MOSCOW'S ATTITUDE 155
peoples. To answer the question whether the decree is mere
falsehood and hypocrisy, I must now deal with the one power
at present controlling the fate and fortunes of the Soviet
Union; the sole force responsible for the existing economic
order with all its attendant phenomena, including the number-
less deaths. This force is Stalin. Among living men, including
all his fellow-dictators, he is perhaps the most striking pheno-
menon; for, while his life is devoted to the realization of the
Communist world order, he appears to be insensitive to every
human emotion standing in the way of the realization of what
is, theoretically, a grand conception.
To appreciate the part played by Stalin in the Soviet Union,
and beyond it, in the play of international relations, we must
first grasp his dominant position among the 160,000,000 inhabi-
tants of the Soviet Union. Times have changed since Lenin,
and to-day there is no one to share Stalin's power. He is the
culminating point of the whole vast pyramid, an absolute auto-
crat, controlling the lives, fate and happiness of the officials
who are personally subordinated to him—and they all are.
There was a time when the old guard of Communists might be
described as a kind of order; the members of this order were
grouped around Lenin, and at that time there was a kind of
comradeship between them. All this is over now. Resistance, or
even the expression of a personal opinion, spells destruction.
In consequence, all those who once played an independent
part in the Communist Party at Lenin's side have been
removed, or else just continue to exist in complete subjection,
entirely dependent on Stalin's will.
Yet this change in the system is not, in my opinion, the
result of personal ambition on Stalin's part. There is inevitably
a vast difference between the opinion held of Stalin by Ms
friends and by his enemies. A London Sunday paper recently
published a series of articles in which a former Communist
and colleague of Stalin, Kakabadze, dealt with his life and
character. Mention was made of Stalin's alleged debaucheries