lization the
ending of such dictatorship. Why, therefore, may it not be continued
indefinitely? Certainly, if the dictatorship is abolished it will not
be--if Lenine is to be seriously considered--on account of its
incompatibility with Bolshevik principles.

VI

The Bolshevik government of Russia is credited by many of its admirers in
this country with having solved the great land problem and with having
satisfied the land-hunger of the peasants. It is charged, moreover, that
the bitter opposition to the Bolsheviki is mainly due to agitation by the
bourgeoisie, led by the expropriated landowners, who want to defeat the
Revolution and to have their former titles to the land restored. Of course,
it is true that, so far as they dare to do so, the former landowners
actively oppose the Bolsheviki. No expropriated class ever acted otherwise,
and it would be foolish to expect anything else. But any person who
believes that the opposition of the great peasant Socialist organizations,
and especially of the Socialist-Revolutionists, is due to the confiscation
of the land, either consciously or unconsciously, is capable of believing
anything and quite immune from rationality.

The facts in the case are, briefly, as follows: First, as Professor Ross
has pointed out,[77] the land policy of the Bolshevik government was a
compromise of the principles long advocated by its leaders, a compromise
made for political reasons only. Second, as Marie Spiridonova abundantly
demonstrated at an All-Russian Soviet Conference in July, 1918, the
Bolshevik government did not honorably live up to its agreement with the
Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left. Third, so far as the land problem was
concerned there was not the slightest need or justification for the
Bolshevik _coup d'etat_, for the reason that the problem had already been
solved on the precise lines afterward followed in the Soviet decree and the
leaders of the peasants were satisfied. We have the authority of no less
competent a witness than Litvinov, Bolshevist Minister to England, that
"the land measure had been 'lifted' bodily from the program of the
Socialist-Revolutionists."[78] Each of these statements is amply sustained
by evidence which cannot be disputed or overcome.

That the "land decree" which the Bolshevik government promulgated was a
compromise with their long-cherished principles admits of no doubt
whatever. Every one who has kept informed concerning Russian revolution