The experience of this attempted revolution lived with him. 'It was a challenging time,' he wrote Baroness van Wassenaer. 'Think of girls of eighteen and nineteen in Cuzco University being propagandists for Communism. Have the Christians any answer for such a prepared programme?'2

His reaction to Communism was to admire the boldness and initiative of its advocates while disagreeing with their ideology. In the mid-1920s he had studied the theory of Communism and decided that it was not only built on moral relativism in an advanced form but was also militantly anti-God. Now the experience of one of his oldest friends was to reinforce that belief.

Chang Ling-nan, the lawyer he had helped in China fifteen years before, was now Chinese Minister in Chile, and Buchman went from Bolivia to Santiago to see him. Chang told him that when, in 1927 and 1928, he had been in charge of a district of Hankow, a Soviet agent of the post-Borodin era had threatened to cut off his head and carry it on a pole through the city unless he renounced Christianity. 'Jesus Christ is my personal friend. I will never betray him,' Chang had replied. Buchman, who usually absorbed his most lasting impressions from people rather than the printed word, was deeply affected by this.

Buchman's thinking was taken a step further when he reached Buenos Aires, where the Prince of Wales was opening the British Industrial Exhibition. All the talk among industrialists was of the Depression and Communism. Some said Communism was the cause of the Depression, others that the Depression caused Communism. This did not satisfy him, and he moved to the view that materialism, particularly in the upper classes, had 'prepared the soil for Communism'. 'Communism is the most organised and effective leadership abroad today,' he noted later in the tour. 'Vital Christianity is the only cure.'

In Sao Paulo, he addressed a group of Brazilian industrialists. His rough notes have survived: 'Commercial dumping and dishonesty are more dangerous than bombs. But this Depression could be our salvation if it killed the germs of materialism in us. These lands are spiritually bankrupt. The answer could be in this gathering. Christ of the Andes. What about a Christ of Rio or Sao Paulo. The new leadership which must challenge a bankrupt age. People want such leadership. Alone, no; a group. It is a company that will do it together.'

The more he thought of it, the more he felt that what he called 'moral Bolshevism' - the revolt against God and His absolute moral standards - was the greatest danger in the West. Reading of the Soviet persecution of Christians and of the paralysis of the German Parliament in face of Hitler's rise, he noted, 'Collision is essential for the saving of Christianity. Christ must be liberated. Materialism prepared the soil for Communism. Humanism is not enough. Members of Parliament are fearful and diplomacy is impotent. I see no movement in all Christendom that gives an answer. Moral Bolshevism demands a mighty counter-move of God's Living Spirit. Can there be a powerhouse that generates the energy to change modern history? We need to change our temperament and our environment. Trade depression is God's way of reminding us.'

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