offered some sort of relief. The slave-like dependence of the individual on 
the State, — though alleviated to some extent and no longer quite so 
unlimited — nevertheless continued to subsist, for the greater majority of 
the town population remained in the service of the State or in nationalised 
institutions or undertakings without any possibility of exchanging it for 
any other service; while the private initiative — after having been given 
some scope by the NEP — was very soon strangled and suppressed by 
intolerable taxes, requisitions, restrictions and direct administrative persecu- 
tions, banishment to the remotest spots of Siberia not being excluded. This 
explains how in spite of the NEP, the all-embracing dependence of the 
individual on the State, continued to exist, though under a slightly different 
and less straightforward aspect. The explanation of the longevity of the 
Communist Party, so amazing to people not acquainted with Russia, 1s, 
that all active organisations not annihilated are subject to the State. which 
in its turn is again subservient to the com-party. 
This all-embracing dependence of the individual on the State, finds a 
juridical expression in a complete absence of “freedom”. In prohibiting 
any self-organisation of the population, the Communist Party must 
naturally forbid all means and ways of self-organising, all possibilities of 
any collusion, of the rising of private centres, of authorities, of public 
opinions, of propaganda. Thus the Bolshevic regime absolutely excludes 
all freedom of union, of gatherings, of written and spoken word; having 
annihilated all parties except the communistic party, it excludes all pro- 
paganda, all press utterances except those of its own press. It would be 
incorrect to say that the Soviet regime has introduced any kind of censorship 
in Russia, not even of the severest kind. Censorship exists, but it plays a 
subordinate part in Russia; like spying and informing, which in Russia 
are alone left to private initiative and have reached an unprecedented 
development. The fact is, the Soviet regime does not restrict, but simply 
annihilates the press if it in any way disagrees with the Communistic party. 
There is simply no room for it in the U.S. R. 
This applies not only to politics, but also to any ideology, philosophy, 
aesthetics, in a word, to any culture. Only the Marxist “ideology” 1s 
admitted. All the rest must be uprooted. Freedom of thought is not 
tolerated; the thought is enslaved from the very outset. The individual 
is completely bereft of “inalienable rights”, of the sacred rights. He is 
entirely bereft of all rights on principle. The population is without rights, 
without a voice, dispersed, impotent and oppressed; — thereon is based 
the power of the Bolshevic organisation. But such a condition of the people 
inevitably undermines its capability of existence. i. e., it blows up the 
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