The. Crisis in Russia. By Arthur Ransome. (G. Allen and
Unwin. 5s. net.)—When a small boy pulls his watch to pima;
and then cannot make it go, he gets angry and then invites sympathy. Mr. Ransome asks readers to feel sorry for the Bolsheviks who, having deliberately smashed the Russian industrial system, find that the townsfolk cannot be fed. The obvious answer is that, until the Bolsheviks give place to sane and honest men or abandon their crazy dogmas, the situation cannot improve. Mr. Ransoms admits that the Bolshevik constitution has been discarded, that Russia is ruled by a committee of five men, and that the Terrorist Commission does what it pleases. Yet he goes on to identify the Bolsheviks with Russia and to speak of " the Russians " as trying to do this or that, when he is referring to their self-imposed tyrants. Mr. Ram3ome is a Skilful propagandist, but the fact that Com- munism has ruined Russia is too notorious to be explained away.
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