Chapter THIRTEEN (2)

1. Confiscation of Church, Monastery, Appanage, Cabinet,[81] and
private estate lands, _except small holdings_, and turning them
over, together with the state lands, to the great organs of local
administration, which have been democratically elected. Land,
however, which is necessary as a basis for future colonization,
together with the forests and bodies of water, which are of
national importance, are to pass into the control of the
democratic state.

2. Wherever conditions are unfavorable for this transformation,
the party declares itself in favor of a division among the
peasants of such of the private estates as already have the petty
farming conditions, or which may be necessary to round out a
reasonable holding.

This program was at the time regarded as a compromise. It did not wholly suit anybody. The peasant leaders feared the amount of state ownership and management involved. On the other hand, the extreme left wing of the Social Democrats--Lenine and his friends--wanted the party to proclaim itself in favor of _the complete nationalization of all privately owned land, even that of the small peasant owners_, but were willing, provided the principle were this stated, to accept, as a temporary expedient, division of the land in certain exceptional instances. On the other hand, the Socialist-Revolutionists wanted, not the distribution of lands among a multitude of private owners, as is very generally supposed, but its socialization. Their program provided for "the socialization of all privately owned lands--that is, the taking of them out of the private ownership of persons into the public ownership and _their management by democratically organized leagues of communities with the purpose of an equitable utilization_." They wanted to avoid the creation of a great army of what they described as "wage-slaves of the state" and, on the other hand, they wanted to build upon the basis of Russian communism and, as far as possible, prevent the extension of capitalist methods--and therefore of the class struggle--into the agrarian life of Russia.

When the Bolsheviki came into power they sought first of all to split the peasant Socialist movement and gain the support of its extreme left wing. For this reason they agreed to adopt the program of the Revolutionary Socialist party. It was Marie Spiridonova who made that arrangement possible. It was, in fact, a political deal. Lenine and Trotzky, on behalf of the Bolshevik government, agreed to accept the land policy of the Socialist-Revolutionists, and in return Spiridonova and her friends agreed to support the Bolsheviki. There is abundant evidence of the truth of the following account of Professor Ross:

Among the first acts of the Bolsheviki in power was to square
their debt to the left wing of the Social Revolutionists, their
ally in the _coup d'état_. The latter would accept only one kind
of currency--the expropriation of the private landowners without
compensation and the transfer of all land into the hands of the
peasant communes. The Bolsheviki themselves, as good Marxists,
took no stock in the peasants' commune. As such, pending the
introduction of Socialism, they should, perhaps, have nationalized
the land and rented it to the highest bidder, regardless of
whether it was to be tilled in small parcels without hired labor
or in large blocks on the capitalistic plan. The land edict of
November does, indeed, decree land nationalism; however, the vital
proviso is added that "the use of the land must be equalized--that
is, according to local conditions and according to the ability to
work and the needs of each individual," and further that "the
hiring of labor is not permitted." The administrative machinery is
thus described: "All the confiscated land becomes the land capital
of the nation. Its distribution among the working-people is to be
in charge of the local and central authorities, beginning with the
organized rural and urban communities and ending with the
provincial central organs." Such is the irony of fate. _Those who
had charged the rural land commune with being the most serious
brake upon Russia's progress, and who had stigmatized the
People-ists as reactionaries and Utopians, now came to enact into
law most of their tenets--the equalization of the use of land, the
prohibition of the hiring of labor, and everything else!_[82]

