'In the course of Nov. 7, the Winter Palace' —where 't Government was still in session'-' was gradually surround from all sides by our troops. At one o'clock in the afterno in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee, announced at the sitting of the Petrograd Soviet th Kerensky's government no longer existed, and that, pendi the decision of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, t Government authority would be assumed by the Milita Revolutionary Committee.'

There is again no mystery about the dissolution the Constituent Assembly in January 1918. Before was allowed to meet, the middle-class Liberals, known Cadets, had been put under the ban, their leaders arrest whenever they could be found, and their newspape suppressed. That party had gained but few seats in t Assembly; but it had polled some 245,000 votes out the 810,000 cast in Petrograd, and 260,000 out of 684,0 cast in Moscow. It was at first hoped that, having th been purged, the Assembly would be amenable Bolshevik domination; and it was not in fact dissolv until the anti-Bolshevik candidate for the presidency the chamber had been elected by 244 votes to 153, and series of anti-Bolshevik resolutions carried by 237 votes 136. At the last moment, the explanation was vouchsafe by M. Lenin that the Constituent Assembly no long represented the will of the people, because it had bee elected on party lists drawn up before a recent split the anti-Bolshevik ranks. But the revolutionary gover ment had already subjected the Assembly to the right ' recall,' and announced its intention to issue new writ if half the electors in any constituency so desired. A the requirements of political equity could have been m by a number of fresh elections. The plain fact is the the Bolshevik leaders clearly perceived that no Co stituent Assembly, elected with any semblance c freedom, would confirm them in power.

And there is no difficulty, in the last place, in under standing how it came about that the Bolshevik govern ment got the support of the 'Soviets,' or Councils, o Workmen's, Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies. Thes were bodies in which the middle classes were not repre sented: bodies which were flattered by the Bolshevik cry All Power to the Soviets,' and which the Bolshevik

had been bending all their energies to capture. It must not be supposed that it was the Bolsheviks who first created them. They had arisen, more or less spontaneously, in the revolutionary days of 1905, and had been employed to bring pressure upon the government to grant parliamentary institutions. They vanished when the reaction set in; but made their appearance again early in 1917. At first they were under relatively moderate socialist leadership; but M. Lenin was quick to see their capabilities for his purpose. By the time of the November coup d'état the Bolsheviks had already got themselves elected in sufficient numbers to the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets to direct their utterances. Everything now depended on the peasants, who would form a large element in the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets which was planned to come together at the same time as the Constituent Assembly, so as to be ready to be put in its place.

At the beginning of the century the peasants already owned well over sixty per cent. of the land of Russia suited for tillage. They were hungry for more-with or without reason we need not stop to inquire. When the Russian reverses in the war with Japan and the incipient revolution of 1905 withdrew for a time the hold of the administration from local affairs, agrarian risings took place over a large part of the country; risings which aimed at 'smoking out' the nobles and dividing their estates. In 1906 order was restored, and the peasants lost what had seemed within their grasp. The government then came forward with a constructive policy on large lines, which might have solved the problem, if only it could have been given time. In the first place, it remitted the six years' payment still due of the redemption charges imposed on the peasants at the Emancipation in return for the assignment to them of their proportion of the seigneurial estates. In the second place, it passed laws to facilitate the withdrawal of land from joint village ownership. And, most important of all, it embarked on vigorous measures for the promotion of peasant holdings. In four years (1906-1910) threequarters of a million acres of state domain were sold to peasants and ten million acres leased. At the same time a Peasants' Land Bank was hard at work, buying large

estates and cutting them up into small properties C holdings. By 1911 it had sold ten million acres. Alt gether, in five years, between twenty-three and twent four million acres passed into peasants' hands, either absolute ownership or with beneficial leases. It is doub ful whether any equally large land settlement has ev been carried through elsewhere.

part

The administrations which took the place of t Czarist autocracy were naturally anxious to expedite process already so well advanced. To devise means which this could be accomplished without entire co fiscation of the rights of existing large landowne naturally took some time, especially as attention w distracted by the dangers on the Western front. T pressure from the peasants to make a clean sweep of t nobles was only held back by sharp differences of opini within the revolutionary camp. The thorough-goin Marxists, whether of the Majority (Bolsheviks) or of tl) Minority (Mensheviks), were loth to give the peasan more land, since they regarded peasant proprietors i essentially bourgeois, and a hindrance to genuine socialis tion. The Social Revolutionaries-of course, like th Marxists, a party of town 'intelligentzia' but a I which championed the cause of the peasants-sought reconcile divergent principles by an ingenious formula 'Nationalisation of the land, but the use to the peasant And while the Kerensky government was still delibera ing, the Bolshevik wing of the Marxists made up it mind to swallow its scruples and dish the rival part Immediately after the coup d'état they issued a decre which in the same breath abolished private ownership and turned it all over to the workers' without con pensation, 'on the basis of equalised use of the soil 'Pending the decision of the land question by the Cor stituent Assembly,' the property of non-peasant owner was put at the disposal of the local councils (Soviets) o peasants' deputies. Thereupon, the peasants proceede without more ado to take possession. Having got wha they wanted, they had no more to hope for from the Constituent Assembly; and gratitude was sufficient fo

