ground beneath the feet of the Bolshevics themselves, predetermining their 
final instability and inevitable collapse. The fatal lot of the Bolshevics is 
to be found in the fact that their ruling power rests on a base which is 
bound to bring about a collapse of everything (including themselves). If 
they allow the foundation to recover, they endanger their position, and 
if they steady it, they endanger the foundation. 
Already in this does Bolshevism differ from any other regime. In 
fact, Bolshevism represents the direct antipode of modern democratic 
society, of which the very essence is freedom of spiritual life, of self- 
organisation and of individual and collective initiative. The Bolshevie 
system denies the very basis of any modern society, the formation of which 
took its rise in the times of the Reformation, of the humanistic movement 
of the English and French revolution, — for this society relies on the free 
and independent individual, on his creative power, his activity, his enter- 
prise. Bolshevism disavows any modern form of State, society, economy 
and therefore, whenever it happens that Bolshevism wants to save itself, 
and adopts some of their forms, it inevitably disfigures them, merely 
accepting the outward form but killing the spirit. 
This elucidates how reactionary the Soviet regime is in comparison to 
that of pre-revolutionary Russia; for though the latter may have seemed 
backward in many respects as compared with other European States, yet 
it was essentially homogeneous to them, moving approximately on the 
same lines as they did. May be that a return to the past — a retrogression 
of 3 millionaries — is now considered necessary; but in such a case 
the Soviet regime ought to be acclaimed not for its “progress”, but for 
its retrogressiveness. In any case, the direction of its development is 
precisely opposite to pre-revolutionary Russia. 
Chapter II 
The Individual and the State. 
The Soviet regime nationalised all property; it also nalionalised the 
people. According to Soviet legislation, man is deprived of all rights 
inviolable to a State, deprived of all individual activity. He is fully 
absorbed by the State; let us see what is the place he occupies in it. 
In the classic years of Bolshevism, man was abondoned, left at the 
discretion of the ““Cheka’, whose power was unlimited either by any 
particular proceedure, or by laws, or concrete measures of punishment. 
The courts, in as far as they did act, were likewise untrammelled by any 
law, — the old code having been annulled, the new not yet having been, 
created, the decisions were essentially entrusted to the “revolutionary 
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