Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/184

 We were curious and he obliged us with the words:

"So, my irreverent friend, that is how you feel, is it?" I asked, feeling that I understood.

"It is," he replied. "I went out without the slightest bias in the world against what I regarded as a very big thing, the establishment of a great Socialist Republic, and I have come out with a deep feeling of disappointment. There is practically no Socialism in Russia worthy of the name. And the people are utterly wretched."

I could see that his flippant mood covered a very real disappointment, and was silent for a while; then I reminded him that perhaps we had expected too much, and he seemed to agree.

There are many ways of regarding the problem of Russia, each one leading to a different conclusion and generally a faulty one. There is the man who considers it solely from the point of view of present achievement without regard to the special difficulties which have had to be overcome. Such a critic is not reasonable and is bound to be contemptuous, for judging the thing just as it stands, and chiefly by the condition of the people who live under it, Bolshevism is a failure. It was bound to be a failure. No living human being