To attempt to
bolster it up is a useless diversion of energies which might be
expended upon building something new. Whether the new thing will be
Bolshevism or something else, I do not know; whether it will be better
or worse than capitalism, I do not know. But that a radically new
order of society will emerge, I feel no doubt. And I also feel no
doubt that the new order will be either some form of Socialism or a
reversion to barbarism and petty war such as occurred during the
barbarian invasion. If Bolshevism remains the only vigorous and
effective competitor of capitalism, I believe that no form of
Socialism will be realized, but only chaos and destruction. This
belief, for which I shall give reasons later, is one of the grounds
upon which I oppose Bolshevism. But to oppose it from the point of
view of a supporter of capitalism would be, to my mind, utterly
futile and against the movement of history in the present age.
The effect of Bolshevism as a revolutionary hope is greater outside
Russia than within the Soviet Republic. Grim realities have done much
to kill hope among those who are subject to the dictatorship of
Moscow. Yet even within Russia, the Communist party, in whose hands
all political power is concentrated, still lives by hope, though the
pressure of events has made the hope severe and stern and somewhat
remote. It is this hope that leads to concentration upon the rising
generation. Russian Communists often avow that there is little hope
for those who are already adult, and that happiness can only come to
the children who have grown up under the new regime and been moulded
from the first to the group-mentality that Communism requires.
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