Yue Wontp Stexteicaxce or He Russux Revoiutiox. By George Pitt-Rivers. With a Prefaco by Dr. Oscar Levy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 2s, net.
It is already sufficiently apparent that the Russian Revolution and its Bolshevist sequela are to be reckoned among the critical episodes of the history of Europe. As a result of their influence, the world will never be the same again. They have, in Parliamentary phrase, created 'a new situation." And, if only the better to resist that extreme catastrophe to which Bolshevist tendencies are heading, it is necessary to study Bolshevism, and to understand its true origin' and character. To this task a very valuable contribution is made in a little book of 60 pages—little more than a pamphlet, indeed—just published by it. George FPitt-Ktivers at the price of 2s. Ihe book should be in everybody's hands (a "Morning Post" reviewer writes), for it is the first attempt, in popular form, to depict the Russian Revolution both historically and psychologically. To read these Pages, so dispassionate but search. ing, is to be provided with the best antidote not only against the subsidized zeal of Bolshevist propa-gaudists, like the "Daily Herald," but against the fatuous self-deception of those who pretend that any evil can be exorcised by shaking hands with it.
"How is it," Mr. Pitt-Rivers asks, "that Lenin, the neurotic son of a public official and the brother of an assassin, with a small executive consisting chiefly of alien or of Jew internationals, is able to exercise despotic sway' over a population (before the revolution) of 148 millions, of which at least 87 per cent. are peasants bitterly opposed to communisni Jew aNp Bousuevist.
The answer to that question is convincingly stated. The Tsargime fell, not because it was a tyranny, but it was an ineffective tyranny. Its strength, steadily undermined by that resolute and highly organized faction which now rules Russia, collapsed under the strain of the war; and in the welt-
Reproduced with permis:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.