The much-praised land policy of the Bolsheviki is, in fact, not a Bolshevik policy at all, but one which they have accepted as a compromise for temporary political advantage. "Claim everything in sight," said a noted American politician on one occasion to his followers. Our followers of the Bolsheviki, taught by a very clever propaganda, seem to be acting upon that maxim. They claim for the Bolsheviki everything which can in the slightest manner win favor with the American public, notwithstanding that it involves claiming for the Bolsheviki credit to which they are not entitled. As early as May 18, 1917, it was announced by the Provisional Government that the "question of the transfer of the land to the toilers" was to be left to the Constituent Assembly, and there was never a doubt in the mind of any Russian Socialist how that body would settle it; never a moment when it was doubted that the Constituent Assembly would be controlled by the Socialist-Revolutionary party. When Kerensky became Prime Minister one of the first acts of his Cabinet was to create a special committee for the purpose of preparing the law for the socialization of the land and the necessary machinery for carrying the law into effect. The All-Russian Peasants' Congress had, as early as May, five months before the Bolshevik counter-revolution, adopted the land policy for which the Bolsheviki now are being praised by their admirers in this country. That policy had been crystallized into a carefully prepared law which had been approved by the Council of Ministers. The Bolsheviki did no more than to issue a crudely conceived "decree" which they have never at any time had the power to enforce in more than about a fourth of Russia--in place of a law which would have embraced all Russia and have been secure and permanent.

On July 16, 1918, Marie Spiridonova, in an address delivered in Petrograd, protested vehemently against the manner in which the Bolshevik government was departing from the policy it had agreed to maintain with regard to the land, and going back to the old Social Democratic ideas. She declared that she had been responsible for the decree of February, which provided for the socialization of the land. That measure provided for the abolition of private property in land, and placed all land in the hands of and under the direction of the peasant communes. It was the old Socialist-Revolutionist program. But the Bolshevik government had not carried out the law of February. Instead, it had resorted to the Social Democratic method of nationalization. In the western governments, she said, "great estates were being taken over by government departments and were being managed by officials, on the ground that state control would yield better results than communal ownership. Under this system the peasants were being reduced to the state of slaves paid wages by the state. Yet the law provided that these estates should be divided among the peasant communes to be tilled by the peasants on a co-operative system."[83] Spiridonova protested against the attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, against dividing them into classes and placing the greater part of them with the bourgeoisie. She insisted that the peasants be regarded as a single class, co-operating with the industrial proletariat, yet distinct from it and from the bourgeoisie. For our present purpose, it does not matter whether the leaders of the Bolsheviki were right or wrong in their decision that state operation was better than operation by village co-operatives. Our sole concern here and now is the fact that they did not keep faith with the section of the peasants they had won over to their side, and the fact that, as this incident shows, we cannot regard the formal decrees of the Soviet Republic as descriptions of realities.

The Bolsheviki remain to-day, as at the beginning, a counter-revolutionary power imposing its rule upon the great mass of the Russian people by armed force. There can be little doubt that if a free election could be had immediately upon the same basis as that on which the Constituent Assembly was elected--namely, universal, secret, equal, direct suffrage, the Bolsheviki would be overwhelmingly beaten. There can be little doubt that the great mass of the peasantry would support, as before, the candidates of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. It is quite true that some of the leaders of that party have consented to work with the Bolshevik government. Compromises have been effected; the Bolsheviki have conciliated the peasants somewhat, and the latter have, in many cases, sought to make the best of a bad situation. Many have adopted a passive attitude. But there can be no greater mistake than to believe that the Bolsheviki have solved the land question to the satisfaction of the peasants and so won their allegiance.

VII

This survey of the theories and practices of the Bolsheviki would invite criticism and distrust if the peace program which culminated in the shameful surrender to Germany, the "indecent peace" as the Russians call it, were passed over without mention. And yet there is no need to tell here a story with which every one is familiar. By that humiliating peace Russia lost 780,000 square kilometers of territory, occupied by 56,000,000 inhabitants. She lost one-third of her total mileage of railways, amounting to more than 13,000 miles. She lost, also, 73 per cent. of her iron production; 89 per cent. of her coal production, and many thousands of factories of various kinds. These latter included 268 sugar-refineries, 918 textile-factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco-factories, 1,685 distilleries, 244 chemical-factories, 615 paper-mills, and 1,073 machine-factories.[84] Moreover, it was not an enduring peace and war against Germany had to be resumed.

