In terms of ultimate consequences, history may well record the past two years as among the most significant for the future of Russia and the world. The following three quotations indicate a key to analysis:
But with the suppression of the political life throughout the land, the life of the Soviets also must grow more and more paralyzed. Without general elections, unrestricted freedom of the press and of assembly, free conflict of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, be-comes a mere semblance of life, in which the bureaucracy remains alone as the active element. No one can evade this law. The public life gradually falls asleep, a dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless idealism direct and govern. Among these, the actual leadership is exercised by a dozen pre-eminent brains, and a selected group of the workers is invited to meetings from time to time to applaud the speeches of the leaders, and to approve by unanimous vote the resolutions laid before them.