No sympathizer with Russia--certainly no Socialist--can fail to wish that
this indulgent criticism were true. Its acceptance would lighten the
darkest chapter in Russian history, and, at the same time, remove from the
great international Socialist movement a shameful reproach. But the facts
are incompatible with such a theory. Instead of being fanatical idealists,
incapable of compromises and adjustments, the Bolsheviki have, from the
very beginning, been loudly scornful of rigid and unbending idealism; have
made numerous compromises, alliances, and "political deals," and have
repeatedly shifted their ground in accordance with political expediency.
They have been consistently loyal to no aim save one--the control of power.
They have been opportunists of the most extreme type. There is not a single
Socialist or democratic principle which they have not abandoned when it
served, their political ends; not a single instrument, principle, or device
of autocratic despotism which they have not used when by so doing they
could gain power. For the motto of Bolshevism we might well paraphrase the
well-known line of Horace, and make it read, "Get power, honestly, if you
can, if not--somehow or other.
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