FROM MOSCOW TO LONDON

Three recent events stand in an extremely suggestive relation to one another: the death of Nikolai Lenin, the formation of a Labor Cabinet for England, and the announcement by the Labor Party of its proposal to resume formal relations with Soviet Russia. The first suggests that the evolution of socialism in Russia is about to enter a new phase, and the second and third are essentially an announcement that socialism outside Russia is also entering a new phase, admitted for comparison upon an equal par with capitalistic government.

Five miles of ragged Russian peasants, we read, filed sorrowfully past the body of Lenin, bowing reverently before this terrorist of the new regime. The capital city itself, it is said, is to be renamed Leningrad. One feels that all this is mourning for the man, attribute to the leader rather than to his ideas or methods.

Indeed, the Revolution some time ago seemed to have progressed beyond Lenin. For two years he has been absent from the Kremlin. Trotsky, his partner, has likewise disappeared, "kidnapped" by the chief of Soviet police. Just who are to replace these two men does not appear, but it is apparent that in the near future the Bolshevist party will yield control to some larger group.

Meanwhile in England there is J. Ramsey Macdonald, surrounded in his Cabinet by such intelligentsia as Oliver, Snowden, Webb and Trevelyan, and such rough-and-ready Labor union men as Henderson, Thomas, Walsh, and Hartshorn. Before he accepted the premiership, Macdonald announced the sufficiently socialistic policy of a capital levy, and nationalization of the mines and railways. And there comes as convincing proof of the road this new government is to take the proposal to recognize Soviet Russia.

As Professor Carver in his interview in today's CRIMSON points out, Lenin, the socialist, failed in Russia, and should Macdonald employ similar methods he will fail in England. England, however, will not allow herself to starve in the process.