only a
freak of circumstance that hindered this embodiment of despotism from
beginning one of their accepted means of rendering the world safe for
democracy.

Political students outside the Conference, going farther into the
matter, inquired whether there was any kernel of truth in the doctrines
of Lenin, any social or political advantage in the practices of
Braunstein (Trotzky), and the conclusions which they reached were
negative.[277] But inquiries of this theoretical nature awakened no
interest among the empiricists of the Supreme Council. For them
Bolshevism meant nothing more than a group of politicians, who directed,
or misdirected, but certainly represented the bulk of the Russian
people, and who, if won over and gathered under the cloak of the
Conference, would facilitate its task and bear witness to its triumph.
This inference, drawn by keen observers from many countries and parties,
is borne out by the curious admissions and abortive acts of the
principal plenipotentiaries themselves.

In its milder manifestations on the social side Russian Bolshevism
resembles communism, and may be described as a social revolution
effected by depriving one set of people--the ruling and intelligent
class--of power, property, and civil rights, putting another and less
qualified section in their place, and maintaining the top-heavy
structure by force ruthlessly employed. Far-reaching though this change
undoubtedly is, it has no nexus with Marxism or kindred theories. Its
proximate causes were many: such, for example, as the breakdown of a
tyrannical system of government, state indebtedness so vast that it
swallowed up private capital, the depreciation of money, and the
corresponding appreciation of labor. It is fair, therefore, to say that
a rise in the cost of production and the temporary substitution of one
class for another mark the extent to which political forces
revolutionized the social fabric. Beyond these limits they did not go.
The notion had been widespread in most countries, and deep-rooted in
Russia, that a political upheaval would effect a root-reaching and
lasting alteration in the forces of social development. It was adopted
by Lenin, a fanatic of the Robespierre type, but far superior to
Robespierre in will-power, insight, resourcefulness, and sincerity, who,
having seized the reins of power, made the experiment.

It is no easy matter to analyze Lenin's economic policy, because of the
veil of mist that conc