Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/67

 of their principle, would establish it through education and organisation. That men of a more violent character hold the reins of power is due, in my considered judgment, to the fatal policy of the Allies, and in these days, of the Poles, in seeking to decide the issue by the sword. The resumption of war by the misguided Poles and the consequent fear that fell upon the Russian people, joined to a perfectly proper patriotism, gave that powerful instrument of tyranny, the Extraordinary Commission, with its secret police, the opportunity to revive itself, and fasten itself like the plague upon terror-stricken population and frightened administrators alike.

But the extreme men, with their gospel of a world-revolution by violence, and the dictatorship of one class over the rest of mankind, are a painful phenomenon. Pure and unselfish idealists as many of them undoubtedly are, and born out of due time, they are the terrible progeny of the maddest war and the cruellest "peace" that ever tore civilisation to tatters.

Some work quietly, live nobly, and starve on the rations which only the very best men decline to augment. But, for the most part, the Communists live better than the rest and form the new aristocracy. Their duties are specially dangerous and hazardous, and the difference is justified for this reason. If there is an epidemic to be fought