VII



Daily life in Moscow, so far as I could discover, has neither the
horrors depicted by the Northcliffe Press nor the delights imagined by
the more ardent of our younger Socialists.

On the one hand, there is no disorder, very little crime, not much
insecurity for those who keep clear of politics. Everybody works hard;
the educated people have, by this time, mostly found their way into
Government offices or teaching or some other administrative profession
in which their education is useful. The theatres, the opera and the
ballet continue as before, and are quite admirable; some of the seats
are paid for, others are given free to members of trade unions. There
is, of course, no drunkenness, or at any rate so little that none of
us ever saw a sign of it. There is very little prostitution,
infinitely less than in any other capital. Women are safer from
molestation than anywhere else in the world. The whole impression is
one of virtuous, well-ordered activity.

On the other hand, life is very hard for all except men in good posts.
It is hard, first of all, owing to the food shortage. This is familiar
to all who have interested themselves in Russia, and it is unnecessary
to dwell upon it. What is less realized is that most people work much
longer hours than in this country. The eight-hour day was introduced
with a flourish of trumpets; then, owing to the pressure of the war,
it was extended to ten hours in certain trades. But no provision
exists against extra work at other jobs, and very many people do extra
work, because the official rates do not afford a living wage. This is
not the fault of the Government, at any rate as regards the major
part; it is due chiefly to war and blockade. When the day's work is
over, a great deal of time has to be spent in fetching food and water
and other necessaries of life. The sight of the workers going to and
fro, shabbily clad, with the inevitable bundle in one hand and tin can
in the other, through streets almost entirely empty of traffic,
produces the effect of life in some vast village, rather than in an
important capital city.

Holidays, such as are common throughout all but the very poorest class
in this country, are very difficult in Russia. A train journey
requires a permit, which is only granted on good reasons being shown;
with the present shortage of transport, this regulation is quite
unavoidable. Railway queues are a common feature in Moscow; it often
takes several days to get a permit. Then, when it has been obtained,
it may take several more days to get a seat in a train. The ordinary
trains are inconceivably crowded, far more so, though that seems
impossible, than London trains at the busiest hour. On the shorter
journeys, passengers are even known to ride on the roof and buffers,
or cling like flies to the sides of the waggons. People in Moscow
travel to the country whenever they can afford the time and get a
permit, because in the country there is enough to eat. They go to stay
with relations--most people in Moscow, in all classes, but especially
among manual workers, have relations in the country. One cannot, of
course, go to an hotel as one would in other countries. Hotels have
been taken over by the State, and the rooms in them (when they are
still used) are allocated by the police to people whose business is
recognized as important by the authorities. Casual travel is therefore
impossible even on a holiday.

Journeys have vexations in addition to the slowness and overcrowding
of the trains. Police search the travellers for evidences of
"speculation," especially for food. The police play, altogether, a
much greater part in daily life than they do in other countries--much
greater than they did, for example, in Prussia twenty-five years ago,
when there was a vigorous campaign against Socialism. Everybody breaks
the law almost daily, and no one knows which among his acquaintances
is a spy of the Extraordinary Commission. Even in the prisons, among
prisoners, there are spies, who are allowed certain privileges but not
their liberty.

Newspapers are not taken in, except by very few people, but they are
stuck up in public places, where passers-by occasionally glance at
them.[5] There is very little to read; owing to paper shortage, books
are rare, and money to buy them is still rarer. One does not see
people reading, as one does here in the Underground for example. There
is practically no social life, partly because of the food shortage,
partly because, when anybody is arrested, the police are apt to arrest
everybody whom they find in his company, or who comes to visit him.
And once arrested, a man or woman, however innocent, may remain for
months in prison without trial. While we were in Moscow, forty social
revolutionaries and Anarchists were hunger-striking to enforce their
demand to be tried and to be allowed visits. I was told that on the
eighth day of the strike the Government consented to try them, and
that few could be proved guilty of any crime; but I had no means of
verifying this.

Industrial conscription is, of course, rigidly enforced. Every man and
woman has to work, and slacking is severely punished, by prison or a
penal settlement. Strikes are illegal, though they sometimes occur. By
proclaiming itself the friend of the proletarian, the Government has
been enabled to establish an iron discipline, beyond the wildest
dreams of the most autocratic American magnate. And by the same
professions the Government has led Socialists from other countries to
abstain from reporting unpleasant features in what they have seen.

The Tolstoyans, of whom I saw the leaders, are obliged by their creed
to resist every form of conscription, though some have found ways of
compromising. The law concerning conscientious objectors to military
service is practically the same as ours, and its working depends upon
the temper of the tribunal before which a man comes. Some
conscientious objectors have been shot; on the other hand, some have
obtained absolute exemption.

Life in Moscow, as compared to life in London, is drab, monotonous,
and depressed. I am not, of course, comparing life there with that of
the rich here, but with that of the average working-class family. When
it is realized that the highest wages are about fifteen shillings a
month, this is not surprising. I do not think that life could, under
any system, be very cheerful in a country so exhausted by war as
Russia, so I am not saying this as a criticism of the Bolsheviks. But
I do think there might be less police interference, less vexatious
regulation, and more freedom for spontaneous impulses towards harmless
enjoyments.

Religion is still very strong. I went into many churches, where I saw
obviously famished priests in gorgeous vestments, and a congregation
enormously devout. Generally more than half the congregation were men,
and among the men many were soldiers. This applies to the towns as
well as to the country. In Moscow I constantly saw people in the
streets crossing themselves.

There is a theory that the Moscow working man feels himself free from
capitalist domination, and therefore bears hardships gladly. This is
no doubt true of the minority who are active Communists, but I do not
think it has any truth for the others. The average working man, to
judge by a rather hasty impression, feels himself the slave of the
Government, and has no sense whatever of having been liberated from a
tyranny.

I recognize to the full the reasons for the bad state of affairs, in
the past history of Russia and the recent policy of the Entente. But I
have thought it better to record impressions frankly, trusting the
readers to remember that the Bolsheviks have only a very limited share
of responsibility for the evils from which Russia is suffering.

Footnotes:

[5] The ninth Communist Congress (March-April, 1920) says on this
subject: "In view of the fact that the first condition of the success
of the Soviet Republic in all departments, including the economic, is
chiefly systematic printed agitation, the Congress draws the attention
of the Soviet Government to the deplorable state in which our paper
and printing industries find themselves. The ever decreasing number of
newspapers fail to reach not only the peasants but even the workers,
in addition to which our poor technical means render the papers hardly
readable. The Congress strongly appeals to the Supreme Council of
Public Economy, to the corresponding Trade Unions and other interested
institutions, to apply all efforts to raise the quantity, to introduce
general system and order in the printing business, and so secure for
the worker and peasant in Russia a supply of Socialist printed
matter."

VIII



The problem of inducing the peasants to feed the towns is one which
Russia shares with Central Europe, and from what one hears Russia has
been less unsuccessful than some other countries in dealing with this
problem. For the Soviet Government, the problem is mainly concentrated
in Moscow and Petrograd; the other towns are not very large, and are
mostly in the centre of rich agricultural districts. It is true that
in the North even the rural population normally depends upon food from
more southerly districts; but the northern population is small. It is
commonly said that the problem of feeding Moscow and Petrograd is a
transport problem, but I think this is only partially true. There is,
of course, a grave deficiency of rolling-stock, especially of
locomotives in good repair. But Moscow is surrounded by very good
land. In the course of a day's motoring in the neighbourhood, I saw
enough cows to supply milk to the whole child population of Moscow,
although what I had come to see was children's sanatoria, not farms.
All kinds of food can be bought in the market at high prices. I
travelled over a considerable extent of Russian railways, and saw a
fair number of goods trains. For all these reasons, I feel convinced
that the share of the transport problem in the food difficulties has
been exaggerated. Of course transport plays a larger part in the
shortage in Petrograd than in Moscow, because food comes mainly from
south of Moscow. In Petrograd, most of the people one sees in the
streets show obvious signs of under-feeding. In Moscow, the visible
signs are much less frequent, but there is no doubt that
under-feeding, though not actual starvation, is nearly universal.

The Government supplies rations to every one who works in the towns at
a very low fixed price. The official theory is that the Government has
a monopoly of the food and that the rations are sufficient to sustain
life. The fact is that the rations are not sufficient, and that they
are only a portion of the food supply of Moscow. Moreover, people
complain, I do not know how truly, that the rations are delivered
irregularly; some say, about every other day. Under these
circumstances, almost everybody, rich or poor, buys food in the
market, where it costs about fifty times the fixed Government price.
A pound of butter costs about a month's wages. In order to be able to
afford extra food, people adopt various expedients. Some do additional
work, at extra rates, after their official day's work is over. For,
though there is supposed to be by law an eight-hours day, extended to
ten in certain vital industries, the wage paid for it is not a living
wage, and there is nothing to prevent a man from undertaking other
work in his spare time. But the usual resource is what is called
"speculation," i.e., buying and selling. Some person formerly rich
sells clothes or furniture or jewellery in return for food; the buyer
sells again at an enhanced price, and so on through perhaps twenty
hands, until a final purchaser is found in some well-to-do peasant or
_nouveau riche_ speculator. Again, most people have relations in the
country, whom they visit from time to time, bringing back with them
great bags of flour. It is illegal for private persons to bring food
into Moscow, and the trains are searched; but, by corruption or
cunning, experienced people can elude the search. The food market is
illegal, and is raided occasionally; but as a rule it is winked at.
Thus the attempt to suppress private commerce has resulted in an
amount of unprofessional buying and selling which far exceeds what
happens in capitalist countries. It takes up a great deal of time
that might be more profitably employed; and, being illegal, it places
practically the whole population of Moscow at the mercy of the police.
Moreover, it depends largely upon the stores of goods belonging to
those who were formerly rich, and when these are expended the whole
system must collapse, unless industry has meanwhile been
re-established on a sound basis.

It is clear that the state of affairs is unsatisfactory, but, from the
Government's point of view, it is not easy to see what ought to be
done. The urban and industrial population is mainly concerned in
carrying on the work of government and supplying munitions to the
army. These are very necessary tasks, the cost of which ought to be
defrayed out of taxation. A moderate tax in kind on the peasants would
easily feed Moscow and Petrograd. But the peasants take no interest in
war or government. Russia is so vast that invasion of one part does
not touch another part; and the peasants are too ignorant to have any
national consciousness, such as one takes for granted in England or
France or Germany. The peasants will not willingly part with a portion
of their produce merely for purposes of national defence, but only for
the goods they need--clothes, agricultural implements, &c.--which the
Government, owing to the war and the blockade, is not in a position to
supply.

When the food shortage was at its worst, the Government antagonized
the peasants by forced requisitions, carried out with great harshness
by the Red Army. This method has been modified, but the peasants still
part unwillingly with their food, as is natural in view of the
uselessness of paper and the enormously higher prices offered by
private buyers.

