ecome 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 fr