Nobody wants to intervene in [their] affairs … [It] is a very large country, a very old country, a very disagreeable country inhabited by immense numbers of ignorant people largely possessed of lethal weapons and in a state of extreme disorder. …
Unhappily [for our desire for peace], events are moving in a different direction, and nowadays events are very powerful things. There never was a time when events were so much stronger than human beings. We may abandon [that nation], but [it] will not abandon us. We shall retire and she will follow … padding on bloody paws across the snows to the Peace Conference.
Any guesses on the writer and subject?
UPDATE: Winston Churchill, speaking of Bolshevik Russia, in 1919.
