om 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 Ru