In judging the manner in which the Bolsheviki concluded peace with Germany, it is necessary to be on guard against prejudice engendered by the war and its passions. The tragi-comedy of Brest-Litovsk, and the pitiable rôle of Trotzky, have naturally been linked together with the manner in which Lenine and his companions reached Russia with the aid of the German Government, the way in which all the well-known leaders of the Bolsheviki had deliberately weakened the morale of the troops at the front, and their persistent opposition to all the efforts of Kerensky to restore the fighting spirit of the army--all these things combined have convinced many thoughtful and close observers that the Bolsheviki were in league with the Germans against the Allies. Perhaps the time is not yet ripe for passing final judgment upon this matter. Certainly there were ugly-looking incidents which appeared to indicate a close co-operation with the Germans.

There was, for example, the acknowledged fact that the Bolsheviki on seizing the power of government immediately entered into negotiations with the notorious "Parvus," whose rôle as an agent of the German Government is now thoroughly established. "Parvus" is the pseudonym of one of the most sinister figures in the history of the Socialist movement, Dr. Alexander Helfandt. Born at Odessa, of German-Jewish descent, he studied in Germany and in the early eighteen-nineties attained prominence as a prolific and brilliant contributor to the German Socialist review, _Die Neue Zeit_. He was early "exiled" from Russia, but it was suspected by a great many Socialists that in reality his "exile" was simply a device to cover employment in the Russian Secret Service as a spy and informer, for which the prestige he had gained in Socialist circles was a valuable aid. When the Revolution of 1905 broke out Helfandt returned to Russia under the terms of the amnesty declared at that time. He at once joined the Leninist section of the Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviki. A scandal occurred some time later, when the connection of "Parvus" with the Russian Government was freely charged against him. Among those who attacked him and accused him of being an agent-provocateur were Tseretelli, the Socialist-Revolutionist, and Miliukov, the leader of the Cadets.

Some years later, at the time of the uprisings in connection with the Young Turk movement, "Parvus" turned up in Constantinople, where he was presumably engaged in work for the German Government. This was commonly believed in European political circles, though denied at the time by "Parvus" himself. One thing is certain, namely, that although he was notoriously poor when he went there--his financial condition was well known to his Socialist associates--he returned at the beginning of 1915 a very rich man. He explained his riches by saying that he had, while at Constantinople, Bucharest, and Sofia, successfully speculated in war wheat. He wrote this explanation in the German Socialist paper, _Die Glocke_, and drew from Hugo Hasse the following observation: "I blame nobody for being wealthy; I only ask if it is the rôle of a Social Democrat to become a profiteer of the war."[85] Very soon we find this precious gentleman settled in Copenhagen, where he established a "Society for Studying the Social Consequences of the War," which was, of course, entirely pro-German. This society is said to have exercised considerable influence among the Russians in Copenhagen and to have greatly influenced many Danish Socialists to take Germany's side. According to _Pravda_, the Bolshevik organ, the German Government, through the intermediary of German Social Democrats, established a working relation with Danish trade-unions and the Danish Social Democratic party, whereby the Danish unions got the coal needed in Copenhagen at a figure below the market price. Then the Danish party sent its leader, Borgdjerg, to Petrograd as an emissary to place before the Petrograd Soviet the terms of peace of the German Majority Socialists, which were, of course, the terms of the German Government. We find "Parvus" at the same time, as he is engaged in this sort of intrigue, associated with one Furstenberg in shipping drugs into Russia and food from Russia into Germany.[86] According to Grumbach,[87] he sought to induce prominent Norwegian Socialists to act as intermediaries to inform certain Norwegian syndicates that Germany would grant them a monopoly of coal consignments if the Norwegian Social Democratic press would adopt a more friendly attitude toward Germany and the Social Democratic members in the Norwegian parliament would urge the stoppage or the limitation of fish exports to England.

