272 Gentlemen to Officers
None of the above 3ainsays the fact that the insurgents' aims were by and
large beneficent, or that their defeat was a tragedy: Russia had to endure
Nicholas I's 30-year 'freeze' before, in the wake of the Crimean War; their
ideas would be revived-this time hy a rf'form-minded government as well as
by elements in educated society.