In the western governments, she said, “great estates were being taken over by government departments and were being managed by officials, on the ground that state control would yield better results than communal ownership.  Under this system the peasants were being reduced to the state of slaves paid wages by the state.  Yet the law provided that these estates should be divided among the peasant communes to be tilled by the peasants on a co-operative system."[83] Spiridonova protested against the attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, against dividing them into classes and placing the greater part of them with the bourgeoisie.  She insisted that the peasants be regarded as a single class, co-operating with the industrial proletariat, yet distinct from it and from the bourgeoisie.  For our present purpose, it does not matter whether the leaders of the Bolsheviki were right or wrong in their decision that state operation was better than operation by village co-operatives.  Our sole concern here and now is the fact that they did not keep faith with the section of the peasants they had won over to their side, and the fact that, as this incident shows, we cannot regard the formal decrees of the Soviet Republic as descriptions of realities.

The Bolsheviki remain to-day, as at the beginning, a counter-revolutionary power imposing its rule upon the great mass of the Russian people by armed force.  There can be little doubt that if a free election could be had immediately upon the same basis as that on which the Constituent Assembly was elected—­namely, universal, secret, equal, direct suffrage, the Bolsheviki would be overwhelmingly beaten.  There can be little doubt that the great mass of the peasantry would support, as before, the candidates of the Socialist-Revolutionary party.  It is quite true that some of the leaders of that party have consented to work with the Bolshevik government.  Compromises have been effected; the Bolsheviki have conciliated the peasants somewhat, and the latter have, in many cases, sought to make the best of a bad situation.  Many have adopted a passive attitude.  But there can be no greater mistake than to believe that the Bolsheviki have solved the land question to the satisfaction of the peasants and so won their allegiance.

VII

This survey of the theories and practices of the Bolsheviki would invite criticism and distrust if the peace program which culminated in the shameful surrender to Germany, the “indecent peace” as the Russians call it, were passed over without mention.  And yet there is no need to tell here a story with which every one is familiar.  By that humiliating peace Russia lost 780,000 square kilometers of territory, occupied by 56,000,000 inhabitants.  She lost one-third of her total mileage of railways, amounting to more than 13,000 miles.  She lost, also, 73 per cent. of her iron production; 89 per cent. of her coal production, and many thousands of factories of various kinds.  These latter included 268 sugar-refineries, 918 textile-factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco-factories, 1,685 distilleries, 244 chemical-factories, 615 paper-mills, and 1,073 machine-factories.[84] Moreover, it was not an enduring peace and war against Germany had to be resumed.