During this period "Parvus" was bitterly denounced by Plechanov, by Alexinsky and other Russian Socialists as an agent of the Central Powers. He was denounced also by Lenine and Trotzky and by _Pravda_. Lenine described him as "the vilest of bandits and betrayers." It was therefore somewhat astonishing for those familiar with these facts to read the following communication, which appeared in the German Socialist press on November 30, 1917, and, later, in the British Socialist organ, _Justice_:

STOCKHOLM, November 20.--The Foreign Relations Committee
of the Bolsheviki makes the following communication: "The German
comrade, 'Parvus,' has brought to the Bolshevik Committee at
Stockholm the congratulations of the _Parteivorstand_ of the
Majority Social Democrats, who declare their solidarity with the
struggles of the Russian proletariat and with its request to begin
pourparlers immediately on the basis of a democratic peace without
annexations and indemnities. The Foreign Relations Committee of
the Bolsheviki has transmitted these declarations to the Central
Committee at Petrograd, as well as to the Soviets."

When Hugo Hasse questioned Philipp Scheidemann about the negotiations which were going on through "Parvus," Scheidemann replied that it was the Bolsheviki themselves who had invited "Parvus" to come to Stockholm for the purpose of opening up negotiations. This statement was denounced as a lie by Karl Radek in _Pravda_. Some day, doubtless, the truth will be known; for the present it is enough to note the fact that as early as November the Bolsheviki were negotiating through such a discredited agent of the Central Powers as Dr. Alexander Helfandt, otherwise "Parvus," the well-known Marxist! Such facts as this, added to those previously noticed, tended inevitably to strengthen the conviction that Lenine and Trotsky were the pliant and conscious tools of Germany all the time, and that the protests of Trotzky at Brest-Litovsk were simply stage-play.

But for all that, unless and until official, documentary evidence is forthcoming which proves them to have been in such relations with the German Government and military authorities, they ought not to be condemned upon the chain of suspicious circumstances, strong as that chain apparently is. The fact is that they had to make peace, and make it quickly. Kerensky, had he been permitted to hold on, would equally have had to make a separate peace, and make it quickly. Only one thing could have delayed that for long--namely, the arrival of an adequate force of Allied troops on the Russian front to stiffen the morale and to take the burden of fighting off from the Russians. Of that there was no sign and no promise or likelihood. Kerensky knew that he would have had to make peace, at almost any cost and on almost any terms, if he remained in power. If the Bolsheviki appear in the light of traitors to the Allies, it should be remembered that pressure of circumstances would have forced even such a loyal friend of the Allies as Kerensky certainly proved himself to be to make a separate peace, practically on Germany's terms, in a very little while. It was not a matter of months, but of weeks at most, probably of days.

Russia had to have peace. The nation was war-weary and exhausted. The Allies had not understood the situation--indeed, they never have understood Russia, even to this day--and had bungled right along. What made it possible for the Bolsheviki to assert their rule so easily was the fact that they promised immediate peace, and the great mass of the Russian workers wanted immediate peace above everything else. They were so eager for peace that so long as they could get it they cared at the time for nothing. Literally nothing else mattered. As we have seen, the Bolshevik leaders had strenuously denied wanting to make a "separate peace." There is little reason for doubting that they were sincere in this in the sense that what they wanted was a _general_ peace, if that could be possibly obtained. Peace they had to have, as quickly as possible. If they could not persuade their Allies to join with them in making such a general peace, they were willing to make a _separate_ peace. That is quite different from _wanting_ a separate peace from the first. There was, indeed, in the demand made at the beginning of December upon the Allies to restate their war aims within a period of seven days an arrogant and provocative tone which invited the suspicion that the ultimatum--for such it was--had not been conceived in good faith; that it was deliberately framed in such a manner as to prevent compliance by the Allies. And it may well be the fact that Lenine and Trotzky counted upon the inevitable refusal to convince the Russian people, and especially the Russian army, that the Allied nations were fighting for imperialistic ends, just as the Bolsheviki had always charged. The Machiavellian cunning of such a policy is entirely characteristic of the conspirator type.

