Whatever may be the prospects as to the rapid emergence of organized labour movements in the Orient, one thing seems certain: the unrest which afflicted so many parts of the East in the years preceding the Great War, though mainly political, had also its social side. Toward the end of 1913, a leading Anglo-Indian journal remarked pessimistically: "We have already gone so far on the downward path that leads to destruction that there are districts in what were once regarded as the most settled parts of India which are being abandoned by the rich because their property is not safe. So great is the contempt for the law that it is employed by the unscrupulous as a means of offence against the innocent. Frontier Pathans commit outrages almost unbelievable in their daring. Mass-meetings are held and agitation spreads in regard to topics quite outside the business of orderly people. There is no matter of domestic or foreign politics in which crowds of irresponsible people do not want to have their passionate way. Great grievances are made of little, far-off things. What ought to be the ordered, spacious life of the District Officer is intruded upon and disturbed by a hundred distracting influences due to the want of discipline of the people. In the subordinate ranks of the great services themselves, trades-unions have been formed. Military and police officers have to regret that the new class of recruits is less subordinate than the old, harder to discipline, more full of complaints."[297] The Great War of course enormously aggravated Oriental unrest. In many parts of the Near East, especially, acute suffering, balked ambitions, and furious hates combined to reduce society to the verge of chaos. Into this ominous turmoil there now came the sinister influence of Russian Bolshevism, marshalling all this diffused unrest by systematic methods for definite ends. Bolshevism was frankly out for a world-revolution and the destruction of Western civilization. To attain this objective the Bolshevist leaders not only launched direct assaults on the West, but also planned flank attacks in Asia and Africa. They believed that if the East could be set on fire, not only would Russian Bolshevism gain vast additional strength but also the economic repercussion on the West, already shaken by the war, would be so terrific that industrial collapse would ensue, thereby throwing Europe open to revolution.