The food problem is the main cause of popular opposition to the
Bolsheviks, yet I cannot see how any popular policy could have been
adopted. The Bolsheviks are disliked by the peasants because they take
so much food; they are disliked in the towns because they take so
little. What the peasants want is what is called free trade, i.e.,
de-control of agricultural produce. If this policy were adopted, the
towns would be faced by utter starvation, not merely by hunger and
hardship. It is an entire misconception to suppose that the peasants
cherish any hostility to the Entente. The _Daily News_ of July 13th,
in an otherwise excellent leading article, speaks of "the growing
hatred of the Russian peasant, who is neither a Communist nor a
Bolshevik, for the Allies generally and this country in particular."
The typical Russian peasant has never heard of the Allies or of this
country; he does not know that there is a blockade; all he knows is
that he used to have six cows but the Government reduced him to one
for the sake of poorer peasants, and that it takes his corn (except
what is needed for his own family) at a very low price. The reasons
for these actions do not interest him, since his horizon is bounded by
his own village. To a remarkable extent, each village is an
independent unit. So long as the Government obtains the food and
soldiers that it requires, it does not interfere, and leaves untouched
the old village communism, which is extraordinarily unlike Bolshevism
and entirely dependent upon a very primitive stage of culture.

The Government represents the interests of the urban and industrial
population, and is, as it were, encamped amid a peasant nation, with
whom its relations are rather diplomatic and military than
governmental in the ordinary sense. The economic situation, as in
Central Europe, is favourable to the country and unfavourable to the
towns. If Russia were governed democratically, according to the will
of the majority, the inhabitants of Moscow and Petrograd would die of
starvation. As it is, Moscow and Petrograd just manage to live, by
having the whole civil and military power of the State devoted to
their needs. Russia affords the curious spectacle of a vast and
powerful Empire, prosperous at the periphery, but faced with dire want
at the centre. Those who have least prosperity have most power; and
it is only through their excess of power that they are enabled to live
at all. The situation is due at bottom to two facts: that almost the
whole industrial energies of the population have had to be devoted to
war, and that the peasants do not appreciate the importance of the war
or the fact of the blockade.

It is futile to blame the Bolsheviks for an unpleasant and difficult
situation which it has been impossible for them to avoid. Their
problem is only soluble in one of two ways: by the cessation of the
war and the blockade, which would enable them to supply the peasants
with the goods they need in exchange for food; or by the gradual
development of an independent Russian industry. This latter method
would be slow, and would involve terrible hardships, but some of the
ablest men in the Government believe it to be possible if peace cannot
be achieved. If we force this method upon Russia by the refusal of
peace and trade, we shall forfeit the only inducement we can hold out
for friendly relations; we shall render the Soviet State unassailable
and completely free to pursue the policy of promoting revolution
everywhere. But the industrial problem is a large subject, which has
been already discussed in Chapter VI.

IX



In the course of these chapters, I have had occasion to mention
disagreeable features of the Bolshevik régime. But it must always be
remembered that these are chiefly due to the fact that the industrial
life of Russia has been paralysed except as ministering to the wants
of the Army, and that the Government has had to wage a bitter and
doubtful civil and external war, involving the constant menace of
domestic enemies. Harshness, espionage, and a curtailment of liberty
result unavoidably from these difficulties. I have no doubt whatever
that the sole cure for the evils from which Russia is suffering is
peace and trade. Peace and trade would put an end to the hostility of
the peasants, and would at once enable the Government to depend upon
popularity rather than force. The character of the Government would
alter rapidly under such conditions. Industrial conscription, which is
now rigidly enforced, would become unnecessary. Those who desire a
more liberal spirit would be able to make their voices heard without
the feeling that they were assisting reaction and the national
enemies. The food difficulties would cease, and with them the need for
an autocratic system in the towns.

It must not be assumed, as is common with opponents of Bolshevism,
that any other Government could easily be established in Russia. I
think every one who has been in Russia recently is convinced that the
existing Government is stable. It may undergo internal developments,
and might easily, but for Lenin, become a Bonapartist military
autocracy. But this would be a change from within--not perhaps a very
great change--and would probably do little to alter the economic
system. From what I saw of the Russian character and of the opposition
parties, I became persuaded that Russia is not ready for any form of
democracy, and needs a strong Government. The Bolsheviks represent
themselves as the Allies of Western advanced Socialism, and from this
point of view they are open to grave criticism. For their
international programme there is, to my mind, nothing to be said. But
as a national Government, stripped of their camouflage, regarded as
the successors of Peter the Great, they are performing a necessary
though unamiable task. They are introducing, as far as they can,
American efficiency among a lazy and undisciplined population. They
are preparing to develop the natural resources of their country by the
methods of State Socialism, for which, in Russia, there is much to be
said. In the Army they are abolishing illiteracy, and if they had
peace they would do great things for education everywhere.

But if we continue to refuse peace and trade, I do not think the
Bolsheviks will go under. Russia will endure great hardships, in the
years to come as before. But the Russians are inured to misery as no
Western nation is; they can live and work under conditions which we
should find intolerable. The Government will be driven more and more,
from mere self-preservation, into a policy of imperialism. The Entente
has been doing everything to expose Germany to a Russian invasion of
arms and leaflets, by allowing Poland to engage in war and compelling
Germany to disarm. All Asia lies open to Bolshevik ambitions. Almost
the whole of the former Russian Empire in Asia is quite firmly in
their grasp. Trains are running at a reasonable speed to Turkestan,
and I saw cotton from there being loaded on to Volga steamers. In
Persia and Turkey, revolts are taking place, with Bolshevik support.
It is only a question of a few years before India will be in touch
with the Red Army. If we continue to antagonize the Bolsheviks, I do
not see what force exists that can prevent them from acquiring the
whole of Asia within ten years.

The Russian Government is not yet definitely imperialistic in spirit,
and would still prefer peace to conquest. The country is weary of war
and denuded of goods. But if the Western Powers insist upon war,
another spirit, which is already beginning to show itself, will become
dominant. Conquest will be the only alternative to submission. Asiatic
conquest will not be difficult. But for us, from the imperialist
standpoint, it will mean utter ruin. And for the Continent it will
mean revolutions, civil wars, economic cataclysms. The policy of
crushing Bolshevism by force was always foolish and criminal; it has
now become impossible and fraught with disaster. Our own Government,
it would seem, have begun to realize the dangers, but apparently they
do not realize them sufficiently to enforce their view against
opposition.

In the Theses presented to the Second Congress of the Third
International (July 1920), there is a very interesting article by
Lenin called "First Sketch of the Theses on National and Colonial
Questions" (_Theses_, pp. 40-47). The following passages seemed to me
particularly illuminating:--

    The present world-situation in politics places on the order of
    the day the dictatorship of the proletariat; and all the
    events of world politics are inevitably concentrated round one
    centre of gravity: the struggle of the international
    bourgeoisie against the Soviet Republic, which inevitably
    groups round it, on the one hand the Sovietist movements of
    the advanced working men of all countries, on the other hand
    all the national movements of emancipation of colonies and
    oppressed nations which have been convinced by a bitter
    experience that there is no salvation for them except in the
    victory of the Soviet Government over world-imperialism.

    We cannot therefore any longer confine ourselves to
    recognizing and proclaiming the union of the workers of all
    countries. It is henceforth necessary to pursue the
    realization of the strictest union of all the national and
    colonial movements of emancipation with Soviet Russia, by
    giving to this union forms corresponding to the degree of
    evolution of the proletarian movement among the proletariat of
    each country, or of the democratic-bourgeois movement of
    emancipation among the workers and peasants of backward
    countries or backward nationalities.

    The federal principle appears to us as a transitory form
    towards the complete unity of the workers of all countries.

This is the formula for co-operation with Sinn Fein or with Egyptian
and Indian nationalism. It is further defined later. In regard to
backward countries, Lenin says, we must have in view:--

    The necessity of the co-operation of all Communists in the
    democratic-bourgeois movement of emancipation in those
    countries.

Again:

    "The Communist International must conclude temporary alliances
    with the bourgeois democracy of backward countries, but must
    never fuse with it." The class-conscious proletariat must
    "show itself particularly circumspect towards the survivals of
    national sentiment in countries long oppressed," and must
    "consent to certain useful concessions."

The Asiatic policy of the Russian Government was adopted as a move
against the British Empire, and as a method of inducing the British
Government to make peace. It plays a larger part in the schemes of the
leading Bolsheviks than is realized by the Labour Party in this
country. Its method is not, for the present, to preach Communism,
since the Persians and Hindoos are considered scarcely ripe for the
doctrines of Marx. It is nationalist movements that are supported by
money and agitators from Moscow. The method of quasi-independent
states under Bolshevik protection is well understood. It is obvious
that this policy affords opportunities for imperialism, under the
cover of propaganda, and there is no doubt that some among the
Bolsheviks are fascinated by its imperialist aspect. The importance
officially attached to the Eastern policy is illustrated by the fact
that it was the subject of the concluding portion of Lenin's speech to
the recent Congress of the Third International (July 1920).

Bolshevism, like everything Russian, is partly Asiatic in character.
One may distinguish two distinct trends, developing into two distinct
policies. On the one side are the practical men, who wish to develop
Russia industrially, to secure the gains of the Revolution nationally,
to trade with the West, and gradually settle down into a more or less
ordinary State. These men have on their side the fact of the economic
exhaustion of Russia, the danger of ultimate revolt against Bolshevism
if life continues to be as painful as it is at present, and the
natural sentiment of humanity that wishes to relieve the sufferings of
the people; also the fact that, if revolutions elsewhere produce a
similar collapse of industry, they will make it impossible for Russia
to receive the outside help which is urgently needed. In the early
days, when the Government was weak, they had unchallenged control of
policy, but success has made their position less secure.

On the other side there is a blend of two quite different aims: first,
the desire to promote revolution in the Western nations, which is in
line with Communist theory, and is also thought to be the only way of
obtaining a really secure peace; secondly, the desire for Asiatic
dominion, which is probably accompanied in the minds of some with
dreams of sapphires and rubies and golden thrones and all the glories
of their forefather Solomon. This desire produces an unwillingness to
abandon the Eastern policy, although it is realized that, until it is
abandoned, peace with capitalist England is impossible. I do not know
whether there are some to whom the thought occurs that if England were
to embark on revolution we should become willing to abandon India to
the Russians. But I am certain that the converse thought occurs,
namely that, if India could be taken from us, the blow to imperialist
feeling might lead us to revolution. In either case, the two policies,
of revolution in the West and conquest (disguised as liberation of
oppressed peoples) in the East, work in together, and dovetail into a
strongly coherent whole.

Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not
as an ordinary political movement. The important and effective mental
attitudes to the world may be broadly divided into the religious and
the scientific. The scientific attitude is tentative and piecemeal,
believing what it finds evidence for, and no more. Since Galileo, the
scientific attitude has proved itself increasingly capable of
ascertaining important facts and laws, which are acknowledged by all
competent people regardless of temperament or self-interest or
political pressure. Almost all the progress in the world from the
earliest times is attributable to science and the scientific temper;
almost all the major ills are attributable to religion.

