"The trouble with revolutions is that they get in the hands of the wrong people."

Phillip Marlowe's exchange with a private police officer guarding a gated community in 1942's The High Window raises some interesting questions. 

Marlowe is always guarded in conversation and prone to sarcasm, so it's not a good idea to read too much into the "tovarich," Chandler himself was a critic of both capitalism and communism, something that certainly comes through here. The status quo is unfair and corrupt; the alternative is probably just as bad. It's a nihilistic message, but what do you expect from a hard boiled detective?

Or it could have been a comment on this:

Hammett devoted much of his life to left-wing activism. He was a strong antifascist throughout the 1930s, and in 1937 joined the Communist Party. On May 1, 1935, Hammett joined the League of American Writers (1935–1943), whose members included Lillian Hellman, Alexander Trachtenberg of International Publishers, Frank Folsom, Louis Untermeyer, I. F. Stone, Myra Page, Millen Brand, Clifford Odets, and Arthur Miller. (Members were largely either Communist Party members or fellow travelers.) He suspended his anti-fascist activities when, as a member (and in 1941 president) of the League of American Writers, he served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.