ABSTRACT
The power of the state, measured by the fields it embraces and the amount it can take for taxes and for war, has steadily increased during the last eight or nine centuries. The power of the state increases steadily, while, by a coincidence that is more than mere coincidence, the power of men to do mischief to their species continues to increase along with the power to marshal all man's forces for war. Fascism, nazism, communism—Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin—these are the new isms and the new men of power who hold or have held in their hands the fate of millions. With Hitler and Mussolini gone it is estimated that at the moment there are 200 million people in the Soviet Union and a total of perhaps 800 million in the vast Soviet empire under the power of a total and absolute state, under total and absolute rulers.