By a religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the
conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated
by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. By
this definition, Bolshevism is a religion: that its dogmas go beyond
or contrary to evidence, I shall try to prove in what follows. Those
who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and
commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism
were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination
of them is tolerated. One who believes, as I do, that the free
intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be
fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.

Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism
rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism
are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love
of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social,
unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world. Their founders
would not have resisted the third of the temptations in the
wilderness. What Mohammedanism did for the Arabs, Bolshevism may do
for the Russians. As Ali went down before the politicians who only
rallied to the Prophet after his success, so the genuine Communists
may go down before those who are now rallying to the ranks of the
Bolsheviks. If so, Asiatic empire with all its pomps and splendours
may well be the next stage of development, and Communism may seem, in
historical retrospect, as small a part of Bolshevism as abstinence
from alcohol is of Mohammedanism. It is true that, as a world force,
whether for revolution or for empire, Bolshevism must sooner or later
be brought by success into a desperate conflict with America; and
America is more solid and strong, as yet, than anything that
Mohammed's followers had to face. But the doctrines of Communism are
almost certain, in the long run, to make progress among American
wage-earners, and the opposition of America is therefore not likely to
be eternal. Bolshevism may go under in Russia, but even if it does it
will spring up again elsewhere, since it is ideally suited to an
industrial population in distress. What is evil in it is mainly due to
the fact that it has its origin in distress; the problem is to
disentangle the good from the evil, and induce the adoption of the
good in countries not goaded into ferocity by despair.

Russia is a backward country, not yet ready for the methods of equal
co-operation which the West is seeking to substitute for arbitrary
power in politics and industry. In Russia, the methods of the
Bolsheviks are probably more or less unavoidable; at any rate, I am
not prepared to criticize them in their broad lines. But they are not
the methods appropriate to more advanced countries, and our Socialists
will be unnecessarily retrograde if they allow the prestige of the
Bolsheviks to lead them into slavish imitation. It will be a far less
excusable error in our reactionaries if, by their unteachableness,
they compel the adoption of violent methods. We have a heritage of
civilization and mutual tolerance which is important to ourselves and
to the world. Life in Russia has always been fierce and cruel, to a
far greater degree than with us, and out of the war has come a danger
that this fierceness and cruelty may become universal. I have hopes
that in England this may be avoided through the moderation of both
sides. But it is essential to a happy issue that melodrama should no
longer determine our views of the Bolsheviks: they are neither angels
to be worshipped nor devils to be exterminated, but merely bold and
able men attempting with great skill an almost impossible task.

Part II
Bolshevik Theory



I


The materialistic conception of history, as it is called, is due to
Marx, and underlies the whole Communist philosophy. I do not mean, of
course, that a man could not be a Communist without accepting it, but
that in fact it is accepted by the Communist Party, and that it
profoundly influences their views as to politics and tactics. The name
does not convey at all accurately what is meant by the theory. It
means that all the mass-phenomena of history are determined by
economic motives. This view has no essential connection with
materialism in the philosophic sense. Materialism in the philosophic
sense may be defined as the theory that all apparently mental
occurrences either are really physical, or at any rate have purely
physical causes. Materialism in this sense also was preached by Marx,
and is accepted by all orthodox Marxians. The arguments for and
against it are long and complicated, and need not concern us, since,
in fact, its truth or falsehood has little or no bearing on politics.

In particular, philosophic materialism does not prove that economic
causes are fundamental in politics. The view of Buckle, for example,
according to which climate is one of the decisive factors, is equally
compatible with materialism. So is the Freudian view, which traces
everything to sex. There are innumerable ways of viewing history which
are materialistic in the philosophic sense without being economic or
falling within the Marxian formula. Thus the "materialistic conception
of history" may be false even if materialism in the philosophic sense
should be true.

On the other hand, economic causes might be at the bottom of all
political events even if philosophic materialism were false. Economic
causes operate through men's desire for possessions, and would be
supreme if this desire were supreme, even if desire could not, from a
philosophic point of view, be explained in materialistic terms.

There is, therefore, no logical connection either way between
philosophic materialism and what is called the "materialistic
conception of history."

It is of some moment to realize such facts as this, because otherwise
political theories are both supported and opposed for quite
irrelevant reasons, and arguments of theoretical philosophy are
employed to determine questions which depend upon concrete facts of
human nature. This mixture damages both philosophy and politics, and
is therefore important to avoid.

For another reason, also, the attempt to base a political theory upon
a philosophical doctrine is undesirable. The philosophical doctrine of
materialism, if true at all, is true everywhere and always; we cannot
expect exceptions to it, say, in Buddhism or in the Hussite movement.
And so it comes about that people whose politics are supposed to be a
consequence of their metaphysics grow absolute and sweeping, unable to
admit that a general theory of history is likely, at best, to be only
true on the whole and in the main. The dogmatic character of Marxian
Communism finds support in the supposed philosophic basis of the
doctrine; it has the fixed certainty of Catholic theology, not the
changing fluidity and sceptical practicality of modern science.

Treated as a practical approximation, not as an exact metaphysical
law, the materialistic conception of history has a very large measure
of truth. Take, as an instance of its truth, the influence of
industrialism upon ideas. It is industrialism, rather than the
arguments of Darwinians and Biblical critics, that has led to the
decay of religious belief in the urban working class. At the same
time, industrialism has revived religious belief among the rich. In
the eighteenth century French aristocrats mostly became free-thinkers;
now their descendants are mostly Catholics, because it has become
necessary for all the forces of reaction to unite against the
revolutionary proletariat. Take, again, the emancipation of women.
Plato, Mary Wolstonecraft, and John Stuart Mill produced admirable
arguments, but influenced only a few impotent idealists. The war came,
leading to the employment of women in industry on a large scale, and
instantly the arguments in favour of votes for women were seen to be
irresistible. More than that, traditional sexual morality collapsed,
because its whole basis was the economic dependence of women upon
their fathers and husbands. Changes in such a matter as sexual
morality bring with them profound alterations in the thoughts and
feelings of ordinary men and women; they modify law, literature, art,
and all kinds of institutions that seem remote from economics.

Such facts as these justify Marxians in speaking, as they do, of
"bourgeois ideology," meaning that kind of morality which has been
imposed upon the world by the possessors of capital. Contentment with
one's lot may be taken as typical of the virtues preached by the rich
to the poor. They honestly believe it is a virtue--at any rate they
did formerly. The more religious among the poor also believed it,
partly from the influence of authority, partly from an impulse to
submission, what MacDougall calls "negative self-feeling," which is
commoner than some people think. Similarly men preached the virtue of
female chastity, and women usually accepted their teaching; both
really believed the doctrine, but its persistence was only possible
through the economic power of men. This led erring women to punishment
here on earth, which made further punishment hereafter seem probable.
When the economic penalty ceased, the conviction of sinfulness
gradually decayed. In such changes we see the collapse of "bourgeois
ideology."

But in spite of the fundamental importance of economic facts in
determining the politics and beliefs of an age or nation, I do not
think that non-economic factors can be neglected without risks of
errors which may be fatal in practice.

The most obvious non-economic factor, and the one the neglect of which
has led Socialists most astray, is nationalism. Of course a nation,
once formed, has economic interests which largely determine its
politics; but it is not, as a rule, economic motives that decide what
group of human beings shall form a nation. Trieste, before the war,
considered itself Italian, although its whole prosperity as a port
depended upon its belonging to Austria. No economic motive can account
for the opposition between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. In Eastern
Europe, the Balkanization produced by self-determination has been
obviously disastrous from an economic point of view, and was demanded
for reasons which were in essence sentimental. Throughout the war
wage-earners, with only a few exceptions, allowed themselves to be
governed by nationalist feeling, and ignored the traditional Communist
exhortation: "Workers of the world, unite." According to Marxian
orthodoxy, they were misled by cunning capitalists, who made their
profit out of the slaughter. But to any one capable of observing
psychological facts, it is obvious that this is largely a myth.
Immense numbers of capitalists were ruined by the war; those who were
young were just as liable to be killed as the proletarians were. No
doubt commercial rivalry between England and Germany had a great deal
to do with causing the war; but rivalry is a different thing from
profit-seeking. Probably by combination English and German capitalists
could have made more than they did out of rivalry, but the rivalry
was instinctive, and its economic form was accidental. The capitalists
were in the grip of nationalist instinct as much as their proletarian
"dupes." In both classes some have gained by the war; but the
universal will to war was not produced by the hope of gain. It was
produced by a different set of instincts, and one which Marxian
psychology fails to recognize adequately.

The Marxian assumes that a man's "herd," from the point of view of
herd-instinct, is his class, and that he will combine with those whose
economic class-interest is the same as his. This is only very
partially true in fact. Religion has been the most decisive factor in
determining a man's herd throughout long periods of the world's
history. Even now a Catholic working man will vote for a Catholic
capitalist rather than for an unbelieving Socialist. In America the
divisions in local elections are mainly on religious lines. This is no
doubt convenient for the capitalists, and tends to make them religious
men; but the capitalists alone could not produce the result. The
result is produced by the fact that many working men prefer the
advancement of their creed to the improvement of their livelihood.
However deplorable such a state of mind may be, it is not necessarily
due to capitalist lies.

All politics are governed by human desires. The materialist theory of
history, in the last analysis, requires the assumption that every
politically conscious person is governed by one single desire--the
desire to increase his own share of commodities; and, further, that
his method of achieving this desire will usually be to seek to
increase the share of his class, not only his own individual share.
But this assumption is very far from the truth. Men desire power, they
desire satisfactions for their pride and their self-respect. They
desire victory over rivals so profoundly that they will invent a
rivalry for the unconscious purpose of making a victory possible. All
these motives cut across the pure economic motive in ways that are
practically important.

There is need of a treatment of political motives by the methods of
psycho-analysis. In politics, as in private life, men invent myths to
rationalize their conduct. If a man thinks that the only reasonable
motive in politics is economic self-advancement, he will persuade
himself that the things he wishes to do will make him rich. When he
wants to fight the Germans, he tells himself that their competition is
ruining his trade. If, on the other hand, he is an "idealist," who
holds that his politics should aim at the advancement of the human
race, he will tell himself that the crimes of the Germans demand
their humiliation. The Marxian sees through this latter camouflage,
but not through the former. To desire one's own economic advancement
is comparatively reasonable; to Marx, who inherited eighteenth-century
rationalist psychology from the British orthodox economists,
self-enrichment seemed the natural aim of a man's political actions.
But modern psychology has dived much deeper into the ocean of insanity
upon which the little barque of human reason insecurely floats. The
intellectual optimism of a bygone age is no longer possible to the
modern student of human nature. Yet it lingers in Marxism, making
Marxians rigid and Procrustean in their treatment of the life of
instinct. Of this rigidity the materialistic conception of history is
a prominent instance.

In the next chapter I shall attempt to outline a political psychology
which seems to me more nearly true than that of Marx.

