1 Worm ron me Sovier—By Countess Alexandca "Tolstoy. Translated by the "Author "In. collaboration with Roberta Yerkes. "Allen & Unwin, London. 10/6.
Capitalists in England and elsewhere are too apt nowadays to hold up the era immediately following the Russian Revolution as an example of the horrors of Communism. The answer, which they unfortunately refuse to believe, is that it will be entirely their own responsibility if such a thing should ever occur again. The terrors of a revolution are in exact proportion to the oppression and corruption which preceded it; the {tragedy of the Russian Revolution was that it was so violent a reaction against the abuses of the Tyarist regime that thousands of those who had spent their lives fighting for the Mbgrty of Russia were engulfed and swept away in the chaos of 1920- 1922. And necessarily many of the pre-revolutionary evils persisted since they were the outcome of the political ignorance and irresponsibility of the Russians, defects which it will take several generations to eradicate, She must have been a woman of extraordinary bravery" and' astounds Jng'energy; one has to. read between the Times to realize what she" went Lnrough. The twenty-four tips from Moscow' to Yasnaia Pollana, standing jammed ina catlestruck, the weary alts outside the doors of commissar, the concessions wrenched grade? ingly one by one from reluctant oft clats "Although itis. worth noting that when she. reached' men at the top, to Kalinin and once to 'Stain himself, "she" usually "got" what she ted' without any' delay.
At last she could stand no. more, tke nat blow came when she reallacd that the Uenchors in the school were afraid to support her any" Tonger slond for independence, She fe that it was useless to try to continue to struggle, and managed to get permission for temporary absence from Rus ind has never returned, Besides her personal story, the book full of sidelights on the Russia the period and is an absorbing account of the immediate post-revolu-Uionary period og she saw it. The whole is an object lesson to those extremists who would repress all shades of liberalism; for they will find that the wise and moderate radicals with whom they might have made compromises and terms will be as helpless as they themselves are when the
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