Excerpt from The Russian Pendulum: Autocracy Democracy Bolshivism There is some subtle mystery about Russia which makes discussion of its affairs passionately bitter. We are able to disagree about France or Fiume without losing our temper. But difference of opinion about Russia distils a peculiar venom. This was very noticeable to me over there. Disagreements were all passionate and personal. I attributed it to nearness to the problems and perhaps to some infectiousness in the excessive partisanship which the Russians bring to their political controversies. But since I have returned to America I find it just as noticeable here. The subject of Russia turns dinner-table discussions into brawls, turns old friendships into feuds.

Perhaps this only points to the vitality and tremendous importance of the Revolution. We cannot ignore so stupendous an event. We must take sides. In listening to this very heated discussion, I am impressed and surprised to find so many liberal-minded persons, who are always on the side of democratic progress at home, taking up arms for the Bolshiviki. In Russia, all those who have devoted their lives to the development of democratic liberties are under the ban. They are apparently more feared and hated, certainly more ruthlessly persecuted, by the Bolshiviki than the supporters of the Old Regime. This sympathy for Leninism is partly explained by simple misinformation - such as the play on words which translates "Bolshivism" as "the rule of the majority." Some of it is traceable to a naive belief that Bolshevist politicians always mean exactly what it suits their convenience to say.

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