Obviously, there is no point of sympathy between this brutal and arrogant gospel of force and the striving of modern democracy for the peaceful organization of the world, for disarmament, a league of nations, and, in general, the supplanting of force of arms by the force of reason and morality.  There is a Prussian quality in Lenine’s philosophy.  He is the Treitschke of social revolt, brutal, relentless, and unscrupulous, glorying in might, which is, for him, the only right.  And that is what characterizes the whole Bolshevik movement:  it is the infusion into the class strife and struggles of the world the same brutality and the same faith that might is right which made Prussian militarism the menace it was to civilization.

And just as the world of civilized mankind recognized Prussian militarism as its deadly enemy, to be overcome at all costs, so, too, Bolshevism must be overcome.  And that can best be done, not by attempting to drown it in blood, but by courageously and consistently setting ourselves to the task of removing the social oppression, the poverty, and the servitude which produce the desperation of soul that drives men to Bolshevism.  The remedy for Bolshevism is a sane and far-reaching program of constructive social democracy.

POSTSCRIPTUM:  A PERSONAL STATEMENT

This book is the fulfilment of a promise to a friend.  Soon after my return from Europe, in November, I spent part of a day in New York discussing Bolshevism with two friends.  One of these is a Russian Socialist, who has lived many years in America, a citizen of the United States, and a man whose erudition and fidelity to the working-class movement during many years have long commanded my admiration and reverence.  The other friend is a native American, also a Socialist.  A sincere Christian, he has identified his faith in the religion of Jesus and his faith in democratic Socialism.  The two are not conflicting forces, or even separate ones, but merely different and complementary aspects of the same faith.  He is a man who is universally loved and honored for his nobility of character and his generous idealism.  While in Europe I had spent much time consulting with Russian friends in Paris, Rome, and other cities, and had collected a considerable amount of authentic material relating to Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki.  I had not the slightest intention of using this material to make a book; in fact, my plans contemplated a very different employment of my time.  But, in the course of the discussion, my American Socialist friend asked me to “jot down” for him some of the things I had said, and, especially, to write, in a letter, what I believed to be the psychology of Bolshevism.  This, in an unguarded moment, I undertook to do.