Russians have eliminated most of the issues which in other countries form the material of politics. There is no standing clericalist controversy, as in France, no dispute over the limits of laissez-faire, as in Great Britain, no division over high and low tariffs, as in the United States. Politics in Russia, apart from foreign questions, mean the supervision of the socialized indus tries, the measures to be taken for the development of agriculture, the accumulation of a surplus for the purchase of machinery abroad, the promotion of public health and education, and, above all, the tactics best adapted to neutralize the indifference of the peasants towards the purposes of a Socialist State. If a soviet was, in its origins, a council of officers conducting the class-war, it is to-day a board meeting of the directors of a complicated industrial apparatus.
The characteristic franchise on which the soviets rest is not in fact, their chief distinction. They differ from other representa tive bodies mainly in this, that no sharp distinction exists between legislative, administrative and judicial functions. There is no covenanted civil service, though every soviet engages its clerks and even its experts. Nor is there any independent judiciary : judges are named by the soviets, and the appointments are frankly political. Every soviet, whether national or municipal, groups itself, after each annual election, into standing sub-com mittees, each entrusted with some branch of the administration. Each member specializes, and finds congenial work in inspecting and supervising the work of schools, hospitals and other public institutions, or in watching the administration of the Labour Code. In a country which had only the most meagre tradition of self-government, the soviets have performed an inestimable service by educating large numbers of the working-class in the details of public administration. Of recent years it has been the policy of the Communist Party to favour the election each year of as large a number as possible of new members of the soviets, in order to spread this experience widely, and to win intelligent support for its work. Its watchword is now "to broaden the base of the dictatorship." A soviet election involves the minimum of public controversy. The Communist Party will issue a manifesto outlining the results of the past year's work and its plans for the future. But there can be no reply from any organized opposition. Old members who are standing again publish in the newspaper of the factory an account of their personal work and achievements. In each factory preliminary group meetings are held, at which the candidates are questioned. Finally the elected works council of the factory draws up an official list of candidates. This is submitted to a general
meeting of all the employees of the concern. Alternate nomina tions are invited, as a matter of form, but are rarely, if ever, forthcoming. After some platform oratory, while the band plays the Internationale, the list is adopted en bloc by a show of hands. The procedure has only the most distant resemblance to an elec tion as democratic countries understand that word: it is, in fact, an organized demonstration of unanimity. The list will always be one acceptable to the local Communist Party, though it will always include a large proportion of non-members.
Unofficial opinion finds some little expression in proposing resolutions at these election meetings, which, if carried, become the mandates of the deputies. In the villages there is often a sharp contest, in which the richer peasants oppose the poorer and "mid dle" peasants, who are more disposed to accept Communism.
The vast territory which the world knows as Russia (the com ponent republics are : the Russian Federation, Transcaucasia, Ukraine, White Russia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; the two first of these are themselves federations) is governed under a Federal Constitution, which admits the right to secede. It would be unworkable, were it not that one tightly-disciplined party exists, which prescribes general principles, checks any tendency to par ticularism, and settles the controversies over jurisdiction to which the loosely-drafted Constitution often gives rise. The Communist Party supplies the place of a ruling race, or of the trained bureau cracy of the old regime, and is the cement which holds together Great Russians and Little Russians, Tatars, Georgians and Turco mans, Christians, Jews and Muslims. In its distribution of powers the Soviet Union is the most highly centralized federation in the world. But in its attitude towards the many languages and cul tures of its territory, it has shown an admirable liberality. Wher ever a non-Russian race occupied a compact area, an autonomous republic or territory was created. This was done not only for peoples of equal culture, like the Ukrainians or the Germans of the Volga, but also for depressed races like the Tatars and the Bash kirs, who possessed neither schools nor a vernacular literature be fore the Revolution. To such races the new era has brought, for the first time, complete equality with the Great Russians, and ample opportunity for the development of their native culture and language. But every racial minority, e.g., a Polish or Jewish village in White Russian or Ukrainian territory, enjoys the full right to use its own language in its schools.