Page:My Further Disillusionment In Russia.djvu/18

 should not be made. The Russian experiment has proven the fatality of a political party usurping the functions of the revolutionary people, of an omnipotent State seeking to impose its will upon the country, of a dictatorship attempting to "organize" the new life. But I need not repeat here the reflections summed up in my concluding chapter. Unfortunately they did not appear in the first edition of my work. Otherwise Mr. Alsberg might perhaps have written differently.

Mr. Mencken in his review believes me a "prejudiced witness," because I—an Anarchist—am opposed to government, whatever its form. Yet the whole first part of my book entirely disproves the assumption of my prejudice. I defended the Bolsheviki while still in America, and for long months in Russia I sought every opportunity to coöperate with them and to aid in the great task of revolutionary upbuilding. Though an Anarchist and an anti-governmentalist, I had not come to Russia expecting to find my ideal realized. I saw in the Bolsheviki the symbol of the Revolution and I was eager to work with them in spite of our differences. However, if lack of aloofness from the actualities of life means that one cannot judge things fairly, then Mr. Mencken is right.