Communists and Capitalism The expulsion of Zinoviev and Kameney from
the Communist Party in Russia is less interesting by reason of the retribution that thus falls on the author of the famous Red Letter than as an example of the inevitability of periodical outbreaks of realism in the midst of the Communist system. Zinoviev and nineteen others have been penalized on suspicion of aiming at the restoration of capitalism. Lenin's own New Economic Policy might have been described as, at any rate, a step away from pure Communism in the capitalist direction, and pure Com- munism will have to work better in Russia than it has so far before the conviction that capitalism is pernicious from top to bottom takes permanent root. Russia is in many ways in its most interesting phase of -transition. The opening of the vast Dnieperostroy power station on Monday is a notable landmark in the progress of an agrarian population towards industrialisation. Zinoviev was not the first, and will by no means be the last, promin- ent personality to be suspected rightly or wrongly of desiring at least a limited and gradual evolution towards the Right. The question is whether the Communist system can stand that evolution and survive,
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