Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/277

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POSTSCRIPT
265

book, such an organisation would, in my belief, lead inevitably to the Marxian War of international classes, of Proletariat against Bourgeoisie, and finally of one section of the Proletariat against the other sections—already the Russian town-workers are at issue with the Russian peasants. The end could only be world-anarchy or a world-tyranny.

Thus I come back to the quiet of my library with the conviction that what I have written is pertinent to the hot currents of real life in this great crisis of humanity. Our old English conception of the House of Commons or Communities, the American conception of the Federation of States and Provinces, and the new ideal of the League of Nations are all of them opposed to the policies cast in the tyrannical moulds of East Europe and the Heartland, whether Dynastic or Bolshevik. It may be the case that Bolshevik tyranny is an extreme reaction from Dynastic tyranny, but it is none the less true that the Russian, Prussian, and Hungarian plains, with their widespread uniformity of social conditions, are favourable alike to the march of militarism and to the propaganda of syndicalism. Against this two-headed Eagle of land-power the Westerners and the Islanders must struggle. Even in their own peninsulas and