will make the sign of the cross to prevent the devil from jumping into his mouth —he believes in the Cross no more than,, or perhaps I should say, as'much as, he believes in that acrobat of a devil. He submits, on the one hand, to the picturesque pressure of the Orthodox Church, and, on the other, to the incitement of a host of demons. When he marches in thronged procession behind the coped priest to see the waters blessed, he takes care to leave a wide gap in the procession Avliere the inevitable evil spirits may also walk. When his priest, with acolyte and holy water, comes at his expense to bless the growing crops, the mujik will not forget also to light bonfires and jump through them; nOr his maidens to bathe themselves in the water hard by, just as their pagan ancestors did three thousand years since. He is, in short, drenched with spiritual impulses, and these buoy him up and make him irresistible when once he sees his object clear before him and sets out to reach it. Big as his body is, it seems scarcely able to contain the motions of his big soul. Strong to Endure. And the two together uplift these apparently unpractical Russians above all common planes. They are strong, indeed, to endure. With no horizon beyond the daily round of toil, with little food beyond' the poorest of rye-bread and the most doubtful of preserved fish, they will maintain a steady cheerfulness and labour the longest hours with scant intervals of rest. In the summer I have known them rise before three in the morning and labour until nine at night —steadfastly, patiently, unswervingly, day after day: possessed with the single thought that they shall overcome the task of reaping the crops of many fields with all too few hands, and so complete the long drawn-out labour of the year —'' Glory be to God.'' I have seen the same on the great Siberian railroad. Whole armies of men, working like giants often enough, pursuing the same end with unquenclied spirit. —though they renewed their wasting bodies with mere hunks of black bread, a few pickled vegetables, and now and again some scraps of salt fish. But the extraordinary sense of spiritual impulse was dominant. They had a great workto do —something worth the doing —a clear ideal at last, and they pursued it without halt or hesitation. ->f I say nothing here of the new military training; the higher tactical value of the Russian soldier; the reform of the Russian oflicer; the entirely revolutionised organisation of the Russian Army. But I have dealt with the moral of the great masses which make that army, and if we have learnt anything at all about modern warfare it is this —that most, other things being fairly equal or not greatly unequalised, the men . who are the superior in moral are also, the men who will overcome.