nationalization. In the western governments, she said, "great estates were
being taken over by government departments and were being managed by
officials, on the ground that state control would yield better results than
communal ownership. Under this system the peasants were being reduced to
the state of slaves paid wages by the state. Yet the law provided that
these estates should be divided among the peasant communes to be tilled by
the peasants on a co-operative system."[83] Spiridonova protested against
the attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, against dividing them
into classes and placing the greater part of them with the bourgeoisie. She
insisted that the peasants be regarded as a single class, co-operating with
the industrial proletariat, yet distinct from it and from the bourgeoisie.
For our present purpose, it does not matter whether the leaders of the
Bolsheviki were right or wrong in their decision that state operation was
better than operation by village co-operatives. Our sole concern here and
now is the fact that they did not keep faith with the section of the
peasants they had won over to their side, and the fact that, as this
incident shows, we cannot regard the formal decrees of the Soviet Republic
as descriptions of realities.

The Bolsheviki remain to-day, as at the beginning, a counter-revolutionary
power imposing its rule upon the great mass of the Russian people by armed
force. There can be little doubt that if a free election could be had
immediately upon the same basis as that on which the Constituent Assembly
was elected--namely, universal, secret, equal, direct suffrage, the
Bolsheviki would be overwhelmingly beaten. There can be little doubt that
the great mass of the peasantry would support, as before, the candidates of
the Socialist-Revolutionary party. It is quite true that some of the
leaders of that party have consented to work with the Bolshevik government.
Compromises have been effected; the Bolsheviki have conciliated the
peasants somewhat, and the latter have, in many cases, sought to make the
best of a bad situation. Many have adopted a passive attitude. But there
can be no greater mistake than to believe that the Bolsheviki have solved
the land question to the satisfaction of the peasants and so won their
allegiance.

VII

This survey of the theories and practices of the Bolsheviki would invite
criticism and distrust if the peace program which culminated in the
sham