“I am not here to have my word challenged—or my authority. If any one of you imagines I am even thinking of surrendering the latter, under any conceivable circumstances, he is mad. And if any one of you doubts my power to enforce my will, I promise him ample proof of it before the night is ended.... Let us now proceed to business, the question held over from our last meeting. If Comrade Four will consult his minutes”—a nod singled out the babu, who, beaming with importance, produced a note-book—“they will show we adjourned to consider overtures made by the Smolny Institute of Petrograd, seeking our coöperation toward accelerating the social revolution in England.”
“Thatt,” the Bengali affirmed, “is true bill of factt.”
“If the temper in which you received those proposals is fair criterion,” Number One resumed, “there can be little doubt as to our decision. Speaking for myself, I think it would be suicidal to reject the overtures of the Soviet Government in Russia. Let me state why.”
He bowed his forehead upon a hand and continued with thoughtful gaze downcast:
“England is ripe for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, as it is now sweeping Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, as it must soon sweep France and Spain. Our power in England is great; even so, we could hope to do no more than delay the soviet movement were we to set ourselves against it—we could never hope to stop it. It would seem, then, self-preservation to set ourselves at the head of it, seize with our own hands—in the name of the British Soviet—the symbols of power now held by an antiquated and doddering Government. So shall we become to England what the Smolny Institute is to Russia. Otherwise, in the end, we must be crushed.”
“If we adopt the indicated course, there will be an end forever to this hole-and-corner business which so hampers us, we will be able to work in the open, the police will become our tools rather than weapons in the hands of our enemies; our power will be without limits, Soviet Russia itself must bow to our dictation.”
He paused and lifted his head, looking round the circle of intent faces.
“If I am wrong or too sanguine, I am ready to be corrected.”
He heard only a murmur of admiration, never a note of dissent; and a smile of gratification, yet half satiric, curved his thin lips.
“I take it, then, the Council endorses my decision to proceed with the negotiations instituted by Soviet Russia; to accept its proposals and pledge our cooperation in every way?”