the culprits would be punished and the Treaty would be loyally observed.
We had signed the treaty with Muravieff before the fall of Kieff. Two days after the fall, on February 10, 1918, I negotiated with him in his railway saloon car, in the presence of the Allied representatives who chose me as their spokesman because they did not themselves know Russian. On February 16, Muravieff sent me a written guarantee that our armed troops might leave for France freely and unmolested.
My relations to Muravieff were the subject of much reactionary gossip in Kieff. His attentions to me were said to be “marked.” He told me once that he had long known me by report and through my writings, and that he wished therefore to oblige me. I heard that he had been a police officer and had become a Bolshevist under compulsion. Later on, he was shot by order of Moscow for alleged embezzlement.
My View of Bolshevism.
As I have said, Bolshevism was for me, at that time, a military problem first and foremost. How would it affect our army? Yet, naturally, I watched the Bolshevist movement with sociological interest. I had long been an observer of the Labour and Socialist movement at home and throughout Europe. This was the origin of my “Critique of Marxism.” In studying Russia I had from the first kept an eye on Lenin’s tendencies; and when I reached Petrograd I had seen the beginning of his revolutionary propaganda. Then, for nearly six months, I had lived under the Bolshevist régime and had noted its growth and evolution.
This is not the place to discuss Bolshevism itself; I will deal with it only in so far as it bears upon my narrative. But, as my standpoint in regard to Bolshevism puzzled a number of people, I propose to explain it.
If Communism is taken to mean absolute economic and social equality, I do not look upon it, in principle, as a social or socialist ideal. Without strong individualism, that is to say, without free initiative on the part of individuals, society cannot attain a normal political and social condition. In practice, this means a system under which many individualities, unequally endowed by nature, physically and mentally, may unfold. No two individuals in society are in equal positions or have the same social surroundings; each knows best how to utilize his own powers and his environment. If one man decides for
