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 State.  Ceased is the stimulus of individual interest; few work; the peasants work only to produce what their families need; the workers in the city are chiefly engaged in meetings and political reunions.  All wish to live upon the State, and production, organized autocratically and bureaucratically, every day dries up and withers a bit more.