ends, but aiming at the creation of a new social order.  The same motives, however, which make him austere make him also ruthless.  Marx has taught that Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this fits in with the Oriental traits in the Russian character, and produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahomet.  Opposition is crushed without mercy, and without shrinking from the methods of the Tsarist police, many of whom are still employed at their old work.  Since all evils are due to private property, the evils of the Bolshevik regime while it has to fight private property will automatically cease as soon as it has succeeded.

These views are the familiar consequences of fanatical belief.  To an English mind they reinforce the conviction upon which English life has been based ever since 1688, that kindliness and tolerance are worth all the creeds in the world—­a view which, it is true, we do not apply to other nations or to subject races.

In a very novel society it is natural to seek for historical parallels.  The baser side of the present Russian Government is most nearly paralleled by the Directoire in France, but on its better side it is closely analogous to the rule of Cromwell.  The sincere Communists (and all the older members of the party have proved their sincerity by years of persecution) are not unlike the Puritan soldiers in their stern politico-moral purpose.  Cromwell’s dealings with Parliament are not unlike Lenin’s with the Constituent Assembly.  Both, starting from a combination of democracy and religious faith, were driven to sacrifice democracy to religion enforced by military dictatorship.  Both tried to compel their countries to live at a higher level of morality and effort than the population found tolerable.  Life in modern Russia, as in Puritan England, is in many ways contrary to instinct.  And if the Bolsheviks ultimately fall, it will be for the reason for which the Puritans fell:  because there comes a point at which men feel that amusement and ease are worth more than all other goods put together.

Far closer than any actual historical parallel is the parallel of Plato’s Republic.  The Communist Party corresponds to the guardians; the soldiers have about the same status in both; there is in Russia an attempt to deal with family life more or less as Plato suggested.  I suppose it may be assumed that every teacher of Plato throughout the world abhors Bolshevism, and that every Bolshevik regards Plato as an antiquated bourgeois.  Nevertheless, the parallel is extraordinarily exact between Plato’s Republic and the regime which the better Bolsheviks are endeavouring to create.