226 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

politan Borough Council Elections in divisions of East London
where the Jewish problem is acute. A great slump, a stupid
Government and the emergence of a leader with Hitler's or
Mussolini's ability to take advantage of the situation—should
these three coincide at some future rime, Fascism could flourish
in Britain.

COMMUNISM.

While Fascism grew in Central Europe, Communism increased
its strength in Russia, In 1917 the corrupt Government of the Tsar
fell. Kerensky, who succeeded to power, considered the intro-
duction of die forms of democracy, but made the mistake of
continuing Russia's participation in the Great War. The Russian,
tired of fighting with inadequate equipment for a cause in which
he did not believe, wanted peace and the expropriation of
landlords. The Bolsheviks,1 led by Lenin, secured power in
November, 1917, by promising these things, and maintained it
by achieving them. Tlie struggle for power, in which the anti-
Bolsheviks were helped by foreign expeditionary forces, left
Russia in chaos and poverty. Out of this the victorious Communists
proceeded to build a Socialist State. The need to conciliate
merchants and wealthier peasants led Lenin in 1923 to adopt
a New Economic Policy which, while preserving the main
structure of Socialism, allowed some scope for private profit.
This policy was not intended to be permanent, and under the
guidance of Stalin, who rose to power after Lenin's death in
1924, the extent of private enterprise was much reduced, and
from 1928 onwards a Socialist economic policy was embodied
in a series of Five Year Plans.

The general doctrines of Socialism have already been explained.
Communists base their faith in Socialism on the Materialist

* The word means Majority Party. It was adopted in 1903 when the
Russian Social-Democratic Party split into two sections, Bolshevik and
Menshevik (Minority). The former insisted that the right policy was to
form a highly-organised Party to seize power when Tsarism should
collapse. The name Bolshevik is not widely used in Russia to-day, the
ruling party calling itself the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.