Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/10

 Naturally, this did not prevent the Communists from complaining about the lack of freedom in Georgia at every opportunity.

The freedom of the Press in democratic countries renders it easy for abuses to be brought to light, provided equal freedom is accorded to all sections.

Access to all institutions and undertakings was readily granted to me. As I made it a principle not to announce my visit beforehand, I could be certain that I should not be shown Potemkinian villages.

Thus, in spite of all difficulties, I have collected a large amount of information!, and believe I have obtained a correct picture of the characteristics of the country, at least in broad outline.

It is not my intention to write a book of travel—my personal experiences were too slight for this purpose—nor do I propose to give a detailed account of the country and the people. I must leave this to observers who are able to remain a longer period in the country and to see more of it than I did, and who are familiar with the language of the country.

What occupied my attention in Georgia, and what I shall deal with in this book, is not a geographical nor an ethnological, but a social problem, the question whether a real Socialist Government is possible in a country which is economically more backward than its Russian neighbour; how such a Government was able to maintain itself there, without dictatorship or terrorism, using the means and methods of democracy, and what it was able, under these circumstances, to achieve.

Thus I went to Georgia to study an interesting and important social experiment, and to draw from it conclusions which would be generally valid for Socialist practice. What I studied was the antithesis to Bolshevism. However insignificant it appears, it deserves our attention not less than the Bolshevist experiment, with its many sensational reverberations.

Unfortunately, it has become impossible to follow