INTR6DUCTION went; but also in the matter of form. All art must be propagandist, and all art must administer its propaganda by the same technique. The consequence was that Russia declined to a State in which the official standard of kitsch journalism kept all art down to the same level of mediocrity. The Soviet ruling class denominated fine art what 'even_the Western bourgeoisie would have used only as advertisement dope. Artists who would no~ conform disappeared, like Boris Pasternak, into the dungeons of the G.P.U.. Conscientious artists who. attempted to conform found tlae conflict between inspiration and party loyalty unbearable and many, like Y essenin and Mayakovsky, committed suicide. . What can be said of the influence of the State towards peasants and artists in Russia can be said of its influence in every other respect. The regime of the new bureaucracy exceeds ·the Tzarist government perhaps not in the degree of its brutality, but in the fact that while the brutality of the Tzars was sporadic and inefficient in its attacks on the individual, that of the Bolsheviks is thorough and efficient, and tends steadily to reduce the means by which the individual can live any kind of life outside the State. The State has extended its scope from political govemment to economic government, and in this way the two forms of power which in the previous phase of the State still existed apart have coalesced into the total State governed by.a united .class of officials which regulates every aspect of the communal life ana steadily advances its net of regulation about the life of the individuals within it. Russia is only one and by no means an extreme example of political development in the world to-day. In Germany, in Italy, in Japan, in China, the growth of State power into the totalitarian dominion of the bureaucrats is obvious and open. But in those countries which still make some pretence to democracy this dev.elopment is no less evident to those who make even a general study of political events and social tendencies. Recently James Burnham, the Americail political writer, published a book called The Managerial Revolution which caused a considerable stir in advanced circles on bodi sides of the Atlantic. Burnham's thesis was. that capitalism i& in a state of decline, that the capitalist class is rapidly losing all real power, 'and that virtual control is passing into the hands of a new ruling class, 'the managers', by whom he means the administratorsof industry ana government. There is no possibility, lie contends of bld-style capitalism persisting. The managerial revolution which bu already passed through its early stages, will dominate world society. This is ·a modern version of Kropotkin's theme, support~ by a .capable analysis of the development of this revob,ition in the form of the 'State. Toe State, as both ~potkin and Buiiiliafu show, bil aitercd into its Didst complete and Headly fonn. The primary 'forin 6 Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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