them. The civilized nations have accepted democratic government as a
method of settling internal disputes without violence. Democratic
government may have all the faults attributed to it, but it has the
one great merit that people are, on the whole, willing to accept it as
a substitute for civil war in political disputes. Whoever sets to work
to weaken this acceptance, whether in Ulster or in Moscow, is taking a
fearful responsibility. Civilization is not so stable that it cannot
be broken up; and a condition of lawless violence is not one out of
which any good thing is likely to emerge. For this reason, if for no
other, revolutionary violence in a democracy is infinitely dangerous.




IV

REVOLUTION AND DICTATORSHIP


The Bolsheviks have a very definite programme for achieving
Communism--a programme which has been set forth by Lenin repeatedly,
and quite recently in the reply of the Third International to the
questionnaire submitted by the Independent Labour Party.

Capitalists, we are assured, will stick at nothing in defence of their
privileges. It is the nature of man, in so far as he is politically
conscious, to fight for the interests of his class so long as classes
exist. When the conflict is not pushed to extremes, methods of
conciliation and political deception may be preferable to actual
physical warfare; but as soon as the proletariat make a really vital