are fighting the same enemy. Their quarrel with each other
is for both parties merely a harassing accompaniment of the
struggle to which all Europe is committed, for the salvage of
what is left of European civilization.


The threat of a complete collapse of civilization is more
imminent in Russia than elsewhere. But it is clear enough in
Poland, it cannot be disregarded in Germany, there is no
doubt of its existence in Italy, France is conscious of it; it is
only in England and America that this threat is not
among the waking nightmares of everybody. Unless the
struggle, which has hitherto been going against us, takes a
turn for the better, we shall presently be quite unable to
ignore it ourselves.


I have tried to state the position in Russia today: on the one
hand to describe the crisis itself, the threat which is forcing
these people to an extreme of effort, and on the other hand
to describe the organization that is facing that threat; on the
one hand to set down what are the main characteristics of
the crisis, on the other hand to show how the comparatively
small body of persons actually supplying the Russian people
with its directives set about the stupendous task of moving
that vast inert mass, not along the path of least resistance,
but along a path which, while alike unpleasant and extremely
difficult, does seem to them to promise some sort of
eventual escape.