Стр. 29 - V

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that deprived them of serfs - the first estate was gradually losing its leading positions. It was de-
veloping into a paralyzed relative no longer alive and yet not dead. The descendants of the heroes
of Poltava, Borodino and Sevastopol became bureaucrats or, having mortgaged and remortgaged
their estates in the Nobles Land Bank, became economically dead. (Here
a parallel with the Soviet Union's disintegration can be found.)
So far nobody has answered the question: Was the February 1917 Revolution inevitable?
"Now, it is a reasonable view (this writer, among others, adheres to it) that the Russian Revolution
was fortuitous, insofar as it was the product of a number of factors in the sudden coming-up
together of which no logical pattern can be detected. Many of them if not the hand of chance,
could have been different than it actually was."