No man likes being hungry. No man likes being cold.
Everybody in Moscow, as in Petrograd, is both hungry and
cold. There is consequently very general and very bitter
discontent. This is of course increased, not lessened, by the
discipline introduced into the factories and the heavy
burden of the army, although the one is intended to hasten
the end of hunger and cold and the other for the defence of
the revolution. The Communists, as the party in power,
naturally bear the blame and are the objects of the
discontent, which will certainly within a short time be
turned upon any other government that may succeed them.
That government must introduce sterner discipline rather
than weaker, and the transport and other difficulties of the
country will remain the same, unless increased by the
disorder of a new upheaval and the active or passive
resistance of many who are convinced revolutionaries
or will become so in answer to repression.
The Communists believe that to let power slip from their
hands at this moment would be treachery to the revolution.
And, in the face of the advancing forces of the Allies and
Kolchak many of the leaders of the opposition are inclined
to agree with them, and temporarily to submit to what they
undoubtedly consider rank tyranny. A position has been
reached after these eighteen months not unlike that reached
by the English Parliament party in 1643. I am reminded of
a passage in Guizot, which is so illuminating that I make no
apology for quoting it in full:--
"The party had been in the ascendant for three years:
whether it had or had not, in church and state,
accomplished its designs, it was at all events by its aid and
concurrence that, for three years, public affairs had been
conducted; this alone was sufficient to make many people
weary of it; it was made responsible for the many evils
already endured, for the many hopes frustrated; it was
denounced as being no less addicted to persecution than the
bishops, no less arbitrary than the king:]196]its
inconsistencies, its weaknesses, were recalled with
bitterness; and, independently of this, even without factions
or interested views, from the mere progress of events and
opinions, there was felt a secret need of new principles and
new rulers."
New rulers are advancing on Moscow from Siberia, but I
do not think that they claim that they are bringing with
them new principles. Though the masses may want new
principles, and might for a moment submit to a
reintroduction of very old principles in desperate hope of
less hunger and less cold, no one but a lunatic could
imagine that they would for very long willingly submit to
them. In the face of the danger that they may be forced to
submit not to new principles but to very old ones, the
non-Communist leaders are unwilling to use to the full the
discontent that exists. Hunger and cold are a good enough
basis of agitation for anyone desirous of overturning any
existing government. But the Left Social Revolutionaries,
led by the hysterical but flamingly honest Spiridonova, are
alone in having no scruples or hesitation in the matter, the
more responsible parties fearing the anarchy and
consequent weakening of the revolution that would
result from any violent change.