REGENERATION IN RUSSIA

Significant is it that neither Lenin, Trotsky, nor Kalinin, leaders of Soviet Russia, who are supposed to sympathize heart and soul with the aims of the Communist Internationale, have been attending the meetings of the Internationale where they have been expected to speak. This apparent lack of interest has been explained on the ground that the press of official business has kept them away.

The delegates to this convention of communists who are the avowed foes of capitalism, nationalism, and militarism have been treated to a big dose of Russian nationalism and militarism in the shape of several colossal military reviews of the crack Red Army, newly equipped from head to foot, and attended by all the cheering the display of national pride that only a splendid martial review can call forth. To this the delegates merely observed that their parties at home would be inspired by the example of the Red Army to give battle unflinchingly, a countenancing of militarism which is certainly not in accord with their published beliefs. The difference, in their minds, between Russian militarism and that of the other countries is apparently that the Red Army represents the proletariat while the other armies do not. So militarism is not the real issue, but the desire for personal dominance, for a dictatorship by the proletariat, is the end to which militarism is condemned, just as it is the real aim of all their tenets. But their toleration of Russian nationalism and militarism because it is of the proletariat is likewise an inconsistency, for even the anti-Bolshevist Russians hall with joy Russia's return toward her old status as a great power, thus contributing to the national and militaristic feeling. The old and new bourgeoisie and even the former monarchists acclaim Russia's great army as an indication of her revival.

As in France after the revolution, the triumph of the proletariat and its communist ideals has been gradually modified by the rising of men with greater abilities to higher positions and the gradual creation of new class distinctions. So long as the difference between individual human beings exists, there is sure to be a difference in their status in life. With this natural change and growth, the Soviet Republic has diverged further and further from the original untenable principles of the communists who founded it; and as it has settled back toward the economic status of a capitalistic country its prosperity has increased.

The communists of the Internationale do not yet see, or else do not admit that they see, what a wide gulf yawns between them and their creation, the Soviet Republic. What will happen when they fully realize that their ideal nation has abandoned their policies? Will they, too, see the impracticability of communism, or will they try to bring Russia back once more to famine and wretchedness? They had better make the attempt soon, for Russia is gradually pulling her giant strength out of the mire and is getting too strong a footing to be easily pushed back again.