Our second question was:  Is the ultimate good aimed at by the Bolsheviks sufficiently great to be worth the price that, according to their own theory, will have to be paid for achieving it?

If anything human were absolutely certain, we might answer this question affirmatively with some confidence.  The benefits of Communism, if it were once achieved, might be expected to be lasting; we might legitimately hope that further change would be towards something still better, not towards a revival of ancient evils.  But if we admit, as we must do, that the outcome of the Communist revolution is in some degree uncertain, it becomes necessary to count the cost; for a great part of the cost is all but certain.

Since the revolution of October, 1917, the Soviet Government has been at war with almost all the world, and has had at the same time to face civil war at home.  This is not to be regarded as accidental, or as a misfortune which could not be foreseen.  According to Marxian theory, what has happened was bound to happen.  Indeed, Russia has been wonderfully fortunate in not having to face an even more desperate situation.  First and foremost, the world was exhausted by the war, and in no mood for military adventures.  Next, the Tsarist regime was the worst in Europe, and therefore rallied less support than would be secured by any other capitalist Government.  Again, Russia is vast and agricultural, making it capable of resisting both invasion and blockade better than Great Britain or France or Germany.  The only other country that could have resisted with equal success is the United States, which is at present very far removed from a proletarian revolution, and likely long to remain the chief bulwark of the capitalist system.  It is evident that Great Britain, attempting a similar revolution, would be forced by starvation to yield within a few months, provided America led a policy of blockade.  The same is true, though in a less degree, of continental countries.  Therefore, unless and until an international Communist revolution becomes possible, we must expect that any other nation following Russia’s example will have to pay an even higher price than Russia has had to pay.

Now the price that Russia is having to pay is very great.  The almost universal poverty might be thought to be a small evil in comparison with the ultimate gain, but it brings with it other evils of which the magnitude would be acknowledged even by those who have never known poverty and therefore make light of it.  Hunger brings an absorption in the question of food, which, to most people, makes life almost purely animal.  The general shortage makes people fierce, and reacts upon the political atmosphere.  The necessity of inculcating Communism produces a hot-house condition, where every breath of fresh air must be excluded:  people are to be taught to think in a certain way, and all free intelligence becomes taboo.  The country comes to resemble an immensely magnified Jesuit College.  Every kind of liberty is banned as being “bourgeois”; but it remains a fact that intelligence languishes where thought is not free.