overnment. 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.

All this, however, according to the leaders of the Third
International, is only a small beginning of the struggle, which must
become world-wide before it achieves victory. In their reply to the
Independent Labour Party they say:

It is probable that upon the throwing off of the chains of the
capitalist Governments, the revolutionary proletariat of
Europe will meet the resistance of Anglo-Saxon capital in the
persons of British and American capitalists who will attempt
to blockade it. It is then possible that the revolutionary
proletariat of Europe will rise in union with the peoples of
the East and commence a revolutionary struggle, the scene of
which wil