To the good communist the dicta of Marx are inflexible laws. When Lenin wants something done which he thinks his colleagues will not approve he quotes Marx to the mob in his own support and that ends it. If Marx is the law, Engels is of the true prophets; and to most Russian socialists, from the pale pink to the bright yed, Plekhanov is the true apostle, the pupil of Marx and Engels who brought the faith to Muscovy. It is easy to quote all three to the effect that communism cannot succeed in a "pre-capitalistic" state. They all warn their followers against experimenting with communism in a state that has not been highly industrialized, saying that the socialistic order cannot be created by a few leaders, but must be the result of the consum-motion of capitalistic development. This every communist will admit, because to deny it would be heresy. Thousands have been shot by the Cheka for much_ less heinous crimes than denying Marx. Every well read -communist—will also admit that Russia was, and still is, a pre-capitalistic state, the very sort of a state in which Marx, Engels and Plekhanov said communistic experiment could not succeed. because neither its industrial organization nor its -capitalistic development had come anywhere near their possible ultfmatea consummation. This would seem to imply that the faithful Bolshevik must have foreseen the complete failure of his experiment in Russia and that the hideous mess evolved from his failure was therefore cold-bloodedly foreseen. Such a deduction, however, would not be quite just to the fanatics who inaugurated the experiment.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.