“It is,” he replied. “I went out without the slightest bias in the world against what I regarded as a very big thing, the establishment of a great Socialist Republic, and I have come out with a deep feeling of disappointment. There is practically no Socialism in Russia worthy of the name. And the people are utterly wretched.”
I could see that his flippant mood covered a very real disappointment, and was silent for a while; then I reminded him that perhaps we had expected too much, and he seemed to agree.
There are many ways of regarding the problem of Russia, each one leading to a different conclusion and generally a faulty one. There is the man who considers it solely from the point of view of present achievement without regard to the special difficulties which have had to be overcome. Such a critic is not reasonable and is bound to be contemptuous, for judging the thing just as it stands, and chiefly by the condition of the people who live under it, Bolshevism is a failure. It was bound to be a failure. No living human being faced by so many and such frightful difficulties could have made it a success. Alien invasion, internal disorder, counter-revolutionary activities, scarcities of necessaries of all sorts, the blockade of Russia—all these things made it quite impossible for the Russian Revolutionary Government with the best brains and the finest intentions in the world to carry out more than a fraction of its programme in a very imperfect manner. The wonder is not that they have failed to establish Socialism, but that they have successfully accomplished so much that is good.
But the person who maintains that so much has been done and done admirably that the other nations should immediately copy is making just as big a mistake in the other direction. Much might advantageously be imitated by countries where the war has created similar problems. Russia has communised her housing accommodation, so that now everybody has shelter and nobody need be overcrowded. This is all to the good. From such things the overcrowded towns and cities of Europe might take a lesson from Moscow; but unless and until the new institutions of Russia, political, industrial, and social, prove themselves to be of more social value than the similar institutions of other lands, the men are doing a disservice to their country who advocate the slavish copying of Russia.
One of the most admirable features of the Russian Administration so far has been its elasticity. In spite of the extremists and because of the pressure of circumstances, the Russian Administration has shown a disposition to scrap its failures and to turn from one experiment to another in a way which well might serve as an example to the hide-bound politicians of other lands.
To some people method does not matter; the end is all in all. Such people do not feel the tyranny which is exercised over the people to be offensive, nor do the cruelties excite their wrath. They regard these things as temporary, and to them the end always justifies the means. To them, no doubt, it appears that the end will be achieved by such means. Nor are they possessed by any fear that what is meant to be temporary will harden into a system and become permanent. With eyes on some splendid future they would tolerate the worst crimes committed under the régime of the Czar if done in the name and for the sake of Communism. It was with this class of supporter of Bolshevism with whom I was in hourly conflict.
For I believe very sincerely that in such a matter as this the good end cannot be achieved by vile means, and that the extremists who use methods of force and violence are preparing the ground for a reaction so complete that it would not be surprising if it ended with a new king on every one of the vacant thrones of Europe.
But the biggest blunder of all is made by those people who start with the assumption that Russia is like the rest of Europe, and that her people are the same as ours. It is the most fatal blunder.
Russia is, in size, not a country, but a continent. It contains one hundred and twenty-five millions of people who speak fifty different languages. The neighbouring federated states take their orders from Moscow in everything except local affairs, and the so-called independent border states will one day discover their economic relationship to Russia and will federate. Such a population, with such resources as Russia possesses, will become a blessing or a menace to the rest of the world.
The Russian people are the most illiterate in Europe. Their civilisation is generations behind Western civilisation and is of a different sort. They have a tradition of tyranny that sets them in a different category from the people of Anglo-Saxondom. They are a silent, passive people for the most part, sentimental and idealistic. They are composed, in the main, of peasants whose chief absorbing interest is the land which they love with intense passion.