POLITICS

i. A Short View of Russia (1925)

(i) What is the Communist Faith?

Leninism is a combination of two things whichEuropeans have kept for some centuries indifferent compartments of the soul—religionand business. We are shocked because thereligion is new, and contemptuous because thebusiness, being subordinated to the religion in-stead of the other way round, is highly in-efficient.

Like other new religions, Leninism derivesits power not from the multitude but from asmall minority of enthusiastic converts whosezeal and intolerance make each one the equal instrength of a hundred indifferentists. Likeother new religions, it is led by those who cancombine the new spirit, perhaps sincerely, withseeing a good deal more than their followers,politicians with at least an average dose ofpolitical cynicism, who can smile as well asfrown, volatile experimentalists, released by re-ligion from truth and mercy but not blinded tofacts and expediency, and open therefore to thecharge (superficial and useless though it is where

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