II



The larger events in the political life of the world are determined by
the interaction of material conditions and human passions. The
operation of the passions on the material conditions is modified by
intelligence. The passions themselves may be modified by alien
intelligence guided by alien passions. So far, such modification has
been wholly unscientific, but it may in time become as precise as
engineering.

The classification of the passions which is most convenient in
political theory is somewhat different from that which would be
adopted in psychology.

We may begin with desires for the necessaries of life: food, drink,
sex, and (in cold climates) clothing and housing. When these are
threatened, there is no limit to the activity and violence that men
will display.

Planted upon these primitive desires are a number of secondary
desires. Love of property, of which the fundamental political
importance is obvious, may be derived historically and psychologically
from the hoarding instinct. Love of the good opinion of others (which
we may call vanity) is a desire which man shares with many animals; it
is perhaps derivable from courtship, but has great survival value,
among gregarious animals, in regard to others besides possible mates.
Rivalry and love of power are perhaps developments of jealousy; they
are akin, but not identical.

These four passions--acquisitiveness, vanity, rivalry, and love of
power--are, after the basic instincts, the prime movers of almost all
that happens in politics. Their operation is intensified and
regularized by herd instinct. But herd instinct, by its very nature,
cannot be a prime mover, since it merely causes the herd to act in
unison, without determining what the united action is to be. Among
men, as among other gregarious animals, the united action, in any
given circumstances, is determined partly by the common passions of
the herd, partly by imitation of leaders. The art of politics consists
in causing the latter to prevail over the former.

Of the four passions we have enumerated, only one, namely
acquisitiveness, is concerned at all directly with men's relations to
their material conditions. The other three--vanity, rivalry, and love
of power--are concerned with social relations. I think this is the
source of what is erroneous in the Marxian interpretation of history,
which tacitly assumes that acquisitiveness is the source of all
political actions. It is clear that many men willingly forego wealth
for the sake of power and glory, and that nations habitually sacrifice
riches to rivalry with other nations. The desire for some form of
superiority is common to almost all energetic men. No social system
which attempts to thwart it can be stable, since the lazy majority
will never be a match for the energetic minority.

What is called "virtue" is an offshoot of vanity: it is the habit of
acting in a manner which others praise.

The operation of material conditions may be illustrated by the
statement (Myers's _Dawn of History_) that four of the greatest
movements of conquest have been due to drought in Arabia, causing the
nomads of that country to migrate into regions already inhabited. The
last of these four movements was the rise of Islam. In these four
cases, the primal need of food and drink was enough to set events in
motion; but as this need could only be satisfied by conquest, the four
secondary passions must have very soon come into play. In the
conquests of modern industrialism, the secondary passions have been
almost wholly dominant, since those who directed them had no need to
fear hunger or thirst. It is the potency of vanity and love of power
that gives hope for the industrial future of Soviet Russia, since it
enables the Communist State to enlist in its service men whose
abilities might give them vast wealth in a capitalistic society.

Intelligence modifies profoundly the operation of material conditions.
When America was first discovered, men only desired gold and silver;
consequently the portions first settled were not those that are now
most profitable. The Bessemer process created the German iron and
steel industry; inventions requiring oil have created a demand for
that commodity which is one of the chief influences in international
politics.

The intelligence which has this profound effect on politics is not
political, but scientific and technical: it is the kind of
intelligence which discovers how to make nature minister to human
passions. Tungsten had no value until it was found to be useful in the
manufacture of shells and electric light, but now people will, if
necessary, kill each other in order to acquire tungsten. Scientific
intelligence is the cause of this change.

The progress or retrogression of the world depends, broadly speaking,
upon the balance between acquisitiveness and rivalry. The former makes
for progress, the latter for retrogression. When intelligence provides
improved methods of production, these may be employed to increase the
general share of goods, or to set apart more of the labour power of
the community for the business of killing its rivals. Until 1914,
acquisitiveness had prevailed, on the whole, since the fall of
Napoleon; the past six years have seen a prevalence of the instinct of
rivalry. Scientific intelligence makes it possible to indulge this
instinct more fully than is possible for primitive peoples, since it
sets free more men from the labour of producing necessaries. It is
possible that scientific intelligence may, in time, reach the point
when it will enable rivalry to exterminate the human race. This is the
most hopeful method of bringing about an end of war.

For those who do not like this method, there is another: the study of
scientific psychology and physiology. The physiological causes of
emotions have begun to be known, through the studies of such men as
Cannon (_Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage_). In time, it
may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole
emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the
passions of the rulers how this power is used. Success will come to
the State which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent
required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to
domestic dissensions. There is no method by which it can be insured
that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore there is
no reason to suppose that the power to modify men's emotional nature
would cause progress.

If men desired to diminish rivalry, there is an obvious method. Habits
of power intensify the passion of rivalry; therefore a State in which
power is concentrated will, other things being equal, be more
bellicose than one in which power is diffused. For those who dislike
wars, this is an additional argument against all forms of
dictatorship. But dislike of war is far less common than we used to
suppose; and those who like war can use the same argument to support
dictatorship.

III



The Bolshevik argument against Parliamentary democracy as a method of
achieving Socialism is a powerful one. My answer to it lies rather in
pointing out what I believe to be fallacies in the Bolshevik method,
from which I conclude that no swift method exists of establishing any
desirable form of Socialism. But let us first see what the Bolshevik
argument is.

In the first place, it assumes that those to whom it is addressed are
absolutely certain that Communism is desirable, so certain that they
are willing, if necessary, to force it upon an unwilling population at
the point of the bayonet. It then proceeds to argue that, while
capitalism retains its hold over propaganda and its means of
corruption, Parliamentary methods are very unlikely to give a majority
for Communism in the House of Commons, or to lead to effective action
by such a majority even if it existed. Communists point out how the
people are deceived, and how their chosen leaders have again and
again betrayed them. From this they argue that the destruction of
capitalism must be sudden and catastrophic; that it must be the work
of a minority; and that it cannot be effected constitutionally or
without violence. It is therefore, in their view, the duty of the
Communist party in a capitalist country to prepare for armed conflict,
and to take all possible measure for disarming the bourgeoisie and
arming that part of the proletariat which is willing to support the
Communists.

There is an air of realism and disillusionment about this position,
which makes it attractive to those idealists who wish to think
themselves cynics. But I think there are various points in which it
fails to be as realistic as it pretends.

In the first place, it makes much of the treachery of Labour leaders
in constitutional movements, but does not consider the possibility of
the treachery of Communist leaders in a revolution. To this the
Marxian would reply that in constitutional movements men are bought,
directly or indirectly, by the money of the capitalists, but that
revolutionary Communism would leave the capitalists no money with
which to attempt corruption. This has been achieved in Russia, and
could be achieved elsewhere. But selling oneself to the capitalists
is not the only possible form of treachery. It is also possible,
having acquired power, to use it for one's own ends instead of for the
people. This is what I believe to be likely to happen in Russia: the
establishment of a bureaucratic aristocracy, concentrating authority
in its own hands, and creating a régime just as oppressive and cruel
as that of capitalism. Marxians never sufficiently recognize that love
of power is quite as strong a motive, and quite as great a source of
injustice, as love of money; yet this must be obvious to any unbiased
student of politics. It is also obvious that the method of violent
revolution leading to a minority dictatorship is one peculiarly
calculated to create habits of despotism which would survive the
crisis by which they were generated. Communist politicians are likely
to become just like the politicians of other parties: a few will be
honest, but the great majority will merely cultivate the art of
telling a plausible tale with a view to tricking the people into
entrusting them with power. The only possible way by which politicians
as a class can be improved is the political and psychological
education of the people, so that they may learn to detect a humbug. In
England men have reached the point of suspecting a good speaker, but
if a man speaks badly they think he must be honest. Unfortunately,
virtue is not so widely diffused as this theory would imply.

In the second place, it is assumed by the Communist argument that,
although capitalist propaganda can prevent the majority from becoming
Communists, yet capitalist laws and police forces cannot prevent the
Communists, while still a minority, from acquiring a supremacy of
military power. It is thought that secret propaganda can undermine the
army and navy, although it is admittedly impossible to get the
majority to vote at elections for the programme of the Bolsheviks.
This view is based upon Russian experience, where the army and navy
had suffered defeat and had been brutally ill used by incompetent
Tsarist authorities. The argument has no application to more efficient
and successful States. Among the Germans, even in defeat, it was the
civilian population that began the revolution.

There is a further assumption in the Bolshevik argument which seems to
me quite unwarrantable. It is assumed that the capitalist governments
will have learned nothing from the experience of Russia. Before the
Russian Revolution, governments had not studied Bolshevik theory. And
defeat in war created a revolutionary mood throughout Central and
Eastern Europe. But now the holders of power are on their guard. There
seems no reason whatever to suppose that they will supinely permit a
preponderance of armed force to pass into the hands of those who wish
to overthrow them, while, according to the Bolshevik theory, they are
still sufficiently popular to be supported by a majority at the polls.
Is it not as clear as noonday that in a democratic country it is more
difficult for the proletariat to destroy the Government by arms than
to defeat it in a general election? Seeing the immense advantages of a
Government in dealing with rebels, it seems clear that rebellion could
have little hope of success unless a very large majority supported it.
Of course, if the army and navy were specially revolutionary, they
might effect an unpopular revolution; but this situation, though
something like it occurred in Russia, is hardly to be expected in the
Western nations. This whole Bolshevik theory of revolution by a
minority is one which might just conceivably have succeeded as a
secret plot, but becomes impossible as soon as it is openly avowed and
advocated.

But perhaps it will be said that I am caricaturing the Bolshevik
doctrine of revolution. It is urged by advocates of this doctrine,
quite truly, that all political events are brought about by
minorities, since the majority are indifferent to politics. But there
is a difference between a minority in which the indifferent acquiesce,
and a minority so hated as to startle the indifferent into belated
action. To make the Bolshevik doctrine reasonable, it is necessary to
suppose that they believe the majority can be induced to acquiesce, at
least temporarily, in the revolution made by the class-conscious
minority. This, again, is based upon Russian experience: desire for
peace and land led to a widespread support of the Bolsheviks in
November 1917 on the part of people who have subsequently shown no
love for Communism.

I think we come here to an essential part of Bolshevik philosophy. In
the moment of revolution, Communists are to have some popular cry by
which they win more support than mere Communism could win. Having thus
acquired the State machine, they are to use it for their own ends. But
this, again, is a method which can only be practised successfully so
long as it is not avowed. It is to some extent habitual in politics.
The Unionists in 1900 won a majority on the Boer War, and used it to
endow brewers and Church schools. The Liberals in 1906 won a majority
on Chinese labour, and used it to cement the secret alliance with
France and to make an alliance with Tsarist Russia. President Wilson,
in 1916, won his majority on neutrality, and used it to come into the
war. This method is part of the stock-in-trade of democracy. But its
success depends upon repudiating it until the moment comes to practise
it. Those who, like the Bolsheviks, have the honesty to proclaim in
advance their intention of using power for other ends than those for
which it was given them, are not likely to have a chance of carrying
out their designs.

