IV

POLITICS

3 OT

either by the horrors of the Revolution or bythe privations of the transitionary period. TheRevolution is to be a supreme example of themeans justified by the end. The soldier of theRevolution must crucify his own human nature,becoming unscrupulous and ruthless, and suffer-ing himself a life without security or joy—but asthe means to his purpose and not its end.

What, then, is the essence of the new re-ligion as a New Order upon earth? Lookingfrom outside, I do not clearly know. Some-times its mouthpieces speak as though it waspurely materialistic and technical in just thesame sense that modern capitalism is—as though,that is to say, Communism merely claimed to bein the long run a superior technical instrumentfor obtaining the same materialistic economicbenefits as capitalism offers, that in time it willcause the fields to yield more and the forces ofNature to be more straitly harnessed. In thiscase there is no religion after all, nothing but abluff to facilitate a change to what may or maynot be a better economic technique. But I sus-pect that, in fact, such talk is largely a reactionagainst the charges of economic inefficiencywhich we on our side launch, and that at theheart of Russian Communism there is some-thing else of more concern to mankind.

In one respect Communism but follows otherfamous religions. It exalts the common manand makes him everything. Here there isnothing new. But there is another factor in itwhich also is not new but which may, never-