The Crisis in Russia | Page 3

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THE CRISIS IN RUSSIA
by ARTHUR RANSOME

TO WILLIAM PETERS OF ABERDEEN

INTRODUCTION

THE characteristic of a revolutionary country is that change is a
quicker process there than elsewhere. As the revolution recedes into the
past the process of change slackens speed. Russia is no longer the
dizzying kaleidoscope that it was in 1917. No longer does it change
visibly from week to week as it changed in 19l8. Already, to get a clear
vision of the direction in which it is changing, it is necessary to visit it
at intervals of six months, and quite useless to tap the political
barometer several times a day as once upon a time one used to do. . . .
But it is still changing very fast. My jourrnal of
"Russia in 1919,"while giving as I believe a fairly accurate pictureof
the state of affairs in February and March of 1919, pictures a very
different stage in the development of the revolution from that which
would be found by observers today.
The prolonged state of crisis in which the country has been kept by

external war, while strengthening the ruling party by rallying even their
enemies to their support, has had the other effects that a national crisis
always has on the internal politics of a country. Methods of government
which in normal times would no doubt be softened or disguised by
ceremonial usage are used nakedly and justified by necessity. We have
seen the same thing in belligerent and non-revolutionary countries, and,
for the impartial student, it has been interesting to observe that, when
this test of crisis is applied, the actual governmental machine in every
country looks very much like that in every other. They wave different
flags to stimulate enthusiasm and to justify submission. But that is all.
Under the stress of war, " constitutional safeguards" go by the board
"for the public good," in Moscow as elsewhere. Under that stress it
becomes clear that, in spite of its novel constitution, Russia is governed
much as other countries are governed, the real directive power lying in
the hands of a comparatively small body which is able by hook or
crook to infect with its conscious will a population largely indifferent
and inert. A visitor to Moscow to-day would find much of the
constitutional machinery that was in full working order in the spring of
1919 now falling into rust and disrepair. He would not be able once a
week or so to attend All-Russian Executive and hear discussions in this
parliament of the questions of the day. No one tries to shirk the fact that
the Executive Committee has fallen into desuetude, from which, when
the stress slackens enough to permit ceremonial that has not an
immediate agitational value, it may some day be revived. The bulk of
its members have been at the front or here and there about the country
wrestling with the economic problem, and their work is more useful
than their chatter. Thus brutally is the thing stated. The continued stress
has made the muscles, the actual works, of the revolution more visible
than formerly. The working of the machine is not only seen more
clearly, but is also more frankly stated (perhaps simply because they
too see it now more clearly), by the leaders themselves.
I want in this book to describe the working of the machine as I now see
it. But it is not only the machine which is more nakedly visible than it
was. The stress to which it is being subjected has also not so much
changed its character as become easier of analysis. At least, I seem to
myself to see it differently. In the earlier days it seemed quite simply
the struggle between a revolutionary and non-revolutionary countries. I

now think that that struggle is a foolish, unnecesary, lunatic incident
which disguised from us