no precedents. It was planned by nobody. It grew out of the depths of national consciousness spontaneously in every part of the nation. Kerensky's government failed to recognize this fundamental fact. The scholars and thinkers of the liberal groups had before their eyes a ready pattern of Western democracies, characterized by division of power, by responsibility of the cabinet before the legislature, and by inactivity of the voter between one election and another. The masses of Russia created their own parliaments after their own ideals. The October revolution indorsed this new creation, as it indorsed many a demand and a mood of the masses.

The soviets became a school of political education for the Russian people. Men and women learn to govern themselves by governing themselves. Former mute subjects are turning into articulate citizens. The consciousness of public duty awakens. In a country where the horizon of the average man was confined to his shop or house or village community, a larger national conception is stirring the masses into activity. Tyranny becomes less and less possible. If the greatest foundation of liberty is in the minds and in the hearts of the masses, then Russia is becoming a free nation. Many an indignant voice has condemned the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. The wisdom or folly of that undertaking cannot be here the subject of discussion. One thing is beyond dispute, however. The civic education of the Russian masses under the soviets has advanced much further than the education of the more literate masses of Poland, Latvia, Esthonia, where constituent assemblies were in session. We may like or dislike the

substitution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the soviets. We must recognize that the soviets correspond closer to the spirit of the Russian people and that their work is inestimable in organizing the Russian national life.

One feature of the soviet system stands out clearly. The city workman possesses more political power than the peasant. Perfect political equality has not been introduced by the revolution, though it was solemnly proclaimed. This is an ideal which can be realized only in an economically homogeneous community. Political power rests with the groups that control the wealth of a nation. In the Western democracies these are the captains of industry and finance. In revolutionary Russia it is industrial labor. The Russian worker was more revolutionary, better organized, deeper class-conscious than the peasant. In the struggle for freedom his share was larger, his conception clearer. When power passed into the hands of the soviets, he became a leading figure. He may be, and is now, compelled to make concessions to the peasant. He may, for a briefer or longer period, abate his ideal in order to pacify the village. Still, he is the head. He is the conscious maker of his country's destinies. His political hegemony is not disputed by the amorphous mass of the peasants.

4. Classes have not been abandoned by the revolution. The old absolutist bureaucracy is gone. The class of noble landlords is gone. The large banker and factory-owner are gone. Old privileges and distinctions disappeared. "No work, no food," was made the slogan of the nation. Yet one line of division remains, that

between workmen and peasants. The city workman, as a rule, is against private property and private management of economic concerns. He possesses no means of production, and his desire to improve the conditions of his life is limited to better payment, in money and kind, for the work he does in a publicly managed shop. His ideal is common work for the benefit of all and a common share in public welfare. The average peasant is more individualistic. He loves his piece of land, and would not share its produce with others. He wishes to possess as private property the fruit of his labor, and he is eager to increase his possessions. The exploitation of hired labor has generally been condemned by the rural population, and an accumulation of wealth above a certain minimum seems to be out of keeping with the peasant's ideal. Hired labor was abandoned by the constitution, yet the practice of using farm hands, in one form or another, has not yet disappeared. With the recent concessions to the peasants allowing free trading with the surplus of their products that remains after the payment of taxes to the state, economic inequality within the village may become more pronounced. The small manufacturer and petty trader have also been recently legalized in Russia, the state abandoning its intention of managing all the economic activities of the country and confining itself to the larger plants, mines, and shops, and to general control. This makes Russia, for the time being, a country of class differences, if not of severe class struggle, as peaceful coöperation between city and village seems to be beneficial for either side. Whether the workingclass now in power will be able to per

petuate its leading position depends largely upon its ability to work hand in hand with the rural population.

5. The revolution created a strong disciplined force to conduct the business of the nation, the Communist party. The rôle of this party in welding the nation together should not be undervalued. When the czar's administration disappeared, there was nobody to take its place. The nation was amorphous. The soviets were incompetent. Everybody was impatient. Government offices resembled debating clubs rather than governing bodies. The business of the nation became more entangled every day. The nation itself was falling to pieces. Somebody had to come and do organizing work. This fell to the lot of the Communist party, which had advocated the October revolution and was at the head of it in the moment of the final struggle for power. The dictatorship of the proletariat became the dictatorship of the Communist party. The party took upon itself the responsibility for all national affairs. War cannot be conducted by committees or legislative bodies. A strong and unified executive force becomes vital. This force was furnished by the Communist party in the wars for Russian independence and in the wars for the new distribution of power. It was, and is, a rigid force putting expediency above the letter of the law and national interests above the welfare of individual groups. It has aroused the ire of the enemies of the revolution and the criticism of many of its friends. Yet it has fulfilled a historic task. It has saved the nation from disruption. It has created an army. It has established a new bureaucracy to do the business of administration day by day.