What seems to me to emerge from these considerations is this: That in
a democratic and politically educated country, armed revolution in
favour of Communism would have no chance of succeeding unless it were
supported by a larger majority than would be required for the election
of a Communist Government by constitutional methods. It is possible
that, if such a Government came into existence, and proceeded to carry
out its programme, it would be met by armed resistance on the part of
capital, including a large proportion of the officers in the army and
navy. But in subduing this resistance it would have the support of
that great body of opinion which believes in legality and upholds the
constitution. Moreover, having, by hypothesis, converted a majority of
the nation, a Communist Government could be sure of loyal help from
immense numbers of workers, and would not be forced, as the
Bolsheviks are in Russia, to suspect treachery everywhere. Under these
circumstances, I believe that the resistance of the capitalists could
be quelled without much difficulty, and would receive little support
from moderate people. Whereas, in a minority revolt of Communists
against a capitalist Government, all moderate opinion would be on the
side of capitalism.

The contention that capitalist propaganda is what prevents the
adoption of Communism by wage-earners is only very partially true.
Capitalist propaganda has never been able to prevent the Irish from
voting against the English, though it has been applied to this object
with great vigour. It has proved itself powerless, over and over
again, in opposing nationalist movements which had almost no moneyed
support. It has been unable to cope with religious feeling. And those
industrial populations which would most obviously benefit by Socialism
have, in the main, adopted it, in spite of the opposition of
employers. The plain truth is that Socialism does not arouse the same
passionate interest in the average citizen as is roused by nationality
and used to be roused by religion. It is not unlikely that things may
change in this respect: we may be approaching a period of economic
civil wars comparable to that of the religious civil wars that
followed the Reformation. In such a period, nationalism is submerged
by party: British and German Socialists, or British and German
capitalists, will feel more kinship with each other than with
compatriots of the opposite political camp. But when that day comes,
there will be no difficulty, in highly industrial countries, in
securing Socialist majorities; if Socialism is not then carried
without bloodshed, it will be due to the unconstitutional action of
the rich, not to the need of revolutionary violence on the part of the
advocates of the proletariat. Whether such a state of opinion grows up
or not depends mainly upon the stubbornness or conciliatoriness of the
possessing classes, and, conversely, upon the moderation or violence
of those who desire fundamental economic change. The majority which
Bolsheviks regard as unattainable is chiefly prevented by the
ruthlessness of their own tactics.

Apart from all arguments of detail, there are two broad objections to
violent revolution in a democratic community. The first is that, when
once the principle of respecting majorities as expressed at the
ballot-box is abandoned, there is no reason to suppose that victory
will be secured by the particular minority to which one happens to
belong. There are many minorities besides Communists: religious
minorities, teetotal minorities, militarist minorities, capitalist
minorities. Any one of these could adopt the method of obtaining power
advocated by the Bolsheviks, and any one would be just as likely to
succeed as they are. What restrains these minorities, more or less, at
present, is respect for the law and the constitution. Bolsheviks
tacitly assume that every other party will preserve this respect while
they themselves, unhindered, prepare the revolution. But if their
philosophy of violence becomes popular, there is not the slightest
reason to suppose that they will be its beneficiaries. They believe
that Communism is for the good of the majority; they ought to believe
that they can persuade the majority on this question, and to have the
patience to set about the task of winning by propaganda.

The second argument of principle against the method of minority
violence is that abandonment of law, when it becomes widespread, lets
loose the wild beast, and gives a free rein to the primitive lusts and
egoisms which civilization in some degree curbs. Every student of
mediæval thought must have been struck by the extraordinarily high
value placed upon law in that period. The reason was that, in
countries infested by robber barons, law was the first requisite of
progress. We, in the modern world, take it for granted that most
people will be law-abiding, and we hardly realize what centuries of
effort have gone to making such an assumption possible. We forget how
many of the good things that we unquestionably expect would disappear
out of life if murder, rape, and robbery with violence became common.
And we forget even more how very easily this might happen. The
universal class-war foreshadowed by the Third International, following
upon the loosening of restraints produced by the late war, and
combined with a deliberate inculcation of disrespect for law and
constitutional government, might, and I believe would, produce a state
of affairs in which it would be habitual to murder men for a crust of
bread, and in which women would only be safe while armed men protected
them. The civilized nations have accepted democratic government as a
method of settling internal disputes without violence. Democratic
government may have all the faults attributed to it, but it has the
one great merit that people are, on the whole, willing to accept it as
a substitute for civil war in political disputes. Whoever sets to work
to weaken this acceptance, whether in Ulster or in Moscow, is taking a
fearful responsibility. Civilization is not so stable that it cannot
be broken up; and a condition of lawless violence is not one out of
which any good thing is likely to emerge. For this reason, if for no
other, revolutionary violence in a democracy is infinitely dangerous.

IV



The Bolsheviks have a very definite programme for achieving
Communism--a programme which has been set forth by Lenin repeatedly,
and quite recently in the reply of the Third International to the
questionnaire submitted by the Independent Labour Party.

Capitalists, we are assured, will stick at nothing in defence of their
privileges. It is the nature of man, in so far as he is politically
conscious, to fight for the interests of his class so long as classes
exist. When the conflict is not pushed to extremes, methods of
conciliation and political deception may be preferable to actual
physical warfare; but as soon as the proletariat make a really vital
attack upon the capitalists, they will be met by guns and bayonets.
This being certain and inevitable, it is as well to be prepared for
it, and to conduct propaganda accordingly. Those who pretend that
pacific methods can lead to the realization of Communism are false
friends to the wage-earners; intentionally or unintentionally, they
are covert allies of the bourgeoisie.

There must, then, according to Bolshevik theory, be armed conflict
sooner or later, if the injustices of the present economic system are
ever to be remedied. Not only do they assume armed conflict: they have
a fairly definite conception of the way in which it is to be
conducted. This conception has been carried out in Russia, and is to
be carried out, before very long, in every civilized country. The
Communists, who represent the class-conscious wage-earners, wait for
some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary
discontent with the existing Government. They then put themselves at
the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and
in so doing acquire the arms, the railways, the State treasure, and
all the other resources upon which the power of modern Governments is
built. They then confine political power to Communists, however small
a minority they may be of the whole nation. They set to work to
increase their number by propaganda and the control of education. And
meanwhile, they introduce Communism into every department of economic
life as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, after a longer or shorter period, according to
circumstances, the nation will be converted to Communism, the relics
of capitalist institutions will have been obliterated, and it will be
possible to restore freedom. But the political conflicts to which we
are accustomed will not reappear. All the burning political questions
of our time, according to the Communists, are questions of class
conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears.
Accordingly the State will no longer be required, since the State is
essentially an engine of power designed to give the victory to one
side in the class conflict. Ordinary States are designed to give the
victory to the capitalists; the proletarian State (Soviet Russia) is
designed to give the victory to the wage-earners. As soon as the
community contains only wage-earners, the State will cease to have any
functions. And so, through a period of dictatorship, we shall finally
arrive at a condition very similar to that aimed at by Anarchist
Communism.

Three questions arise in regard to this method of reaching Utopia.
First, would the ultimate state foreshadowed by the Bolsheviks be
desirable in itself? Secondly, would the conflict involved in
achieving it by the Bolshevik method be so bitter and prolonged that
its evils would outweigh the ultimate good? Thirdly, is this method
likely to lead, in the end, to the state which the Bolsheviks desire,
or will it fail at some point and arrive at a quite different result?
If we are to be Bolsheviks, we must answer all these questions in a
sense favourable to their programme.

As regards the first question, I have no hesitation in answering it in
a manner favourable to Communism. It is clear that the present
inequalities of wealth are unjust. In part, they may be defended as
affording an incentive to useful industry, but I do not think this
defence will carry us very far. However, I have argued this question
before in my book on _Roads to Freedom_, and I will not spend time
upon it now. On this matter, I concede the Bolshevik case. It is the
other two questions that I wish to discuss.

Our second question was: Is the ultimate good aimed at by the
Bolsheviks sufficiently great to be worth the price that, according to
their own theory, will have to be paid for achieving it?

If anything human were absolutely certain, we might answer this
question affirmatively with some confidence. The benefits of
Communism, if it were once achieved, might be expected to be lasting;
we might legitimately hope that further change would be towards
something still better, not towards a revival of ancient evils. But if
we admit, as we must do, that the outcome of the Communist revolution
is in some degree uncertain, it becomes necessary to count the cost;
for a great part of the cost is all but certain.

Since the revolution of October, 1917, the Soviet Government has been
at war with almost all the world, and has had at the same time to face
civil war at home. This is not to be regarded as accidental, or as a
misfortune which could not be foreseen. According to Marxian theory,
what has happened was bound to happen. Indeed, Russia has been
wonderfully fortunate in not having to face an even more desperate
situation. First and foremost, the world was exhausted by the war, and
in no mood for military adventures. Next, the Tsarist régime was the
worst in Europe, and therefore rallied less support than would be
secured by any other capitalist Government. Again, Russia is vast and
agricultural, making it capable of resisting both invasion and
blockade better than Great Britain or France or Germany. The only
other country that could have resisted with equal success is the
United States, which is at present very far removed from a proletarian
revolution, and likely long to remain the chief bulwark of the
capitalist system. It is evident that Great Britain, attempting a
similar revolution, would be forced by starvation to yield within a
few months, provided America led a policy of blockade. The same is
true, though in a less degree, of continental countries. Therefore,
unless and until an international Communist revolution becomes
possible, we must expect that any other nation following Russia's
example will have to pay an even higher price than Russia has had to
pay.

Now the price that Russia is having to pay is very great. The almost
universal poverty might be thought to be a small evil in comparison
with the ultimate gain, but it brings with it other evils of which the
magnitude would be acknowledged even by those who have never known
poverty and therefore make light of it. Hunger brings an absorption in
the question of food, which, to most people, makes life almost purely
animal. The general shortage makes people fierce, and reacts upon the
political atmosphere. The necessity of inculcating Communism produces
a hot-house condition, where every breath of fresh air must be
excluded: people are to be taught to think in a certain way, and all
free intelligence becomes taboo. The country comes to resemble an
immensely magnified Jesuit College. Every kind of liberty is banned as
being "_bourgeois_"; but it remains a fact that intelligence
languishes where thought is not free.

All this, however, according to the leaders of the Third
International, is only a small beginning of the struggle, which must
become world-wide before it achieves victory. In their reply to the
Independent Labour Party they say:

    It is probable that upon the throwing off of the chains of the
    capitalist Governments, the revolutionary proletariat of
    Europe will meet the resistance of Anglo-Saxon capital in the
    persons of British and American capitalists who will attempt
    to blockade it. It is then possible that the revolutionary
    proletariat of Europe will rise in union with the peoples of
    the East and commence a revolutionary struggle, the scene of
    which will be the entire world, to deal a final blow to
    British and American capitalism (_The Times_, July 30, 1920).

