The fact that there exists in Russia a population at a far higher
stage of culture, which will be industrially educated, not
exterminated, militates against this hypothesis, but the need for
education may make progress slower than it was in the United States.
One would not have looked for the millennium of Communism, nor even
for valuable art and educational experiment in the America of early
railroading and farming days. Nor must one look for such things from
Russia yet. It may be that during the next hundred years there,
economic evolution will obscure Communist ideals, until finally, in a
country that has reached the stage of present-day America, the battle
will be fought out again to a victorious and stable issue. Unless,
indeed, the Marxian scripture prove to be not infallible, and faith
and heroic devotion show themselves capable of triumphing over
economic necessity.
V
COMMUNISM AND THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION
Before I went to Russia I imagined that I was going to see an
interesting experiment in a new form of representative government. I
did see an interesting experiment, but not in representative
government. Every one who is interested in Bolshevism knows the series
of elections, from the village meeting to the All-Russian Soviet, by
which the people's commissaries are supposed to derive their power. We
were told that, by the recall, the occupational constituencies, and so
on, a new and far more perfect machinery had been devised for
ascertaining and registering the popular will.
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