Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism.  Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation.  Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.  Their founders would not have resisted the third of the temptations in the wilderness.  What Mohammedanism did for the Arabs, Bolshevism may do for the Russians.  As Ali went down before the politicians who only rallied to the Prophet after his success, so the genuine Communists may go down before those who are now rallying to the ranks of the Bolsheviks.  If so, Asiatic empire with all its pomps and splendours may well be the next stage of development, and Communism may seem, in historical retrospect, as small a part of Bolshevism as abstinence from alcohol is of Mohammedanism.  It is true that, as a world force, whether for revolution or for empire, Bolshevism must sooner or later be brought by success into a desperate conflict with America; and America is more solid and strong, as yet, than anything that Mohammed’s followers had to face.  But the doctrines of Communism are almost certain, in the long run, to make progress among American wage-earners, and the opposition of America is therefore not likely to be eternal.  Bolshevism may go under in Russia, but even if it does it will spring up again elsewhere, since it is ideally suited to an industrial population in distress.  What is evil in it is mainly due to the fact that it has its origin in distress; the problem is to disentangle the good from the evil, and induce the adoption of the good in countries not goaded into ferocity by despair.

Russia is a backward country, not yet ready for the methods of equal co-operation which the West is seeking to substitute for arbitrary power in politics and industry.  In Russia, the methods of the Bolsheviks are probably more or less unavoidable; at any rate, I am not prepared to criticize them in their broad lines.  But they are not the methods appropriate to more advanced countries, and our Socialists will be unnecessarily retrograde if they allow the prestige of the Bolsheviks to lead them into slavish imitation.  It will be a far less excusable error in our reactionaries if, by their unteachableness, they compel the adoption of violent methods.  We have a heritage of civilization and mutual tolerance which is important to ourselves and to the world.  Life in Russia has always been fierce and cruel, to a far greater degree than with us, and out of the war has come a danger that this fierceness and cruelty may become universal.  I have hopes that in England this may be avoided through the moderation of both sides.  But it is essential to a happy issue that melodrama should no longer determine our views of the Bolsheviks:  they are neither angels to be worshipped nor devils to be exterminated, but merely bold and able men attempting with great skill an almost impossible task.