(611,978 on April 2, 1920). There are nineteen members of
the Central Committee of that party. There are, I believe,
five who, when they agree, can usually sway the remaining
fourteen. There is no need to wonder how these fourteen
can be argued into acceptance of the views of the still
smaller inner ring, but the process of persuading the six
hundred thousand of the desirability of, for example, such
measures as those involved in industrial conscription which,
at first sight, was certainly repugnant to most of them, is the
main secret of the Dictatorship, and is not in any way
affected by the existence of the Extraordinary Commission.


Thus the actual government of Russia at the present time
may be not unfairly considered as a small group inside the
Central Committee of the Communist Party. This small
group is able to persuade the majority of the remaining
members of that Committee. The Committee then sets
about persuading the majority of the party. In the case of
important measures the process is elaborate. The
Committee issues a statement of its case, and the party
newspapers the Pravda and its affiliated organs are deluged
with its discussion. When this discussion has had time to
spread through the country, congresses of Communists meet
in the provincial centres, and members of the Central

Committee go down to these conferences to defend the
"theses" which the Committee has issued. These provincial
congresses, exclusively Communist, send their delegates of
an All-Russian Congress. There the "theses" of the Central