Note: In preparing this series of articles I have, as I have already written, presumed to discuss subjects upon which a great proportion of the "'N.-C. D. N.'s" readers are better qualified to pass judgement than I and are probably better informed. But this series was not undertaken with a view to instructing anyone except in the critical nature of the present situation in China and is presented in the single hope that dangers will be appreciatetl and discussed.
The writer has never been in Russia and does not speak Russian. His estimate of communism and his pictures of conditions in Russia under a communist regime are therefore particularly open to dispute since they must be founded exclusively upon hearsay and reading and not upon personal observation.. The writer has, however, made a distinct effort to draw his deductions and his facts from Bolshevik hearsay and from Bolshevik writings. To this end he has read speeches by Lenin and Trotsky ad nauseam; collections of official reports and documents from Bolshevik government organs such as the 'Pravda,' "Tavestia," "Economic Life," ete. submitted in translation by the American State Department to the Foreign Relations Committee of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.