ien philosophy of life,
which cannot be forced upon the people without a change of instinct,
habit, and tradition so profound as to dry up the vital springs of
action, producing listlessness and despair among the ignorant victims
of militant enlightenment. It may be that Russia needs sternness and
discipline more than anything else; it may be that a revival of Peter
the Great's methods is essential to progress. From this point of view,
much of what it is natural to criticize in the Bolsheviks becomes
defensible; but this point of view has little affinity to Communism.
Bolshevism may be defended, possibly, as a dire discipline through
which a backward nation is to be rapidly industrialized; but as an
experiment in Communism it has failed.

There are two things that a defender of the Bolsheviks may say against
the argument that they have failed because the present state of Russia
is bad. It may be said that it is too soon to judge, and it may be
urged that whatever failure there has been is attributable to the
hostility of the outside world.

As to the contention that it is too soon to judge, that is of course
undeniable in a sense. But in a sense it is always too soon to judge
of any historical movement, because its effects and developments go on
for ever. Bolshevism has, no doubt, great changes ahead of it. But the
last three years have afforded material for some judgments, though
more definitive judgments will be possible later. And, for reasons
which I have given in earlier chapters, I find it impossible to
believe that later developments will realize more fully the Communist
ideal. If trade is opened with the outer world, there will be an
almost irresistible tendency to resumption of private enterprise. If
trade is not re-opened, the plans of Asiatic conquest will mature,
leading to a revival of Yenghis Khan and Timur. In neither case is the
purity of the Communist faith likely to survive.

As for the hostility of the Entente, it is of course true that
Bolshevism might have developed very differently if it had been
treated in a friendly spirit. But in view of its desire to promote
world-revolution, no one could expect--and the Bolsheviks certainly
did not expect--that capitalist Governments would be friendly. If
Germany had won the war, Germany would have shown a hostility more
effective than that of the Entente. However we may blame Western
Governments for their policy, we must realize that, according to the
det