their eyes and realized that they were in the world. Then, with a thrill
of independence, they realized that they could look at the world
critically. They did so and found it faulty. The intoxication of
assuming the masterful position of a critic of the social system--which
it is every man's right to assume--is unbalancing at first. The very
young critic is very much unbalanced. He is strongly in favor of wiping
out the old order and starting a new one. They actually managed to start
a new world in Russia. It is there that the work of the world makers can
best be studied. We learn from Russia that it is the minority and not
the majority who determine destructive action. We learn also that while
men may decree social laws in conflict with natural laws, Nature vetoes
those laws more ruthlessly than did the Czars. Nature has vetoed the
whole Soviet Republic. For it sought to deny nature. It denied above all
else the right to the fruits of labour. Some people say, "Russia will
have to go to work," but that does not describe the case. The fact is
that poor Russia is at work, but her work counts for nothing. It is not
free work. In the United States a workman works eight hours a day; in
Russia, he works twelve to fourteen. In the United States, if a workman
wishes to lay off a day or a week, and is able to afford it, there is
nothing to prevent him. In Russia, under Sovietism, the workman goes to
work whether he wants to or not. The freedom of the citizen has
disappeared in the discipline of a prison-like monotony in which all are
treated alike. That is slavery. Freedom is the right to work a decent
length of time and to get a decent living for doing so; to be able to
arrange the little personal details of one's own life. It is the
aggregate of these and many other items of freedom which makes up the
great idealistic Freedom. The minor forms of Freedom lubricate the
everyday life of all of us.

Russia could not get along without intelligence and experience. As soon