On December 14th the armistice was signed at Brest-Litovsk, to last for a period of twenty-eight days. On December 5th, the Bolsheviki had published the terms upon which they desired to effect the armistice. These terms, which the Germans scornfully rejected, provided that the German forces which had been occupied on the Russian front should not be sent to other fronts to fight against the Allies, and that the German troops should retire from the Russian islands held by them. In the armistice as it was finally signed at Brest-Litovsk there was a clause which, upon its face, seemed to prove that Trotzky had kept faith with the Allies. The clause provided that there should be no transfer of troops by either side, for the purpose of military operations, during the armistice, from the front between the Baltic and the Black Sea. This, however, was, from the German point of view, merely a _pro forma_ arrangement, a "scrap of paper." Grumbach wrote to _L'Humanité_ that on December 20th Berlin was full of German soldiers from the Russian front en route to the western front. He said that he had excellent authority for saying that this had been called to the attention of Lenine and Trotzky by the Independent Social Democrats, but that, "nevertheless, they diplomatically shut their eyes."[88] It is more than probable that, in the circumstances, neither Lenine nor Trotzky cared much if at all for such a breach of the terms of the armistice, but, had their attitude been otherwise, what could they have done? They were as helpless as ever men were in the world, as subsequent events proved.

As one reads the numerous declamatory utterances of Trotzky in those critical days of early December, 1917, the justice of Lenine's scornful description of his associate as a "man who blinds himself with revolutionary phrases" becomes manifest. It is easy to understand the strained relations that existed between the two men. His "neither war nor peace" gesture--it was no more!--his dramatic refusal to sign the stiffened peace terms, his desire to call all Russia to arms again to fight the Germans, his determination to create a vast "Red Army" to renew the war against Germany, and his professed willingness to "accept the services of American officers in training that army," all indicated a mind given to illusions and stone blind to realities. Lenine at least knew that the game was up. He knew that the game into which he had so coolly entered when he left Switzerland, and which he had played with all his skill and cunning, was at an end and that the Germans had won. The Germans behaved with a perfidy that is unmatched in modern history, disregarded the armistice they had signed, and savagely hurled their forces against the defenseless, partially demobilized and trusting Russians. There was nothing left for the Bolsheviki to do. They had delivered Russia to the Germans. In March the "indecent peace" was signed, with what result we know. Bolshevism had been the ally of Prussian militarism. Consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, Lenine, Trotzky, and the other Bolshevik leaders had done all that men could do to make the German military lords masters of the world. Had there been a similar movement in France, England, the United States, or even Italy, to-day the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs would be upon their thrones, realizing the fulfilment of the Pan-German vision.

VIII

In view of the fact that so many of our American pacifists have glorified the Bolsheviki, it may be well to remind them, if they have forgotten, or to inform them, if they do not know it, that their admiration is by no means reciprocated. Both Lenine and Trotzky have spoken and written in terms of utter disdain of pacifist movements in general and of the pacifists of England and America in particular. They have insisted that, _in present society_, disarmament is really a reactionary proposal. The inclusion in the Constitution, which they have forced upon Russia by armed might, of _permanent universal compulsory military service_ is not by accident. They believe that only when all nations have become Socialist nations will it be a proper policy for Socialists to favor disarmament. It would be interesting to know how our American admirers and defenders of Bolshevism, who are all anti-conscriptionists and ultra-pacifists, so far as can be discovered, reconcile their position with that of the Bolsheviki who base their state, not as a temporary expedient, _but as a matter of principle_, upon universal, compulsory military service! What, one wonders, do these American Bolsheviki worshipers think of the teaching of these paragraphs from an article by Lenine?[89]

Disarmament is a Socialistic ideal. In Socialist society there
will be no more wars, which means that disarmament will have been
realized. But he is not a Socialist who expects the realization of
Socialism _without_ the social revolution and the dictatorship of
the proletariat. Dictatorship is a government power, depending
directly upon force, and, in the twentieth century, force means,
not fists and clubs, but armies. To insert "disarmament" into our
program is equivalent to saying, we are opposed to the use of
arms. But such a statement would contain not a grain of Marxism,
any more than would the equivalent statement, we are opposed to
the use of force.

