Though many may disagree profoundly with the conclusions reached in The Coming Struggle for Power, by John Strachey, nevertheless they will admit that they are grateful for its publication. It requires such a book, which challenges all the ideals upon which this and previous generations have been brought up, to rouse people from taking things for granted and to make them ask themselves such questions as ‘whither is our civilization leading us?’

Mr. Strachey has no doubts but that communism is the goal to be aimed at, and that it is also the goal towards which we are being irresistibly drawn. It would be unprofitable to examine in detail the multiplicity of arguments which he has advanced in support of his general thesis, but the general trend of the argument in the book needs careful attention—Mr. Strachey first points to all the evils which at present exist in the world; wars, famine, and poverty on the one side, over-production and accumulation of vast fortunes on the other; periodical crises, booms and slumps; tendencies towards monopolies and nationalism. All these, he says, are the obvious results of capitalism, and it is impossible for capitalism to provide a cure for these evils. This, in brief, is the first stage in his argument, and I think it is worth our while to consider it at some length.