titutionally the supreme body, to
which the People's Commissaries are responsible, meets seldom, and has
become increasingly formal. Its sole function at present, so far as I
could discover, is to ratify, without discussion, previous decisions
of the Communist Party on matters (especially concerning foreign
policy) upon which the constitution requires its decision.
All real power is in the hands of the Communist Party, who number
about 600,000 in a population of about 120 millions. I never came
across a Communist by chance: the people whom I met in the streets or
in the villages, when I could get into conversation with them, almost
invariably said they were of no party. The only other answer I ever
had was from some of the peasants, who openly stated that they were
Tsarists. It must be said that the peasants' reasons for disliking the
Bolsheviks are very inadequate. It is said--and all I saw confirmed
the assertion--that the peasants are better off than they ever were
before. I saw no one--man, woman, or child--who looked underfed in the
villages. The big landowners are dispossessed, and the peasants have
profited. But the towns and the army still need nourishing, and the
Government has nothing to give the peasants in return for food except
paper, which the peasants resent having to take. It is a singular fact
that Tsarist roubles are worth ten times as much as Soviet roubles,
and are much commoner in the country. Although they are illegal,
pocket-books full of them are openly displayed in the market places. I
do not think it should be inferred that the peasants expect a Tsarist
restoration: they are merely actuated by custom and dislike of
novelty. They have never heard of the blockade; consequently they
cannot understand why the Government is unable to give them the
clothes and agricultural implements that they need. Having got their
land, and being ignorant of affairs outside their own neighbourhood,
they wish their own village to be independent, and would resent the
demands of any Government whatever.
Within the Communist Party there are, of course, as always in a
bureaucracy, different factions, though hitherto the external pressure
has prevented disunion. It seemed to me that the personnel of the
bureaucracy could be divided into three classes. There are first the
old revolutionists, tested by years of persecution. These men have
most of the highest posts. Prison and exile have made them tough and
fanatical an
|