And it has served as a vast stimulus for a country horribly impoverished and ready to collapse. Let those who wish indulge in condemnation of "terror," "tyranny," and "corruption." In another connection it may be interesting to investigate what is true and what is invention in all these lamentations. The calm observer who takes stock in the Russian Revolution will ask himself where were democracy and liberty and the free expression of dissenting minorities in England, France, and America in the heat of war.

Warfare in Russia in 1918-20 was immeasurably more difficult, due to the revolution and the losses sustained between 1914 and 1918. The impartial observer will be prompted to recognize the creative part of the Russian Communist party in the time of national catastrophe.

6. The Russian Revolution introduced national management of industrial production and of transportation. Has it proved the superiority of public management over the traditional capitalist system? The positive or negative answer to this question seems to be decisive for the general public. To the popular mind the revolution stands or falls with the success or failure of the "experiment." From a broader point of view, nationalization of industries was no experiment. It was a necessity. It was dictated by the sovereignty of the revolution. Where shop committees were taking over control even before October, 1917; where sporadic confiscation of factories and plants by the workmen became a feature of economic life even under Kerensky; where the working-men loathed to work for the profit of the owners, whom they called "profiteers," and where a revolution was success

fully completed under the slogan "All power to the workmen and peasants," the maintenance of private management became a chimera. If the nation was to go on producing even at a greatly diminished scale, public management became imperative.

It was a desperate task. The system was in disorder. The productivity of labor had decreased. The new managers had no experience. The workers workers became demoralized. The transportation system grew into a tangle. Imports from abroad ceased. Reserves were being rapidly consumed. The sledge-hammer of war was constantly pounding over the nation. It was in such circumstances that the revolution had to organize the industrial system on a new basis. It was confronted not only with the question of production, but also with that of distribution both of industrial and agricultural products.

The machinery is not working smoothly yet, but there is a machinery which works. There is the supreme council of national economy, which supervises the industries of the nation. There are councils of national economy in every province and every county that supervise the industrial establishments within their territories. There are the main committees and central committees that actually manage every branch of industry, such as the main committee of the steel industry, the main committee of textiles, the central committee of chemicals, etc. There are combinations of neighboring factories of the same industry pooled together so as to form virtually one concern under one joint management. There are individual managers, public appointees, in every factory, plant, or mine. The network is not complete.

most unimaginative. The nation succeeded in taking stock of all its productive forces; it has virtually at its command all the national resources, and it has organized the workers for work.

This latter task was accomplished through the labor-unions, which were organized after the October revolution. The main work of the unions is to discipline the workers, to increase productivity of labor. Mere compulsion is futile. The unions had to conduct a vast campaign of education, had to establish thousands of technical schools (according to the report of the May, 1921, convention of the Russian unions, the number of schools and courses conducted under union auspices was 10,046). It had to raise the workers to a new standard of citizenship. In 1921 labor is more ready and eager to work under public management than it ever was before. It is participating in the management itself, directly and indirectly.

Human nature has not changed. A community of freemen, working without compulsion and without prospect of gain for the benefit of fellow-men, still remains a dream. Higher wages still secure more and better work. Better abilities still demand more recognition and an ampler reward. Yet more free play is given to the creative instincts of labor. A wider road is open to prosperity, to contented labor, to general well-being. It will take years before this ideal becomes reality, yet the road has been indicated by the revolution.

7. The revolution in the village redistributed the land in a fashion to suit the ideal of the peasant masses. Between the summer of 1917 and the summer of 1918 it annihilated the class of noble landlords that ruled

Russia for over four centuries. Between the summer and fall of 1918 it annihilated the class of rich peasants. Leveling tendencies cherished by the poorer peasants gained the upper hand. Land, cattle, and implements were distributed on the basis of equality. The noble exploiter actually disappeared. The home exploiter, the strong man of the village, was compelled to hide his real face.

Out of this double revolution a class of small farmers emerges which is going to be the foundation of the future Russia. The land is legally the property of the state, but it is held by the peasants as the property of the local village, and is being periodically redistributed in accordance with the size of each family. The increase in the holdings of each family in Great Russia is not large, hardly more than two acres. In Ukrainia, the northern Caucasus, Siberia, Turkestan, the increase is sometimes not less than fifty acres. The revolution has made the peasant the master of his own land. His consumption of food during the years of war and revolution has rather increased. His feeling of security, compared with the city population, was immense.

The revolution succeeded in freeing the peasant from bondage. It also succeeded in securing food from the villages for the maintenance of the cities. It was not always using the most effective or most gentle ways of extracting the grain from the agricultural workers, but it bridged the chasm between city and village and it maintained coöperation between industry and agriculture, however irksome the task may have sometimes appeared both to the workmen and the peasants. Moreover, it taught the peasant to