New-York tribune., 1918-08-03
Phantasrn
Those who

catching the dream. There is no telling
what they will see, or believe they have
seen. One who has had warm faith IN
the multitude returns with a chilled
horror of people. A hard, practical busi-
ness person, on the contrary, is made
into a wild Bolshevist. Probably it is
good for both of them; probably they
will recover; but they contribute very
little to the perspective. For that mat
ter, nobody does, not even the trained
observer. The newspaper correspondent
let's 90 of facts to search for truth and
turns either mystic or agnostic, and you
cannot guess beforehand which it will be.
Through The Ne,o Republic Arthur
Ransome, who is in Russia for The Lon-
don Dolly NeaVs, addresses can Open
Letter to America" 1t is very long and
begins forbiddingly, like document or
treatise, thus: Revolutions are not def
mite political acts carried out by the
majority in the"--
One thinks of beginning at the end,
and turns over eight closely printed
pages to the middle of the last para
graph and reads:
''No one contends that Bolsheviks
are angels. ask only that men shall
look through the fog of libel that sur
rounds them and see that the ideal
for which they are struggling, in the
only way in which they can struggle,
is among those lights which every man
of young and honest heart sees before
him somewhere on the road, and not
among those other lights from which he
resolutely turns away"
This is exquisite propaganda of the
heart One goes to the beginning of
that paragraph and finds the writer in
despair, for the man who is to bring the
message from Moscow to the United
States is almost ready, and there is still
so much unsaid. But this he said
every true man is in some sort,
until his youth dies and his eyes
harden, the potential builder of new
Jerusalem. At some time or other
every one of us has dreamed of laying
his brick in such work. And even
=
with tears and blood is not the golden
city that we ourselves have dreamed,
it is still thing to the sympathetic
understanding of which each one Of us
is bound by whatever he owes to his
own youth"
And that is very good poetry.
Well, at all events, here Is man who
knows what happened, and he is trying
to get it all told; so one goes back to the
beginning and reads again: "Revolu-
tions are not definite political acts" etc.
1t is straightaway historical only for
little way, and then the writer's ecstasy
in the consequences Of the revolution be-
comes irresistible. 81 do not think" he
writes, ~ shall ever again be so happy
in my life as I was during those first
days when / saw workingmen and peas
ant soldiers sending representatives of
their class and not of mine remem-
bered Sheley's
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many--they are few
come to pass before"
Political mysticism disqualifies the
historian. Arthur Ransome is net an his
torian, but he is probably an excellent
advocate, and one goes on.
Presently is reached the great per-
plexity: Are the Bolshevists demo
Gratis? 1t must be proved, because they
are; but can it be proved in fact? The
Bolsheviki dissolved the Constituent AS
sembly. In America as in England this,
says Mr.. Ransome, was one Of the
events that best served the people who
were anxious to persuade public opinion
that the Soviet government was gov
ernment Of usurpation, holding its own
by force and not representing the will
Of the people"
This shall be disproved.
1t IL true, Mr.. Ransome admits, that
after the October revolution there came
the elections to the Constituent Assem-
bly, in which there was majority
against the Bolsheviki. But what does
that prove? Literally, nothing. The
explanation is perfectly simple. ut lies"
says Mr.. Ransomc, "in the fact that a
revolution ig very uncomfortable thing
FOR everybody who takes part in it, and
that great numbers Of people, during the