The war here prophesied, if it ever takes place, will be one compared
to which the late war will come to seem a mere affair of outposts.
Those who realize the destructiveness of the late war, the devastation
and impoverishment, the lowering of the level of civilization
throughout vast areas, the general increase of hatred and savagery,
the letting loose of bestial instincts which had been curbed during
peace--those who realize all this will hesitate to incur inconceivably
greater horrors, even if they believe firmly that Communism in itself
is much to be desired. An economic system cannot be considered apart
from the population which is to carry it out; and the population
resulting from such a world-war as Moscow calmly contemplates would
be savage, bloodthirsty and ruthless to an extent that must make any
system a mere engine of oppression and cruelty.

This brings us to our third question: Is the system which Communists
regard as their goal likely to result from the adoption of their
methods? This is really the most vital question of the three.

Advocacy of Communism by those who believe in Bolshevik methods rests
upon the assumption that there is no slavery except economic slavery,
and that when all goods are held in common there must be perfect
liberty. I fear this is a delusion.

There must be administration, there must be officials who control
distribution. These men, in a Communist State, are the repositories of
power. So long as they control the army, they are able, as in Russia
at this moment, to wield despotic power even if they are a small
minority. The fact that there is Communism--to a certain extent--does
not mean that there is liberty. If the Communism were more complete,
it would not necessarily mean more freedom; there would still be
certain officials in control of the food supply, and these officials
could govern as they pleased so long as they retained the support of
the soldiers. This is not mere theory: it is the patent lesson of the
present condition of Russia. The Bolshevik theory is that a small
minority are to seize power, and are to hold it until Communism is
accepted practically universally, which, they admit, may take a long
time. But power is sweet, and few men surrender it voluntarily. It is
especially sweet to those who have the habit of it, and the habit
becomes most ingrained in those who have governed by bayonets, without
popular support. Is it not almost inevitable that men placed as the
Bolsheviks are placed in Russia, and as they maintain that the
Communists must place themselves wherever the social revolution
succeeds, will be loath to relinquish their monopoly of power, and
will find reasons for remaining until some new revolution ousts them?
Would it not be fatally easy for them, without altering economic
structure, to decree large salaries for high Government officials, and
so reintroduce the old inequalities of wealth? What motive would they
have for not doing so? What motive is possible except idealism, love
of mankind, non-economic motives of the sort that Bolsheviks decry?
The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority
must necessarily allow of tyranny and exploitation; and if human
nature is what Marxians assert it to be, why should the rulers
neglect such opportunities of selfish advantage?

It is sheer nonsense to pretend that the rulers of a great empire such
as Soviet Russia, when they have become accustomed to power, retain
the proletarian psychology, and feel that their class-interest is the
same as that of the ordinary working man. This is not the case in fact
in Russia now, however the truth may be concealed by fine phrases. The
Government has a class-consciousness and a class-interest quite
distinct from those of the genuine proletarian, who is not to be
confounded with the paper proletarian of the Marxian schema. In a
capitalist state, the Government and the capitalists on the whole hang
together, and form one class; in Soviet Russia, the Government has
absorbed the capitalist mentality together with the governmental, and
the fusion has given increased strength to the upper class. But I see
no reason whatever to expect equality or freedom to result from such a
system, except reasons derived from a false psychology and a mistaken
analysis of the sources of political power.

I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because
the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods
is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I
do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to
desire.

But if their methods are rejected, how are we ever to arrive at a
better economic system? This is not an easy question, and I shall
treat it in a separate chapter.

V



Is it possible to effect a fundamental reform of the existing economic
system by any other method than that of Bolshevism? The difficulty of
answering this question is what chiefly attracts idealists to the
dictatorship of the proletariat. If, as I have argued, the method of
violent revolution and Communist rule is not likely to have the
results which idealists desire, we are reduced to despair unless we
call see hope in other methods. The Bolshevik arguments against all
other methods are powerful. I confess that, when the spectacle of
present-day Russia forced me to disbelieve in Bolshevik methods, I was
at first unable to see any way of curing the essential evils of
capitalism. My first impulse was to abandon political thinking as a
bad job, and to conclude that the strong and ruthless must always
exploit the weaker and kindlier sections of the population. But this
is not an attitude that can be long maintained by any vigorous and
temperamentally hopeful person. Of course, if it were the truth, one
would have to acquiesce. Some people believe that by living on sour
milk one can achieve immortality. Such optimists are answered by a
mere refutation; it is not necessary to go on and point out some other
way of escaping death. Similarly an argument that Bolshevism will not
lead to the millennium would remain valid even if it could be shown
that the millennium cannot be reached by any other road. But the truth
in social questions is not quite like truth in physiology or physics,
since it depends upon men's beliefs. Optimism tends to verify itself
by making people impatient of avoidable evils; while despair, on the
other hand, makes the world as bad as it believes it to be. It is
therefore imperative for those who do not believe in Bolshevism to put
some other hope in its place.

I think there are two things that must be admitted: first, that many
of the worst evils of capitalism might survive under Communism;
secondly, that the cure for these evils cannot be sudden, since it
requires changes in the average mentality.

What are the chief evils of the present system? I do not think that
mere inequality of wealth, in itself, is a very grave evil. If
everybody had enough, the fact that some have more than enough would
be unimportant. With a very moderate improvement in methods of
production, it would be easy to ensure that everybody should have
enough, even under capitalism, if wars and preparations for wars were
abolished. The problem of poverty is by no means insoluble within the
existing system, except when account is taken of psychological factors
and the uneven distribution of power.

The graver evils of the capitalist system all arise from its uneven
distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence
quite out of proportion to their numbers or their services to the
community. They control almost the whole of education and the press;
they decide what the average man shall know or not know; the cinema
has given them a new method of propaganda, by which they enlist the
support of those who are too frivolous even for illustrated papers.
Very little of the intelligence of the world is really free: most of
it is, directly or indirectly, in the pay of business enterprises or
wealthy philanthropists. To satisfy capitalist interests, men are
compelled to work much harder and more monotonously than they ought to
work, and their education is scamped. Wherever, as in barbarous or
semi-civilized countries, labour is too weak or too disorganized to
protect itself, appalling cruelties are practised for private profit.
Economic and political organizations become more and more vast,
leaving less and less room for individual development and initiative.
It is this sacrifice of the individual to the machine that is the
fundamental evil of the modern world.

To cure this evil is not easy, because efficiency is promoted, at any
given moment, though not in the long run, by sacrificing the
individual to the smooth working of a vast organization, whether
military or industrial. In war and in commercial competition, it is
necessary to control individual impulses, to treat men as so many
"bayonets" or "sabres" or "hands," not as a society of separate people
with separate tastes and capacities. Some sacrifice of individual
impulses is, of course, essential to the existence of an ordered
community, and this degree of sacrifice is, as a rule, not regretable
even from the individual's point of view. But what is demanded in a
highly militarized or industrialized nation goes far beyond this very
moderate degree. A society which is to allow much freedom to the
individual must be strong enough to be not anxious about home defence,
moderate enough to refrain from difficult external conquests, and rich
enough to value leisure and a civilized existence more than an
increase of consumable commodities.

But where the material conditions for such a state of affairs exist,
the psychological conditions are not likely to exist unless power is
very widely diffused throughout the community. Where power is
concentrated in a few, it will happen, unless those few are very
exceptional people, that they will value tangible achievements in the
way of increase in trade or empire more than the slow and less obvious
improvements that would result from better education combined with
more leisure. The joys of victory are especially great to the holders
of power, while the evils of a mechanical organization fall almost
exclusively upon the less influential. For these reasons, I do not
believe that any community in which power is much concentrated will
long refrain from conflicts of the kind involving a sacrifice of what
is most valuable in the individual. In Russia at this moment, the
sacrifice of the individual is largely inevitable, because of the
severity of the economic and military struggle. But I did not feel, in
the Bolsheviks, any consciousness of the magnitude of this misfortune,
or any realization of the importance of the individual as against the
State. Nor do I believe that men who do realize this are likely to
succeed, or to come to the top, in times when everything has to be
done against personal liberty. The Bolshevik theory requires that
every country, sooner or later, should go through what Russia is going
through now. And in every country in such a condition we may expect to
find the government falling into the hands of ruthless men, who have
not by nature any love for freedom, and who will see little importance
in hastening the transition from dictatorship to freedom. It is far
more likely that such men will be tempted to embark upon new
enterprises, requiring further concentration of forces, and postponing
indefinitely the liberation of the populations which they use as their
material.

For these reasons, equalization of wealth without equalization of
power seems to me a rather small and unstable achievement. But
equalization of power is not a thing that can be achieved in a day. It
requires a considerable level of moral, intellectual, and technical
education. It requires a long period without extreme crises, in order
that habits of tolerance and good nature may become common. It
requires vigour on the part of those who are acquiring power, without
a too desperate resistance on the part of those whose share is
diminishing. This is only possible if those who are acquiring power
are not very fierce, and do not terrify their opponents by threats of
ruin and death. It cannot be done quickly, because quick methods
require that very mechanism and subordination of the individual which
we should struggle to prevent.

But even equalization of power is not the whole of what is needed
politically. The right grouping of men for different purposes is also
essential. Self-government in industry, for example, is an
indispensable condition of a good society. Those acts of an individual
or a group which have no very great importance for outsiders ought to
be freely decided by that individual or group. This is recognized as
regards religion, but ought to be recognized over a much wider field.

Bolshevik theory seems to me to err by concentrating its attention
upon one evil, namely inequality of wealth, which it believes to be at
the bottom of all others. I do not believe any one evil can be thus
isolated, but if I had to select one as the greatest of political
evils, I should select inequality of power. And I should deny that
this is likely to be cured by the class-war and the dictatorship of
the Communist party. Only peace and a long period of gradual
improvement can bring it about.

Good relations between individuals, freedom from hatred and violence
and oppression, genera diffusion of education, leisure rationally
employed, the progress of art and science--these seem to me among the
most important ends that a political theory ought to have in view. I
do not believe that they can be furthered, except very rarely, by
revolution and war; and I am convinced that at the present moment they
can only be promoted by a diminution in the spirit of ruthlessness
generated by the war. For these reasons, while admitting the necessity
and even utility of Bolshevism in Russia, I do not wish to see it
spread, or to encourage the adoption of its philosophy by advanced
parties in the Western nations.

VI



The civilized world seems almost certain, sooner or later, to follow
the example of Russia in attempting a Communist organization of
society. I believe that the attempt is essential to the progress and
happiness of mankind during the next few centuries, but I believe also
that the transition has appalling dangers. I believe that, if the
Bolshevik theory as to the method of transition is adopted by
Communists in Western nations, the result will be a prolonged chaos,
leading neither to Communism nor to any other civilized system, but to
a relapse into the barbarism of the Dark Ages. In the interests of
Communism, no less than in the interests of civilization, I think it
imperative that the Russian failure should be admitted and analysed.
For this reason, if for no other, I cannot enter into the conspiracy
of concealment which many Western Socialists who have visited Russia
consider necessary.

