In this respect the Soviet system of government is like ordinary parliamentary government. This, also, is an instrument which may be used by either the reactionary or the revolutionist. The defender of land monopoly and the Single-taxer can both use it. To reject the Soviet system simply because it is capable of being used to attain the ends of Bolshevism, or even because the advocates of Bolshevism find it better adapted to their purpose than the political systems with which we are familiar, is extremely foolish. Such a conclusion is as irrational as that of the superficial idealists who renounce all faith in organized government and its agencies because they can be used oppressively, and are in fact sometimes so used. It is at least possible, and, in the judgment of the present writer, not at all improbable, that the Soviet system will prove, in Russia and elsewhere, inclined to conservatism in normal circumstances. Trades-unions are capable of revolutionary action, but under normal conditions they incline to a cautious conservatism. The difference between a trades-union and a factory Soviet is, primarily, that the former groups the workers of a trade and disregards the fact that they work in different places, while the latter groups the workers in a particular factory and disregards the fact that they pursue different trades or grades of labor. What is there in this difference to warrant the conclusion that the factory-unit form of organization is more likely to adopt communist ideals or violent methods than the other form of organization? Surely the fact that the Bolsheviki have found it necessary to restrict and modify the Soviet system, even to the extent of abolishing some of its most important features, disposes of the mistaken notion that Bolshevism and the Soviet system are inseparable. It is not without significance that the leading theoretician of Bolshevism, Lenin, on the basis of pure theory, opposed the Soviets at first. Nor is the fact that many of the bitterest opponents of Bolshevism in Russia, among the Socialists-Revolutionists, the Mensheviki, the Populists, the leaders of the co-operatives and the trades-unions, are stanch believers in and defenders of the Soviet system of government, and confidently believe that it will be the permanent form of Russian government.