* * * * *

_A suppressed class which has no desire to learn the use of arms,
and to bear arms, deserves nothing else than to be treated as
slaves_. We cannot, unless we wish to transform ourselves into
mere bourgeois pacifists, forget that we are living in a society
based on classes, and that there is no escape from such a society,
except by the class struggle and the overthrow of the power of the
ruling class.

In every class society, whether it be based on slavery, serfdom,
or, as at the present moment, on wage-labor, the class of the
oppressors is an armed class. Not only the standing army of the
present day, but also the present-day popular militia--even in the
most democratic bourgeois republics, as in Switzerland--means an
armament of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat....

How can you, in the face of this fact, ask the revolutionary
Social Democracy to set up the "demand" of "disarmament"? _To ask
this is to renounce completely the standpoint of the class
struggle, to give up the very thought of revolution_. Our
watchword must be: to arm the proletariat so that it may defeat,
expropriate, and disarm the bourgeoisie. This is the only possible
policy of the revolutionary class, a policy arising directly from
the _actual evolution_ of capitalistic militarism, in fact,
dictated by the evolution. Only after having disarmed the
bourgeoisie can the proletariat, without betraying its historic
mission, cast all weapons to the scrap-heap; and there is no doubt
that the proletariat will do this, but only then, and not by any
possibility before then.

How is it possible for our extreme pacifists, with their relentless opposition to military force in all its forms to conscription, to universal military service, to armaments of all kinds, even for defensive purposes, and to voluntarily enlisted armies even, to embrace Bolshevism with enthusiasm, resting as it does upon the basis of the philosophy so frankly stated by Lenine, is a question for which no answer seems wholly adequate. Of course, what Lenine advocates is class armament within the nation, for civil war--the war of the classes. But he is not opposed to national armaments, as such, nor willing to support disarmament as a national policy _until the time comes when an entirely socialized humanity finds itself freed from the necessity of arming against anybody_. There is probably not a militarist in America to-day who, however bitterly opposed to disarmament as a present policy, would not agree that if, in some future time, mankind reaches the happy condition of universal Socialism, disarmament will then become practicable and logical. It would not be difficult for General Wood to subscribe to that doctrine, I think. It would not have been difficult for Mr. Roosevelt to subscribe to it.

Not only is Lenine willing to support national armaments, and even to fight for the defense of national rights, whenever an attack on these is also an attack on proletarian rights--which he believes to be the case in the continued war against Germany, he goes much farther than this _and provides a theoretical justification for a Socialist policy of passive acceptance of ever-increasing militarism_. He draws a strangely forced parallel between the Socialist attitude toward the trusts and the attitude which ought to be taken toward armaments. We know, he argues, that trusts bring great evils. Against the evils we struggle, but how? Not by trying to do away with the trusts, for we regard the trusts as steps in progress. We must go onward, through the trust system to Socialism. In a similar way we should not deplore "the militarization of the populations." If the bourgeoisie militarizes all the men, and all the boys, nay, even all the women, why--so much the better! "Never will the women of an oppressed class that is really revolutionary be content" to demand disarmament. On the contrary, they will encourage their sons to bear the arms and "learn well the business of war." Of course, this knowledge they will use, "not in order that they may shoot at their brothers, the workers of other countries, as they are doing in the present war ... but in order that they may struggle against the bourgeoisie in their own country, in order that they may put an end to exploitation, poverty, and war, not by the path of good-natured wishes, but by the path of victory over the bourgeoisie and of disarmament of the bourgeoisie."[90] Universally the working class has taken a position the very opposite of this. Universally we find the organized working class favoring disarmament, peace agreements, and covenants in general opposing extensions of what Lenine describes as "the militarization of populations." For this universality of attitude and action there can only be one adequate explanation--namely, the instinctive class consciousness of the workers. But, according to Lenine, this instinctive class consciousness is all wrong; somehow or other it expresses itself in a "bourgeois" policy. The workers ought to welcome the efforts of the ruling class to militarize and train in the arts of war not only the men of the nations, but the boys and even the women as well. Some day, if this course be followed, there will be two great armed classes in every nation and between these will occur the decisive war which shall establish the supremacy of the most numerous and powerful class. Socialism is thus to be won, not by the conquests of reason and of conscience, but by brute force.