I shall try first to recapitulate the facts which make me regard the
Russian experiment as a failure, and then to seek out the causes of
failure.

The most elementary failure in Russia is in regard to food. In a
country which formerly produced a vast exportable surplus of cereals
and other agricultural produce, and in which the non-agricultural
population is only 15 per cent. of the total, it ought to be possible,
without great difficulty, to provide enough food for the towns. Yet
the Government has failed badly in this respect. The rations are
inadequate and irregular, so that it is impossible to preserve health
and vigour without the help of food purchased illicitly in the markets
at speculative prices. I have given reasons for thinking that the
breakdown of transport, though a contributory cause, is not the main
reason for the shortage. The main reason is the hostility of the
peasants, which, in turn, is due to the collapse of industry and to
the policy of forced requisitions. In regard to corn and flour, the
Government requisitions all that the peasant produces above a certain
minimum required for himself and his family. If, instead, it exacted a
fixed amount as rent, it would not destroy his incentive to
production, and would not provide nearly such a strong motive for
concealment. But this plan would have enabled the peasants to grow
rich, and would have involved a confessed abandonment of Communist
theory. It has therefore been thought better to employ forcible
methods, which led to disaster, as they were bound to do.

The collapse of industry was the chief cause of the food difficulties,
and has in turn been aggravated by them. Owing to the fact that there
is abundant food in the country, industrial and urban workers are
perpetually attempting to abandon their employment for agriculture.
This is illegal, and is severely punished, by imprisonment or convict
labour. Nevertheless it continues, and in so vast a country as Russia
it is not possible to prevent it. Thus the ranks of industry become
still further depleted.

Except as regards munitions of war, the collapse of industry in Russia
is extraordinarily complete. The resolutions passed by the Ninth
Congress of the Communist Party (April, 1920) speak of "the incredible
catastrophes of public economy." This language is not too strong,
though the recovery of the Baku oil has done something to produce a
revival along the Volga basin.

The failure of the whole industrial side of the national economy,
including transport, is at the bottom of the other failures of the
Soviet Government. It is, to begin with, the main cause of the
unpopularity of the Communists both in town and country: in town,
because the people are hungry; in the country, because food is taken
with no return except paper. If industry had been prosperous, the
peasants could have had clothes and agricultural machinery, for which
they would have willingly parted with enough food for the needs of the
towns. The town population could then have subsisted in tolerable
comfort; disease could have been coped with, and the general lowering
of vitality averted. It would not have been necessary, as it has been
in many cases, for men of scientific or artistic capacity to abandon
the pursuits in which they were skilled for unskilled manual labour.
The Communist Republic might have been agreeable to live in--at least
for those who had been very poor before.

The unpopularity of the Bolsheviks, which is primarily due to the
collapse of industry, has in turn been accentuated by the measures
which it has driven the Government to adopt. In view of the fact that
it was impossible to give adequate food to the ordinary population of
Petrograd and Moscow, the Government decided that at any rate the men
employed on important public work should be sufficiently nourished to
preserve their efficiency. It is a gross libel to say that the
Communists, or even the leading People's Commissaries, live luxurious
lives according to our standards; but it is a fact that they are not
exposed, like their subjects, to acute hunger and the weakening of
energy that accompanies it. No tone can blame them for this, since the
work of government must be carried on; but it is one of the ways in
which class distinctions have reappeared where it was intended that
they should be banished. I talked to an obviously hungry working man
in Moscow, who pointed to the Kremlin and remarked: "In there they
have enough to eat." He was expressing a widespread feeling which is
fatal to the idealistic appeal that Communism attempts to make.

Owing to unpopularity, the Bolsheviks have had to rely upon the army
and the Extraordinary Commission, and have been compelled to reduce
the Soviet system to an empty form. More and more the pretence of
representing the proletariat has grown threadbare. Amid official
demonstrations and processions and meetings the genuine proletarian
looks on, apathetic and disillusioned, unless he is possessed of
unusual energy and fire, in which case he looks to the ideas of
syndicalism or the I.W.W. to liberate him from a slavery far more
complete than that of capitalism. A sweated wage, long hours,
industrial conscription, prohibition of strikes, prison for slackers,
diminution of the already insufficient rations in factories where the
production falls below what the authorities expect, an army of spies
ready to report any tendency to political disaffection and to procure
imprisonment for its promoters--this is the reality of a system which
still professes to govern in the name of the proletariat.

At the same time the internal and external peril has necessitated the
creation of a vast army recruited by conscription, except as regards a
Communist nucleus, from among a population utterly weary of war, who
put the Bolsheviks in power because they alone promised peace.
Militarism has produced its inevitable result in the way of a harsh
and dictatorial spirit: the men in power go through their day's work
with the consciousness that they command three million armed men, and
that civilian opposition to their will can be easily crushed.

Out of all this has grown a system painfully like the old government
of the Tsar--a system which is Asiatic in its centralized bureaucracy,
its secret service, its atmosphere of governmental mystery and
submissive terror. In many ways it resembles our Government of India.
Like that Government, it stands for civilization, for education,
sanitation, and Western ideas of progress; it is composed in the main
of honest and hard-working men, who despise those whom they govern,
but believe themselves possessed of something valuable which they
must communicate to the population, however little it may be desired.
Like our Government in India, they live in terror of popular risings,
and are compelled to resort to cruel repressions in order to preserve
their power. Like it, they represent an alien philosophy of life,
which cannot be forced upon the people without a change of instinct,
habit, and tradition so profound as to dry up the vital springs of
action, producing listlessness and despair among the ignorant victims
of militant enlightenment. It may be that Russia needs sternness and
discipline more than anything else; it may be that a revival of Peter
the Great's methods is essential to progress. From this point of view,
much of what it is natural to criticize in the Bolsheviks becomes
defensible; but this point of view has little affinity to Communism.
Bolshevism may be defended, possibly, as a dire discipline through
which a backward nation is to be rapidly industrialized; but as an
experiment in Communism it has failed.

There are two things that a defender of the Bolsheviks may say against
the argument that they have failed because the present state of Russia
is bad. It may be said that it is too soon to judge, and it may be
urged that whatever failure there has been is attributable to the
hostility of the outside world.

As to the contention that it is too soon to judge, that is of course
undeniable in a sense. But in a sense it is always too soon to judge
of any historical movement, because its effects and developments go on
for ever. Bolshevism has, no doubt, great changes ahead of it. But the
last three years have afforded material for some judgments, though
more definitive judgments will be possible later. And, for reasons
which I have given in earlier chapters, I find it impossible to
believe that later developments will realize more fully the Communist
ideal. If trade is opened with the outer world, there will be an
almost irresistible tendency to resumption of private enterprise. If
trade is not re-opened, the plans of Asiatic conquest will mature,
leading to a revival of Yenghis Khan and Timur. In neither case is the
purity of the Communist faith likely to survive.

As for the hostility of the Entente, it is of course true that
Bolshevism might have developed very differently if it had been
treated in a friendly spirit. But in view of its desire to promote
world-revolution, no one could expect--and the Bolsheviks certainly
did not expect--that capitalist Governments would be friendly. If
Germany had won the war, Germany would have shown a hostility more
effective than that of the Entente. However we may blame Western
Governments for their policy, we must realize that, according to the
deterministic economic theory of the Bolsheviks, no other policy was
to be expected from them. Other men might have been excused for not
foreseeing the attitude of Churchill, Clemenceau and Millerand; but
Marxians could not be excused, since this attitude was in exact accord
with their own formula.

We have seen the symptoms of Bolshevik failure; I come now to the
question of its profounder causes.

Everything that is worst in Russia we found traceable to the collapse
of industry. Why has industry collapsed so utterly? And would it
collapse equally if a Communist revolution were to occur in a Western
country?

Russian industry was never highly developed, and depended always upon
outside aid for much of its plant. The hostility of the world, as
embodied in the blockade, left Russia powerless to replace the
machinery and locomotives worn out during the war. The need of
self-defence compelled the Bolsheviks to send their best workmen to
the front, because they were the most reliable Communists, and the
loss of them rendered their factories even more inefficient than they
were under Kerensky. In this respect, and in the laziness and
incapacity of the Russian workman, the Bolsheviks have had to face
special difficulties which would be less in other countries. On the
other hand, they have had special advantages in the fact that Russia
is self-supporting in the matter of food; no other country could have
endured the collapse of industry so long, and no other Great Power
except the United States could have survived years of blockade.

The hostility of the world was in no way a surprise to those who made
the October revolution; it was in accordance with their general
theory, and its consequences should have been taken into account in
making the revolution.

Other hostilities besides those of the outside world have been
incurred by the Bolsheviks with open eyes, notably the hostility of
the peasants and that of a great part of the industrial population.
They have attempted, in accordance with their usual contempt for
conciliatory methods, to substitute terror for reward as the incentive
to work. Some amiable Socialists have imagined that, when the private
capitalist had been eliminated, men would work from a sense of
obligation to the community. The Bolsheviks will have none of such
sentimentalism. In one of the resolutions of the ninth Communist
Congress they say:

    Every social system, whether based on slavery, feudalism, or
    capitalism, had its ways and means of labour compulsion and
    labour education in the interests of the exploiters.

    The Soviet system is faced with the task of developing its
    own methods of labour compulsion to attain an increase of the
    intensity and wholesomeness of labour; this method is to be
    based on the socialization of public economy in the interests
    of the whole nation.

    In addition to the propaganda by which the people are to be
    influenced and the repressions which are to be applied to all
    idlers, parasites and disorganizers who strive to undermine
    public zeal--the principal method for the increase of
    production will become the introduction of the system of
    compulsory labour.

    In capitalist society rivalry assumed the character of
    competition and led to the exploitation of man by man. In a
    society where the means of production are nationalized, labour
    rivalry is to increase the products of labour without
    infringing its solidarity.

    Rivalry between factories, regions, guilds, workshops, and
    individual workers should become the subject of careful
    organization and of close study on the side of the Trade
    Unions and the economic organs.

    The system of premiums which is to be introduced should become
    one of the most powerful means of exciting rivalry. The system
    of rationing of food supply is to get into line with it; so
    long as Soviet Russia suffers from insufficiency of
    provisions, it is only just that the industrious and
    conscientious worker receives more than the careless worker.

It must be remembered that even the "industrious and conscientious
worker" receives less food than is required to maintain efficiency.

Over the whole development of Russia and of Bolshevism since the
October revolution there broods a tragic fatality. In spite of outward
success the inner failure has proceeded by inevitable stages--stages
which could, by sufficient acumen, have been foreseen from the first.
By provoking the hostility of the outside world the Bolsheviks were
forced to provoke the hostility of the peasants, and finally the
hostility or utter apathy of the urban and industrial population.
These various hostilities brought material disaster, and material
disaster brought spiritual collapse. The ultimate source of the whole
train of evils lies in the Bolshevik outlook on life: in its dogmatism
of hatred and its belief that human nature can be completely
transformed by force. To injure capitalists is not the ultimate goal
of Communism, though among men dominated by hatred it is the part that
gives zest to their activities. To face the hostility of the world may
show heroism, but it is a heroism for which the country, not its
rulers, has to pay the price. In the principles of Bolshevism there is
more desire to destroy ancient evils than to build up new goods; it is
for this reason that success in destruction has been so much greater
than in construction. The desire to destroy is inspired by hatred,
which is not a constructive principle. From this essential
characteristic of Bolshevik mentality has sprung the willingness to
subject Russia to its present martyrdom. It is only out of a quite
different mentality that a happier world can be created.

