Tony Woodlief reviews March 1917, Book 2

An impressive and smart review of March 1917, Book 2, also taking into account its precursors—August 1914 and October 1916, as well as Book 1 of March.

““Revolutionary truths,” Solzhenitsyn writes, “have a great quality: even hearing them with their own ears, the doomed don’t understand.” There’s a moment in the revelry, after the soldiers have all donned red, after every policeman has been shot or bayoneted, when intellectuals who called loudest for revolution realize there are no patrols to fend off drunken gangs, nor courts to repudiate armed students arresting whomever they please for “crimes against the people.” In this brave new world, rule of law has been displaced by the rule of gun-toting loudmouths. It’s too late for them, and for the millions who will be subjected to lifelong suffering because ideologically enthralled intellectuals hammered away at society’s foundation until it collapsed. After Lenin comes Stalin. He always does.”