y settle down into a more or less
ordinary State. These men have on their side the fact of the economic
exhaustion of Russia, the danger of ultimate revolt against Bolshevism
if life continues to be as painful as it is at present, and the
natural sentiment of humanity that wishes to relieve the sufferings of
the people; also the fact that, if revolutions elsewhere produce a
similar collapse of industry, they will make it impossible for Russia
to receive the outside help which is urgently needed. In the early
days, when the Government was weak, they had unchallenged control of
policy, but success has made their position less secure.

On the other side there is a blend of two quite different aims: first,
the desire to promote revolution in the Western nations, which is in
line with Communist theory, and is also thought to be the only way of
obtaining a really secure peace; secondly, the desire for Asiatic
dominion, which is probably accompanied in the minds of some with
dreams of sapphires and rubies and golden thrones and all the glories
of their forefather Solomon. This desire produces an unwillingness to
abandon the Eastern policy, although it is realized that, until it is
abandoned, peace with capitalist England is impossible. I do not know
whether there are some to whom the thought occurs that if England were
to embark on revolution we should become willing to abandon India to
the Russians. But I am certain that the converse thought occurs,
namely that, if India could be taken from us, the blow to imperialist
feeling might lead us to revolution. In either case, the two policies,
of revolution in the West and conquest (disguised as liberation of
oppressed peoples) in the East, work in together, and dovetail into a
strongly coherent whole.

Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not
as an ordinary political movement. The important and effective mental
attitudes to the world may be broadly divided into the religious and
the scientific. The scientific attitude is tentative and piecemeal,
believing what it finds evidence for, and no more. Since Galileo, the
scientific attitude has proved itself increasingly capable of
ascertaining important facts and laws, which are acknowledged by all
competent people regardless of temperament or self-interest or
political pressure. Almost all the progress in the world from the
earliest times is attributable to science and the scientific temper;
almost all t