for such a state of affairs exist,
the psychological conditions are not likely to exist unless power is
very widely diffused throughout the community. Where power is
concentrated in a few, it will happen, unless those few are very
exceptional people, that they will value tangible achievements in the
way of increase in trade or empire more than the slow and less obvious
improvements that would result from better education combined with
more leisure. The joys of victory are especially great to the holders
of power, while the evils of a mechanical organization fall almost
exclusively upon the less influential. For these reasons, I do not
believe that any community in which power is much concentrated will
long refrain from conflicts of the kind involving a sacrifice of what
is most valuable in the individual. In Russia at this moment, the
sacrifice of the individual is largely inevitable, because of the
severity of the economic and military struggle. But I did not feel, in
the Bolsheviks, any consciousness of the magnitude of this misfortune,
or any realization of the importance of the individual as against the
State. Nor do I believe that men who do realize this are likely to
succeed, or to come to the top, in times when everything has to be
done against personal liberty. The Bolshevik theory requires that
every country, sooner or later, should go through what Russia is going
through now. And in every country in such a condition we may expect to
find the government falling into the hands of ruthless men, who have
not by nature any love for freedom, and who will see little importance
in hastening the transition from dictatorship to freedom. It is far
more likely that such men will be tempted to embark upon new
enterprises, requiring further concentration of forces, and postponing
indefinitely the liberation of the populations which they use as their
material.

For these reasons, equalization of wealth without equalization of
power seems to me a rather small and unstable achievement. But
equalization of power is not a thing that can be achieved in a day. It
requires a considerable level of moral, intellectual, and technical
education. It requires a long period without extreme crises, in order
that habits of tolerance and good nature may become common. It
requires vigour on the part of those who are acquiring power, without
a too desperate resistance on the part of those whose share is
diminishing. This is only possible if