e present state of Russia, that Constitution
would provide. The capitalist in Russia has long ago earned the position
in which, according to the Constitution, he has a right to vote,
since he has long ago ceased to be a capitalist. Supposing the Soviet
Constitution were today to be literally applied, it would be found
that practically no class except the priests would be excluded from
the franchise. And when this agitation swells in volume, it will be
an agitation extremely difficult to resist, supposing Russia to be at
peace, so that there will be no valid excuse with which to meet it.
These new constitutional democrats will be in the position of saying to
the Communists, "Give us, without change, that very Constitution which
you yourselves drew up." I think they will find many friends inside the
Communist Party, particularly among those Communists who are also Trade
Unionists. I heard something very like the arguments of this new variety
of constitutional democrat in the Kremlin itself at an All-Russian
Conference of the Communist Party. A workman, Sapronov, turned suddenly
aside in a speech on quite another matter, and said with great violence
that the present system was in danger of running to seed and turning
into oligarchy, if not autocracy. Until the moment when he put his
listeners against him by a personal attack on Lenin, there was no doubt
that he had with him the sympathies of quite a considerable section of
an exclusively Communist audience.

Given peace, given an approximate return to normal conditions,
non-partyism may well profoundly modify the activities of the
Communists. It would certainly be strong enough to prevent the rasher
spirits among them from jeopardizing peace or from risking Russia's
chance of convalescence for the sake of promoting in any way the growth
of revolution abroad. Of course, so long as it is perfectly obvious that
Soviet Russia is attacked, no serious growth of non-partyism is to be
expected, but it is obvious that any act of aggression on the part of
the Soviet Government, once Russia had attained peace-which she has not
known since 1914-would provide just the basis of angry discontent which
might divide even the disciplined ranks of the Communists and give
non-partyism an active, instead of a comparatively passive, backing
throughout the country.

Non-partyism is already the peasants' way of expressing their aloofness
from the revolution and, at the same time, their readi