Within the Communist Party there are, of course, as always in a bureaucracy, different factions, though hitherto the external pressure has prevented disunion.  It seemed to me that the personnel of the bureaucracy could be divided into three classes.  There are first the old revolutionists, tested by years of persecution.  These men have most of the highest posts.  Prison and exile have made them tough and fanatical and rather out of touch with their own country.  They are honest men, with a profound belief that Communism will regenerate the world.  They think themselves utterly free from sentiment, but, in fact, they are sentimental about Communism and about the regime that they are creating; they cannot face the fact that what they are creating is not complete Communism, and that Communism is anathema to the peasant, who wants his own land and nothing else.  They are pitiless in punishing corruption or drunkenness when they find either among officials; but they have built up a system in which the temptations to petty corruption are tremendous, and their own materialistic theory should persuade them that under such a system corruption must be rampant.

The second class in the bureaucracy, among whom are to be found most of the men occupying political posts just below the top, consists of arrivistes, who are enthusiastic Bolsheviks because of the material success of Bolshevism.  With them must be reckoned the army of policemen, spies, and secret agents, largely inherited from the Tsarist times, who make their profit out of the fact that no one can live except by breaking the law.  This aspect of Bolshevism is exemplified by the Extraordinary Commission, a body practically independent of the Government, possessing its own regiments, who are better fed than the Red Army.  This body has the power of imprisoning any man or woman without trial on such charges as speculation or counter-revolutionary activity.  It has shot thousands without proper trial, and though now it has nominally lost the power of inflicting the death penalty, it is by no means certain that it has altogether lost it in fact.  It has spies everywhere, and ordinary mortals live in terror of it.

The third class in the bureaucracy consists of men who are not ardent Communists, who have rallied to the Government since it has proved itself stable, and who work for it either out of patriotism or because they enjoy the opportunity of developing their ideas freely without the obstacle of traditional institutions.  Among this class are to be found men of the type of the successful business man, men with the same sort of ability as is found in the American self-made Trust magnate, but working for success and power, not for money.  There is no doubt that the Bolsheviks are successfully solving the problem of enlisting this kind of ability in the public service, without permitting it to amass wealth as it does in capitalist communities.  This is perhaps their greatest success