in an otherwise excellent leading article, speaks of “the growing hatred of the Russian peasant, who is neither a Communist nor a Bolshevik, for the Allies generally and this country in particular.”  The typical Russian peasant has never heard of the Allies or of this country; he does not know that there is a blockade; all he knows is that he used to have six cows but the Government reduced him to one for the sake of poorer peasants, and that it takes his corn (except what is needed for his own family) at a very low price.  The reasons for these actions do not interest him, since his horizon is bounded by his own village.  To a remarkable extent, each village is an independent unit.  So long as the Government obtains the food and soldiers that it requires, it does not interfere, and leaves untouched the old village communism, which is extraordinarily unlike Bolshevism and entirely dependent upon a very primitive stage of culture.

The Government represents the interests of the urban and industrial population, and is, as it were, encamped amid a peasant nation, with whom its relations are rather diplomatic and military than governmental in the ordinary sense.  The economic situation, as in Central Europe, is favourable to the country and unfavourable to the towns.  If Russia were governed democratically, according to the will of the majority, the inhabitants of Moscow and Petrograd would die of starvation.  As it is, Moscow and Petrograd just manage to live, by having the whole civil and military power of the State devoted to their needs.  Russia affords the curious spectacle of a vast and powerful Empire, prosperous at the periphery, but faced with dire want at the centre.  Those who have least prosperity have most power; and it is only through their excess of power that they are enabled to live at all.  The situation is due at bottom to two facts:  that almost the whole industrial energies of the population have had to be devoted to war, and that the peasants do not appreciate the importance of the war or the fact of the blockade.

It is futile to blame the Bolsheviks for an unpleasant and difficult situation which it has been impossible for them to avoid.  Their problem is only soluble in one of two ways:  by the cessation of the war and the blockade, which would enable them to supply the peasants with the goods they need in exchange for food; or by the gradual development of an independent Russian industry.  This latter method would be slow, and would involve terrible hardships, but some of the ablest men in the Government believe it to be possible if peace cannot be achieved.  If we force this method upon Russia by the refusal of peace and trade, we shall forfeit the only inducement we can hold out for friendly relations; we shall render the Soviet State unassailable and completely free to pursue the policy of promoting revolution everywhere.  But the industrial problem is a large subject, which has been already discussed in Chapter VI.