IV

POLITICS

3°9

tion in our ways of thinking and feeling aboutmoney may become the growing purpose of con-temporary embodiments of the ideal. Perhaps,therefore, Russian Communism does representthe first confused stirrings of a great religion.

The visitor to Russia from the outside, whotries without prejudice to catch the atmosphere,must alternate, I think, between two moods—oppression and elation. Sir Martin Conway ,in his true and sincere volume on Art Treasuresin Soviet Russia , writes thus of his departureout of the country:

. . . After a very long halt the train moved onabout half a mile to the Finnish frontier, where pass-ports, visas, and luggage were again examined much lessmeticulously. The station was new built, a pleasantplace, simple, clean, and convenient, and served withmuch courtesy. It has a charming refreshment room,where simple but nicely cooked food was supplied inan atmosphere of hospitality.

It seems a churlish thing for me to say, after all thekindness shown to me in Russia , but if I am to tell thewhole truth I must here put on record that in thisfrontier station of Finland I experienced a sense as of theremoval of a great weight which had been oppressingme. I cannot explain just how this weight had beenfelt. I did not experience the imposition of it on enter-ing Russia , but as the days passed it seemed slowly toaccumulate. The sense of freedom gradually dis-appeared. Though everyone was kind one felt thepresence of an oppression, not on oneself, but all-pervading. Never have I felt so completely a strangerin a strange land; with successive days what at firstwas a dim feeling took more definite shape and con-densed into an ever-increasingly conscious oppression.