place there grew up distrust, and something more than distrust, a vague, instinctive hatred of authority, an inarticulate and hidden resistance.
At this stage the army began to disintegrate, to rot away. Soldiers began to desert en masse for the rear, returning to their villages. No figures are available, but on the authority of people who know the situation, these desertions became a problem of extreme gravity. The military authorities could think of only one way of stopping this rot—to tighten up discipline—and one should know what discipline meant in the old days, to realise what severity is implied in this statement. Of course it only made things worse.
But if the army (the foundation of auto cracy) was disintegrating, it may be said that the whole civil structure was in a state of dangerous decay. Favouritism and corruption flourished as never before in Russia. I shall give only one instance, but it is a sufficiently illuminating one. So flagrant was the scandal, and so great the general indignation that it was one of the most