And from this follows a further conclusion. The Bolshevik outlook is
the outcome of the cruelty of the Tsarist régime and the ferocity of
the years of the Great War, operating upon a ruined and starving
nation maddened into universal hatred. If a different mentality is
needed for the establishment of a successful Communism, then a quite
different conjuncture must see its inauguration; men must be persuaded
to the attempt by hope, not driven to it by despair. To bring this
about should be the aim of every Communist who desires the happiness
of mankind more than the punishment of capitalists and their
governmental satellites.

VII



The fundamental ideas of Communism are by no means impracticable, and
would, if realized, add immeasurably to the well-being of mankind. The
difficulties which have to be faced are not in regard to the
fundamental ideas, but in regard to the transition from capitalism. It
must be assumed that those who profit by the existing system will
fight to preserve it, and their fight may be sufficiently severe to
destroy all that is best in Communism during the struggle, as well as
everything else that has value in modern civilization. The seriousness
of this problem of transition is illustrated by Russia, and cannot be
met by the methods of the Third International. The Soviet Government,
at the present moment, is anxious to obtain manufactured goods from
capitalist countries, but the Third International is meanwhile
endeavouring to promote revolutions which, if they occurred, would
paralyse the industries of the countries concerned, and leave them
incapable of supplying Russian needs.

The supreme condition of success in a Communist revolution is that it
should not paralyse industry. If industry is paralysed, the evils
which exist in modern Russia, or others just as great, seem
practically unavoidable. There will be the problem of town and
country, there will be hunger, there will be fierceness and revolts
and military tyranny. All these things follow in a fatal sequence; and
the end of them is almost certain to be something quite different from
what genuine Communists desire.

If industry is to survive throughout a Communist revolution, a number
of conditions must be fulfilled which are not, at present, fulfilled
anywhere. Consider, for the sake of definiteness, what would happen if
a Communist revolution were to occur in England to-morrow. Immediately
America would place an embargo on all trade with us. The cotton
industry would collapse, leaving about five million of the most
productive portion of the population idle. The food supply would
become inadequate, and would fail disastrously if, as is to be
expected, the Navy were hostile or disorganized by the sabotage of the
officers. The result would be that, unless there were a
counter-revolution, about half the population would die within the
first twelve months. On such a basis it would evidently be impossible
to erect a successful Communist State.

What applies to England applies, in one form or another, to the
remaining countries of Europe. Italian and German Socialists are, many
of them, in a revolutionary frame of mind and could, if they chose,
raise formidable revolts. They are urged by Moscow to do so, but they
realize that, if they did, England and America would starve them.
France, for many reasons, dare not offend England and America beyond a
point. Thus, in every country except America, a successful Communist
revolution is impossible for economico-political reasons. America,
being self-contained and strong, would be capable, so far as material
conditions go, of achieving a successful revolution; but in America
the psychological conditions are as yet adverse. There is no other
civilized country where capitalism is so strong and revolutionary
Socialism so weak as in America. At the present moment, therefore,
though it is by no means impossible that Communist revolutions may
occur all over the Continent, it is nearly certain that they cannot be
successful in any real sense. They will have to begin by a war against
America, and possibly England, by a paralysis of industry, by
starvation, militarism and the whole attendant train of evils with
which Russia has made us familiar.

That Communism, whenever and wherever it is adopted, will have to
begin by fighting the bourgeoisie, is highly probable. The important
question is not whether there is to be fighting, but how long and
severe it is to be. A short war, in which Communism won a rapid and
easy victory, would do little harm. It is long, bitter and doubtful
wars that must be avoided if anything of what makes Communism
desirable is to survive.

Two practical consequences flow from this conclusion: first, that
nothing can succeed until America is either converted to Communism, or
at any rate willing to remain neutral; secondly, that it is a mistake
to attempt to inaugurate Communism in a country where the majority are
hostile, or rather, where the active opponents are as strong as the
active supporters, because in such a state of opinion a very severe
civil war is likely to result. It is necessary to have a great body of
opinion favourable to Communism, and a rather weak opposition, before
a really successful Communist state can be introduced either by
revolution or by more or less constitutional methods.

It may be assumed that when Communism is first introduced, the higher
technical and business staff will side with the capitalists and
attempt sabotage unless they have no hopes of a counter-revolution.
For this reason it is very necessary that among wage-earners there
should be as wide a diffusion as possible of technical and business
education, so that they may be able immediately to take control of big
complex industries. In this respect Russia was very badly off, whereas
England and America would be much more fortunate.

Self-government in industry is, I believe, the road by which England
can best approach Communism. I do not doubt that the railways and the
mines, after a little practice, could be run more efficiently by the
workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at
present by the capitalists. The Bolsheviks oppose self-government in
industry every where, because it has failed in Russia, and their
national self-esteem prevents them from admitting that this is due to
the backwardness of Russia. This is one of the respects in which they
are misled by the assumption that Russia must be in all ways a model
to the rest of the world. I would go so far as to say that the winning
of self-government in such industries as railways and mining is an
essential preliminary to complete Communism. In England, especially,
this is the case. The Unions can command whatever technical skill they
may require; they are politically powerful; the demand for
self-government is one for which there is widespread sympathy, and
could be much more with adequate propaganda; moreover (what is
important with the British temperament) self-government can be brought
about gradually, by stages in each trade, and by extension from one
trade to another. Capitalists value two things, their power and their
money; many individuals among them value only the money. It is wiser
to concentrate first on the power, as is done by seeking
self-government in industry without confiscation of capitalist
incomes. By this means the capitalists are gradually turned into
obvious drones, their active functions in industry become nil, and
they can be ultimately dispossessed without dislocation and without
the possibility of any successful struggle on their parts.

Another advantage of proceeding by way of self-government is that it
tends to prevent the Communist régime, when it comes, from having that
truly terrible degree of centralization which now exists in Russia.
The Russians have been forced to centralize, partly by the problems of
the war, but more by the shortage of all kinds of skill. This has
compelled the few competent men to attempt each to do the work of ten
men, which has not proved satisfactory in spite of heroic efforts. The
idea of democracy has become discredited as the result first of
syndicalism, and then of Bolshevism. But there are two different
things that may be meant by democracy: we may mean the system of
Parliamentary government, or we may mean the participation of the
people in affairs. The discredit of the former is largely deserved,
and I have no desire to uphold Parliament as an ideal institution. But
it is a great misfortune if, from a confusion of ideas, men come to
think that, because Parliaments are imperfect, there is no reason why
there should be self-government. The grounds for advocating
self-government are very familiar: first, that no benevolent despot
can be trusted to know or pursue the interests of his subjects;
second, that the practice of self-government is the only effective
method of political education; third, that it tends to place the
preponderance of force on the side of the constitution, and thus to
promote order and stable government. Other reasons could be found, but
I think these are the chief. In Russia self-government has
disappeared, except within the Communist Party. If it is not to
disappear elsewhere during a Communist revolution, it is very
desirable that there should exist already important industries
competently administered by the workers themselves.

The Bolshevik philosophy is promoted very largely by despair of more
gradual methods. But this despair is a mark of impatience, and is not
really warranted by the facts. It is by no means impossible, in the
near future, to secure self-government in British railways and mines
by constitutional means. This is not the sort of measure which would
bring into operation an American blockade or a civil war or any of the
other catastrophic dangers that are to be feared from a full-fledged
Communist revolution in the present international situation.
Self-government in industry is feasible, and would be a great step
towards Communism. It would both afford many of the advantages of
Communism and also make the transition far easier without a technical
break-down of production.

There is another defect in the methods advocated by the Third
International. The sort of revolution which is recommended is never
practically feasible except in a time of national misfortune; in fact,
defeat in war seems to be an indispensable condition. Consequently, by
this method, Communism will only be inaugurated where the conditions
of life are difficult, where demoralization and disorganization make
success almost impossible, and where men are in a mood of fierce
despair very inimical to industrial construction. If Communism is to
have a fair chance, it must be inaugurated in a prosperous country.
But a prosperous country will not be readily moved by the arguments of
hatred and universal upheaval which are employed by the Third
International. It is necessary, in appealing to a prosperous country,
to lay stress on hope rather than despair, and to show how the
transition can be effected without a calamitous loss of prosperity.
All this requires less violence and subversiveness, more patience and
constructive propaganda, less appeal to the armed might of a
determined minority.

The attitude of uncompromising heroism is attractive, and appeals
especially to the dramatic instinct. But the purpose of the serious
revolutionary is not personal heroism, nor martyrdom, but the creation
of a happier world. Those who have the happiness of the world at heart
will shrink from attitudes and the facile hysteria of "no parley with
the enemy." They will not embark upon enterprises, however arduous and
austere, which are likely to involve the martyrdom of their country
and the discrediting of their ideals. It is by slower and less showy
methods that the new world must be built: by industrial efforts after
self-government, by proletarian training in technique and business
administration, by careful study of the international situation, by a
prolonged and devoted propaganda of ideas rather than tactics,
especially among the wage-earners of the United States. It is not true
that no gradual approaches to Communism are possible: self-government
in industry is an important instance to the contrary. It is not true
that any isolated European country, or even the whole of the Continent
in unison, can, after the exhaustion produced by the war, introduce a
successful form of Communism at the present moment, owing to the
hostility and economic supremacy of America. To find fault with those
who urge these considerations, or to accuse them of faint-heartedness,
is mere sentimental self-indulgence, sacrificing the good we can do to
the satisfaction of our own emotions.

Even under present conditions in Russia, it is possible still to feel
the inspiration of the essential spirit of Communism, the spirit of
creative hope, seeking to sweep away the incumbrances of injustice and
tyranny and rapacity which obstruct the growth of the human spirit, to
replace individual competition by collective action, the relation of
master and slave by free co-operation. This hope has helped the best
of the Communists to bear the harsh years through which Russia has
been passing, and has become an inspiration to the world. The hope is
not chimerical, but it can only be realized through a more patient
labour, a more objective study of facts, and above all a longer
propaganda, to make the necessity of the transition obvious to the
great majority of wage-earners. Russian Communism may fail and go
under, but Communism itself will not die. And if hope rather than
hatred inspires its advocates, it can be brought about without the
universal cataclysm preached by Moscow. The war and its sequel have
proved the destructiveness of capitalism; let us see to it that the
next epoch does not prove the still greater destructiveness of
Communism, but rather its power to heal the wounds which the old evil
system has inflicted upon the human spirit.