ay that it is absurd, but, given the collective madness
which has attacked some people, nothing is absurd beyond hoping in the
rapid recovery of the most excited nations.

If any country could be the scene of a communist experiment it was
Russia. Imperial Russia represented the most vast continuative
territory which a State ever occupied in all history's records of vast
empires. Under the Tsars a territory which was almost three times the
size of the United States of America was occupied by a people
who, with the exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were
accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men
exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000
individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly.
Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so
absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The
communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy
of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this
fundamental condition of success, to a Government which must regulate
production despotically, was joined another even greater condition
of success. Russia is one of those countries which, like the United
States of America, China and Brazil (the four greatest countries
of the earth, not counting the English dominions with much thinner
populations), possess within their own territories everything
necessary for life. Imagine a country of self-contained economy, that
lives entirely upon her own resources and trades with no one (and that
is what happened in Russia as a result of the blockade), Russia has
the possibility of realizing within herself the most prosperous
conditions of existence. She has in her territories everything: grain,
textile fibres, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one of the
greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, in the world.
Well, the communist organization was sufficient, the bureaucratic
centralization, which communism must necessarily carry with it, to
arrest every form of production. Russia, which before could give grain
to all, is dying of hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities of
coal for herself and could give petroleum to all Europe, can no longer
move her railways; Russia, which had wool, flax, linen, and could have
easily increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, cannot even
clothe the soldiers and functionaries of the Bolshevik Stat