decision, must also avoid, at least in part, the deadening
effect that would be caused by mere compulsory obedience
to the unexplained orders of a military dictator. Of the
reality of the Communist Dictatorship I have no sort of
doubt. But its methods are such as tend towards the
awakening of a political consciousness which, if and when
normal conditions-of feeding and peace, for example-are
attained, will make dictatorship of any kind almost
impossible.


To illustrate these methods of the Dictatorship, I cannot do
better than copy into this book some pages of my diary

written in March of this year when I was present at one of
the provincial conferences which were held in preparation of
the All-Russian Communist Conference at the end of the
month.


At seven in the evening Radek called for me and took me to
the Jaroslavl station, where we met Larin, whom I had
known in 1918. An old Menshevik, he was the originator
and most urgent supporter of the decree annulling the
foreign debts. He is a very ill man, partially paralyzed,
having to use both hands even to get food to his mouth or to
turn over the leaves of a book. In spite of this he is one of
the hardest workers in Russia, and although his obstinacy,
his hatred of compromise, and a sort of mixed originality
and perverseness keep him almost permanently at