developed in Russia, is quite peculiarly inapplicable to China, for the following reasons:  (1) It requires a strong centralized State, whereas China has a very weak State, and is tending more and more to federalism instead of centralization; (2) Bolshevism requires a very great deal of government, and more control of individual lives by the authorities than has ever been known before, whereas China has developed personal liberty to an extraordinary degree, and is the country of all others where the doctrines of anarchism seem to find successful practical application; (3) Bolshevism dislikes private trading, which is the breath of life to all Chinese except the literati.  For these reasons, it is not likely that Bolshevism as a creed will make much progress in China proper.  But Bolshevism as a political force is not the same thing as Bolshevism as a creed.  The arguments which proved successful with the Ameer of Afghanistan or the nomads of Mongolia were probably different from those employed in discussion with Mr. Lansbury.  The Asiatic expansion of Bolshevik influence is not a distinctively Bolshevik phenomenon, but a continuation of traditional Russian policy, carried on by men who are more energetic, more intelligent, and less corrupt than the officials of the Tsar’s regime, and who moreover, like the Americans, believe themselves to be engaged in the liberation of mankind, not in mere imperialistic expansion.  This belief, of course, adds enormously to the vigour and success of Bolshevik imperialism, and gives an impulse to Asiatic expansion which is not likely to be soon spent, unless there is an actual restoration of the Tsarist regime under some new Kolchak dependent upon alien arms for his throne and his life.

It is therefore not at all unlikely, if the international situation develops in certain ways, that Russia may set to work to regain Manchuria, and to recover that influence over Peking which the control of Manchuria is bound to give to any foreign Power.  It would probably be useless to attempt such an enterprise while Japan remains unembarrassed, but it would at once become feasible if Japan were at war with America or with Great Britain.  There is therefore nothing improbable in the supposition that Russia may, within the next ten or twenty years, recover the position which she held in relation to China before the Russo-Japanese war.  It must be remembered also that the Russians have an instinct for colonization, and have been trekking eastward for centuries.  This tendency has been interrupted by the disasters of the last seven years, but is likely to assert itself again before long.

The hegemony of Russia in Asia would not, to my mind, be in any way regrettable.  Russia would probably not be strong enough to tyrannize as much as the English, the Americans, or the Japanese would do.  Moreover, the Russians are sufficiently Asiatic in outlook and character to be able to enter into relations of equality and mutual understanding with Asiatics, in a way which seems quite impossible for the English-speaking nations.  And an Asiatic block, if it could be formed, would be strong for defence and weak for attack, which would make for peace.  Therefore, on the whole, such a result, if it came about, would probably be desirable In the interests of mankind as a whole.