The New Statesman of last week with considerable confidence gave
to the Bolsheviks a certificate of success. It said that order in Russia is now better established than at any time since the fall of Tsardom ; that the Bolsheviks are cleaning the country of bribery and corruption ; that the Terror was always greatly exaggerated ; that the Red Army is now a disciplined force not less than six hundred thousand strong ; and that the Bolsheviks are governing with the almost unanimous consent of the nation. If these state- ments were true, there would certainly be something, however disagreeable, to go upon ; but almost the whole weight of evidence seems to us to be on the other side. The Russian Terror, though no doubt exaggerated as such things always are, has probably been the worst Terror in the history of revolutions, and no Revolu- tionary Government has ever been convicted on better evidence of supreme cruelty, selfishness, and cynicism. Some estimates put the Red Army at no more than one hundred thousand men ; others at one million men, with a prospect of increasing before long to three millions. In any case, there is no prospect of a real world settlement while a country with the huge resources in men and materials of Russia threatens to throw its influence, if not actually to advance, into Central and Western Europe, and to " extirpata the bourgeoisie." How could 'We expect the Germans not to keep on arming themselves while this threat was being levelled at them across the frontier ?
