notes
can buy all the food and warmth he desires. Throughout the war
dwellers in London, Paris or Berlin affected by war conditions
(and that meant practically everybody) were freed of paying rent by
a moratorium. Residents of Moscow and Petrograd are still obliged
to pay rent and at a higher figure than in pre-war days. These two
incontrovertible facts are evidence that an all-powerful Bolshevik
in the Communist Government has in two years installed a lesser
measure of Communism in actual practice than existed in the
belligerent European countries during the war years. To my mind
this is one of the severest, albeit the most rarely mentioned,
indictments of the Bolsheviks' vast communistic programme, since it
reveals their impotency to attain their initial aim--the abolition
of classes."

In the second place, not alone has there been failure to destroy
capitalism and equalize possessions, but new class distinctions and "new
aristocracies" have arisen. We quote Eyre on this point from the same
issue of the "World," February 28, 1920:

"While capitalism in the larger sense of the term has been
destroyed, together with private ownership on a large scale,
capital continues to be accumulated and to make its influence felt.
One man may still possess more than another in worldly goods and
receive higher pay for his work. Equality of material possessions
is as non-existent in the Russian social republic as it is in the
American 'bourgeois' republic. Hence there are coming into
existence new groupings of Russian population, new lines of
economic demarcation, new forms of social standing and of wealth.
The beginning of two new aristocracies are detectable. One is found
in the governmental hierarchy, the other in the ever-increasing
speculator class.... The Soviets ... cannot do without the
speculators (which means all persons engaged in private trading)."

Thirdly, "Communist" Russia already has her "ruling class," as
privileged and as distinctly marked off from the ordinary day-laborer as
in any "bourgeois" republic. We quote Eyre as to this from the same
article:

"Governmental aristocracy has its boots imbedded in the Kremlin,
that ancient Moscow citadel.... In Soviet Russia today one speaks
of the Kremlin as one spoke of Versailles in the magnificent days
of Louis XIV.... O