If it be thought that the judgment of the present writer is too harsh, he is quite content to rest upon the judgment pronounced by such a sympathizer as Mr. Isaac Don Levine has shown himself to be. In the New York _Globe_, January 5, 1920, Mr. Levine said: “To-day Soviet Russia is a dictatorship, not of the proletariat, but for the proletariat. It certainly is not democracy.” And again: “_The dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia is really a dictatorship of the Bolshevist or Communist Party._ This is the great change wrought in Soviet Russia since 1918. _The Soviets ceased functioning as parliamentary bodies._ Soviet elections, which were frequent in 1918, are very rare now. In Russia, where things are moving so fast and opinions are changing so rapidly, the majority of the present Soviets are obsolete and do not represent the present view of the masses.” If the government is really a dictatorship of the Communist Party--which does not include in its membership 1 per cent. of the people of Russia--if the Soviets have ceased functioning as parliamentary bodies, if the majority of the Soviets are obsolete and do not represent the present view of the masses, the condemnation expressed in this chapter is completely justified. IV THE UNDEMOCRATIC SOVIET STATE Mr. Lincoln Steffens is a most amiable idealist who possesses an extraordinary genius for idealizing commonplace and even sordid realities. He can always readily idealize a perfectly rotten egg into a perfectly good omelet. It is surely significant that, in spite of his very apparent efforts to justify and even glorify the Soviet Government and the men who have imposed it upon Russia, even Mr. Steffens has to admit its autocratic character. He says: The soviet form of government, which sprang up so spontaneously all over Russia, is established. This is not a paper thing; not an invention. Never planned, it has not yet been written into the forms of law. It is not even uniform. It is full of faults and difficulties; clumsy, and in its final development it is not democratic. The present Russian Government is the most autocratic government I have ever seen. _Lenin, head of the Soviet Government, is farther removed from the people than the Czar was, or than any actual ruler in Europe is._