industries will be free of the infection. They will remain in the hands of the Government, and will be developed along purely Communist lines.
In view of the circumstances, with the workers, retaining absolute control of the Government, the Army, the great industries, the press, the schools, etc., it is very unlikely that any dangerous capitalist class can grow in Russia from the workings of the new economic program. Granted that these measures are a risky experiment, and one that would not be undertaken unless the need were so great; but the Russian Communist leaders know what they are about. Consider their solution of the officer problem in the Red Army: When they put the ex-czarist officers in command, as they were compelled to do because the workers knew nothing of military science, a loud howl went up that this was wildest folly; that the old imperialists, again in charge of the armed forces, would soon turn them against the revolution and defeat it. Yet this calamity did not occur—the Communist military commissars prevented it. Nor will the much-feared and much-hoped-for collapse of the Soviet regime come about as a result of the economic policies. All that will happen is that Russia will get the additional volume of production upon which she is counting, and upon which the fate of the revolution depends. The Communist Party will take care of whatever capitalist class there may develop.
There are critics of Soviet Russia, however, who will disagree violently with this conclusion. They maintain that even under the rigid industrial control existing until the adoption of the new economic program a large body of rich speculators, the widely-advertised new Russian bourgeoisie, have been able to develop, and that now the lid is lifted and trading made legal, this sprouting capitalist class will flourish like weeds and soon choke out the few remaining delicate tendrils of Communism.
While in Russia I made a special effort to locate this famous new bourgeoisie. But it proved too elusive for me. In fact, I am prepared to say that it does not exist, and for two very good reasons. The first is that in present-day Russia there is at hand no privately-owned industrial or commercial mechanism sufficiently extensive to sustain such a class—90 per cent of the
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