the time to bind them to their benefactors.

M. Lenin has explained explicitly again and agair that the Bolshevik policy in this matter was dictated by

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tactical considerations: he has always been great on A tactics.' It was necessary to 'gain the adhesion of the peasantry' in order to put the proletariat,' i.e. the Bolsheviks, in power. They could not dispense with do this temporary union with the peasants as a whole.' They realised that a common peasant revolution is still a bourgeois revolution, and cannot in a backward country of be turned into a socialist one without a whole series of transitions and successive stages' (M. Lenin's italics). But they comforted themselves with the belief that, once in power, they could help the peasantry to test their petty bourgeois ideas, in order to pass from them as speedily as possible to the socialist demands.' One way of teaching them would be to rally to the Communist side the village poor against the village rich,' and' carry through a social cleavage in the village': until this was done, 'the great agrarian revolution,' from the Marxist point of view, would inevitably remain a mere paper reform.' Squeamish people might accuse them of 'introducing civil war into the villages.' But this, says M. Lenin, 'we regard as a merit.'

Even with the support of the peasants assured to the government of the coup d'état, it may at first sight be difficult to understand why the capitalists' of the industrial centres were unable to put up a better fight against the combined processes of expropriation, requisition, and terrorism to which they were now subjected. In some ways such Capitalism as there was in Russiaislands of industrialism in an agrarian sea-was highly developed. Coming relatively late, it benefited by the newest plant and machinery, and the works were organised on a large scale. But it was in a sense exotic: the capital itself was very largely foreign in origin, so that the the native shareholder element-one of the main forces on the side of the existing industrial order-was relatively far weaker than in more western nations. There were model factories here and there; but the evils of truck and of excessive fines which countries entering earlier upon the factory stage have generally abolished, were still very prevalent, as well as the more peculiarly Russian practice of personal chastisement. The nouveaux riches often aroused resentment by their ostentation, while they were devoid of that tradition of a share in

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government which parliamentarism has given the bus ness classes in other countries. The technical exper and superintendents were also largely foreign, withou root in the country.. Under such conditions, among people accustomed to autocracy, weak-willed with Slavonic weakness, a few hundred resolute men wel able to have their way.

The history of Bolshevik rule during the past thr years has been the nemesis of a false position-the fal position of those whose political theory rests on econom conditions which have yet to be created. This can shown in relation to the land, to the organisation of i dustry, to the army, to the tribunals, and to foreign affair On the present occasion we must confine ourselves to th constitutional machinery. And it may be remarked the there is small need to climb to the top of the Kremli to learn the views of M. Lenin. I do not find that I has said anything to his visitors which cannot be lear or anticipated from his writings. While the rôle of othe leaders is to preside over city Soviets, to organise armie to run railways, and to visit foreign capitals, his missio is to issue the Bolshevik gospel in a stream of new editions, and explain its foreordained adaptation t every human need. Many of the English translation of his pamphlets have been issued by obscure presse: with all the romantic charm of poor paper and wor type. But they have no other charm. All alike are col and abstract, in form severely logical, full of formulɛ and citations from the socialist scriptures of Marx an Engels. He delights in numbered theses,' for the accepte ance of this or that congress or party convention. Only rarely does he condescend to argue with those outside the Bolshevik camp; but, when he does, he is easy master of a rich vituperative vocabulary.*

* Beside the books cited at the head of this article, reference may b made to the following pamphlets, which are placed in the order of writing 'Towards Soviets' (April 1917), British Socialist Party; Lessons of the Russian Revolution' (July 1917), B. S. P.; 'Theses' (January 1918), in Publication 149 of the American Association for International Conciliation; 'The Soviets at Work' (April 1918), Social Information Bureau; The Chief Task of our Times' (March, with speech added of May 1918), Workers' Socialist Federation; The Land Revolution in Russia' (December 1918), Independent Labour Party; 'Manifesto of the Moscow International

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