The Tsar, on the other hand, he considered cowardly, false, and despicable.

It was a proof of the incapacity of the bourgeois that they had tolerated such a Tsar.

Monarchs were all of them more or less degenerate; he could not understand how anyone could accept a form of government which involved the risk of having a degenerate ruler.

I answered him as to this, that a monarchy had first of all one advantage, that there was at least one place in the state beyond the sphere of personal ambition and intrigues, and as to degeneration, that was often a matter of opinion: there were also degenerates to be found among the uncrowned rulers of states.

Joffe considered that there would be no such risk when the people could choose for themselves.