Page:Maxim Gorki on the Bolsheviki.djvu/2

 where the masses of the people have realised their lawful right to take the power of government into their own hands, and are striving as best they can to lay the foundations of a new society.

I will not deny that the reconstruction on which the Russian people are engaged was preceded, in many cases, by unnecessary destruction; but, more than any one else, I am in a position to declare that the cultural transformation which is taking place under peculiarly difficult conditions and for which heroic efforts are necessary, is gradually assuming dimensions and forms such as human history has not known hitherto.

This is no exaggeration. But a short time ago I was an opponent of the Soviet Government, and even now I differ from it on numerous points; nevertheless I can say that future historians, in appraising the work accomplished by the Russian workers during one short year, will have nothing but admiration and amazement for the grandeur of the present cultural work.

I will not undertake here to cite facts. I will say only that this work will at last associate the Russian masses with the culture of the world. Everyone who aims at the renovation of the world must rejoice at the rapidity, energy and zeal with which the Russian people is endeavouring to build up a new life. It is true that in this work, which is of world-importance, great mistakes and unnecessary cruelties have been committed. But what are they in comparison with the bestial horrors of the war which was caused by the British and German Imperialists? This accursed war has inflamed with hate the hearts of all European nations, and has absolutely killed the general realisation of the value of life and the worth of labour, which was already none too robust. But is it because of any lack of generosity in the Russian workers' treatment of their defeated class enemies that the Imperialists of Europe and America have declared war on the revolutionaries of Russia? No, things are not so scrupulously idealistic as the capitalist papers of England, France, America and Japan are trying to represent them. The situation is much simpler than they pretend: the Imperialists of the three continents are anxious to strengthen and to consolidate the political conditions and institutions which give them power over the mind and will of their people. These conditions allow the will and life of the majority to be disposed of by a small minority which has caused this senseless and cruel slaughter.

One would think that now every sensible and honest man and woman would clearly perceive the cruelty, the selfishness, the hypocrisy and stupidity of the capitalist order of things. It seems that now the time has arrived when every