Obviously, there is no point of sympathy between this brutal and arrogant gospel of force and the striving of modern democracy for the peaceful organization of the world, for disarmament, a league of nations, and, in general, the supplanting of force of arms by the force of reason and morality. There is a Prussian quality in Lenine's philosophy. He is the Treitschke of social revolt, brutal, relentless, and unscrupulous, glorying in might, which is, for him, the only right. And that is what characterizes the whole Bolshevik movement: it is the infusion into the class strife and struggles of the world the same brutality and the same faith that might is right which made Prussian militarism the menace it was to civilization.

And just as the world of civilized mankind recognized Prussian militarism as its deadly enemy, to be overcome at all costs, so, too, Bolshevism must be overcome. And that can best be done, not by attempting to drown it in blood, but by courageously and consistently setting ourselves to the task of removing the social oppression, the poverty, and the servitude which produce the desperation of soul that drives men to Bolshevism. The remedy for Bolshevism is a sane and far-reaching program of constructive social democracy.

POSTSCRIPTUM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT

This book is the fulfilment of a promise to a friend. Soon after my return from Europe, in November, I spent part of a day in New York discussing Bolshevism with two friends. One of these is a Russian Socialist, who has lived many years in America, a citizen of the United States, and a man whose erudition and fidelity to the working-class movement during many years have long commanded my admiration and reverence. The other friend is a native American, also a Socialist. A sincere Christian, he has identified his faith in the religion of Jesus and his faith in democratic Socialism. The two are not conflicting forces, or even separate ones, but merely different and complementary aspects of the same faith. He is a man who is universally loved and honored for his nobility of character and his generous idealism. While in Europe I had spent much time consulting with Russian friends in Paris, Rome, and other cities, and had collected a considerable amount of authentic material relating to Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki. I had not the slightest intention of using this material to make a book; in fact, my plans contemplated a very different employment of my time. But, in the course of the discussion, my American Socialist friend asked me to "jot down" for him some of the things I had said, and, especially, to write, in a letter, what I believed to be the psychology of Bolshevism. This, in an unguarded moment, I undertook to do.

When I set out, a few days later, to redeem my promise, I found that, in order to make things intelligible, it was absolutely necessary to explain the historical backgrounds of the Russian revolutionary movement, to describe the point of view of various persons and groups with some detail, and to quote quite extensively from the documentary material I had gathered. Naturally, the limits of a letter were quickly outgrown and I found that my response to my friend's innocent request approached the length of a small volume. Even so, it was quite unsatisfactory. It left many things unexplained and much of my own thought obscure. I decided then to rewrite the whole thing and make a book of it, thus making available for what I hope will be a large number of readers what I had at first intended only for a dear friend.

I am very conscious of the imperfections of the book as it stands. It has been written under conditions far from favorable, crowded into a very busy life. My keenest critics will, I am sure, be less conscious of its defects than I am. It is, however, an earnest contribution to a very important discussion, and, I venture to hope, with all its demerits, a useful one. If it aids a single person to a clearer comprehension of the inherent wrongfulness of the Bolshevist philosophy and method, I shall be rewarded.

* * * * *

_So here, my dear Will, is the fulfilment of my promise._

APPENDICES

I. AN APPEAL TO THE PROLETARIAT BY THE PETROGRAD WORKMEN'S AND SOLDIERS' COUNCIL

II. HOW THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS FOUGHT FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY--A REPORT TO THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST BUREAU

III. FORMER SOCIALIST PREMIER OF FINLAND ON BOLSHEVISM