Page:The Hero in History.djvu/129

Rh conceived to be universally valid as the goal of an international movement whose ultimate objective was world socialism. The grand political strategy, as distinct from tactical manœuvres, was to be followed not only in Russia but elsewhere as well. Not even the most extreme party doctrinaires regarded the conquest of State power in Russia, a short ten months before they took it, as a serious item on the agenda of history.

If any evidence of this were needed, we could cite the expectation of the Bolshevik leaders that the socialist revolution would occur first in the highly industrialized countries of the West. At best they hoped that a democratic revolution in Russia would set off a socialist revolution in the West which in time would swing Russia, too, into the same orbit. More important still, in an address delivered before a group of young Swiss socialists shortly before he returned to Russia, Lenin himself indicated that he did not anticipate an “October” revolution in his own lifetime. The notion that a socialist state could exist for any length of time in Russia, as an island in a capitalist world, would have been laughed off as a fantasy if anyone had suggested it.

What were the consequences of the Russian Revolution? We shall pass no judgment on their desirability but shall restrict ourselves to uncovering the objective connections between events.

The first result was to prolong somewhat the duration of the First World War by removing Germany’s second front. Although the influence of the Russian example and of revolutionary agitation softened the German home front, the decision of the Imperial High Command to sue for peace was a military one. After the German spring offensive in 1918, made possible by the transfer of troops from the east, had collapsed, victory for German arms was no longer possible.

Not so immediate but perhaps more far-reaching in its effects was the withdrawal of one-sixth of the world’s surface from the international economy. With absolute monopolistic control over foreign trade, introduced almost at once by the Bolsheviks, the competitive market was destroyed. Not only was the importation of commodities prohibited but the policy of the Government and the reluctance of foreign investors to risk their funds because of prior repudiation, both natural under the circumstances, cut off the importation of capital. This tendency, initiated under Lenin to prevent capitalist restoration, became