ABSTRACT
The gist of Russell's assessment can be given in a few sentences: 'Regarded as a splendid attempt ... Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration ofall the progressive part ofmankind ... ifBolshevism falls, it will have contributed a legend and a heroic attempt without which ultimate success might never have come.,2 But:3
Western Socialists who have visited Russia have seen fit to suppress the harsher features of the present regime.... Even those Socialists who are not Bolsheviks for their own country have mostly done very little to help men in appraising the merits or demerits of Bolshevik methods. By this lack ofcourage they have exposed Western Socialism to the danger of becoming Bolshevik through ignorance of the price that has to be paid and of the uncertainty as to whether the' desired goal will be reached in the end. I believe that the West is capable of adopting less painful and more certain methods ofreaching Socialism than those which have seemed necessary in Russia. And I believe that while some forms of Socialism are immeasurably better than capitalism, others are even worse. Among those that are worse I reckon the form which is being achieved in Russia, not only in itself, but as a more insuperable barrier to further progress.
