These men have
most of the highest posts. Prison and exile have made them tough and
fanatical and rather out of touch with their own country. They are
honest men, with a profound belief that Communism will regenerate the
world. They think themselves utterly free from sentiment, but, in
fact, they are sentimental about Communism and about the regime that
they are creating; they cannot face the fact that what they are
creating is not complete Communism, and that Communism is anathema to
the peasant, who wants his own land and nothing else. They are
pitiless in punishing corruption or drunkenness when they find either
among officials; but they have built up a system in which the
temptations to petty corruption are tremendous, and their own
materialistic theory should persuade them that under such a system
corruption must be rampant.
The second class in the bureaucracy, among whom are to be found most
of the men occupying political posts just below the top, consists of
_arrivistes_, who are enthusiastic Bolsheviks because of the material
success of Bolshevism. With them must be reckoned the army of
policemen, spies, and secret agents, largely inherited from the
Tsarist times, who make their profit out of the fact that no one can
live except by breaking the law. This aspect of Bolshevism is
exemplified by the Extraordinary Commission, a body practically
independent of the Government, possessing its own regiments, who are
better fed than the Red Army.
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