BOLSHEVIK LEADERS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9632, 12 June 1919, Page 6

BOLSHEVIK LEADERS.

CAREERS AND CHARACTERISTICS A correspondent ot the London ■'Times" recently contributed to that journal the following interesting personal impressions of the two Boishevik leaders in Russia:— !.—LENIN. The truth of the matter is that Lenin is by no means an easy man to know. For years he has enveloped himself in a veil of mystery—-a policy dictated as much by personal inclination as by political motives, and outside his own small circle of disciples and admirers there are not only very few Russians who may be said to know him intimately, but even com: lucratively few who have ever seen him. If, therefore, he appears to the average Englishman as a red-shirted, high-booted pirate chief, the fault is chiefly of his own making. His allabsorbing passion is the gospel' of world-revolution. Born at Simbirsk on April 10, 1870. Vladimir Ditch Ulianoff, alias "Lenin," "Hitch,' "lib," "Tylin," is a hereditary noble, and the son of a State Councillor. His mother had a small estate in the Kazan Government, and after her husband's death was in receipt of a State pension. Lenin's two sisters and his brother Dmitri were at one time all under police supervision, while his brother Alexander was executed in 1887 for complicity in a terrorist plot against the life of Alexander HI. Brought up in the Orthodox Faith, Lenin is one of the few genuine Russians to be found among the Bolshevik leaders. After comnleting his course at the Simbirsk Gymnasium, in 1887 he entered .the Kazan University, only to bo expelled and I banjshed from Kazan a few months fater" for participating in an antiGovernment students'' riot. In 1891, 'however, we find him attending the University of Petrograd, where lie studied law and economics. In, 1895 he made his first journey abroad to Germany, returning in the same yea. to Petrograd, -whore ho was.again arrested on account of his Socialist activities. On this occasion ho was exiled for three years to the village of Sushenskoe, in Eastern Siberia, being forbidden on the expiration of his sen fence to reside in any of the big cities, fact-pry centres, or university tow rms of Russia. A for his release in 1900 lv again went abroad. From this period begins' his real career as a Socialist leader, and the next 17 years are long cycle •„ of Socialist Congresses abroad, 'culminating in the Zimiuerwa'ld Conferences of 1915 and his dramatic return to Russia in the notorious "sealed" wagon. During this period he visited many countries, including -England, and made the acquaintance of all the revolutionary ..elements in Europe. Is i Lenin a genius? Many Russians •have denied it, and certainly there is nothing in his personal appearance to suggest even faintly a resemblance to the super-man. Short .-of stature, lather plump, with short, thick neck, broad shoulders, round, red face,, high, . intellectual forehead, bald head, nose •Rightly turned up, brownish moustache, raid short, stubby beard, lit looks at the first glance more like a provincial grocer than a leader of men. And: yet, on second thoughts, there is •mnotliing in those steely grey eyes that' arrests the attention, something in that quizzing, half-contemptuous, halfismiling look which speaks of boundless self-confidence and conscious superiority. His knowledge of languages is above the average. He i a proficent German scholar, while he writes and speaks English with tolerable 'accuracy.. He is certainly by far Lho greatest intellectual force which the Russian Revolution has yet brought to light. it is not, however, to his intellectual powers that he owes his predominating position inside his own party. ike- a-lmost fantica'l respect with which he is regarded by the men who are his colleagues, and who are at least " as jtaious of each other as politicians in other countries', is due to other qualities ihan mere intellectual capacity. Chief of these are his iron courage, iiis grim, relentless determination, and ins complete lack of all self-interest. In his creed of world-revolution he is as unscrupulous and as uncompromising as a Jesuit, and in his code of political, ethics the end to be attained Is a justification for the employment of any weapon. To him Capital is the Fiend Incarnate, and with such an enemy he neither gives nor asks for mercy. Yet as an individual ho is not without certain virtues. In the many attacks, both justified and unjustified, which have been made against him, no breath of scandal has ever touched his private life. He is married— according to all accounts singularly happily married—and, in a country where corruption has now reached its apogee, he stands out head and shoulders above all his colleagues as the one man who is above suspicion. To Lenin ilie stories of Bolshevik orgies and carousals have no relation. His own worldly needs are more than frugal, and his personal budget is probably the most modest, of all the Bolshevik Commissaries. Dishonest, treacherous, guilty of the worst forms of secret diplomacy as the Bolsbeviki have been in all their public dealings, Lenin himself, on tho rare occasions on which he Iran consented to see a. foreign journalist oi- a foreign official, has always b-en extraordinarily frank.- . "Person- ■ ■i-liy. I have nothing against you. Politically, however, you are- my enemy, nnd^ I must use every weaixm I think fit for your destruction. Your Governmont does the same against me." Of course he is 'a demagogue; has made, use of all the demagogue's arts. But behind all the inconsistencies of his- : policy, the tactics, the manoeuvring, there lies a deep-rooted plan which he has been turning over in his mind for years and which he now thinks is ripe for execution. Lenin, at least, knows exactly what lie wishes to achieve and how ho means to achieve it. Where other politicians try to adapt their programme to the needs and desires of society, Lenin is attempting to fit society to the narrow frames of his rigid, 'Prussianlike programme. A-fanatic if you like, but a fanatic who has already made history and who has more genius than most fanatics. Cold, pitiless, devoid of all sentiment, utterly ruthless in his effort to force the narrow tenets of his Marxian dogma upon the world, Lenin is not a lovable character.

ice in a gathering of Sunday school teachers, Trotsky, with his long, prominent nose, his fierce, black eyes, his huge forehead surmounted by great masses of black, waving hair, his pointed beard and moustache, and his heavy, cruel protruding lips, is the very incarnation of the revolutionary, of the picture books. Born in 1877 in the government of 'Kherson, the son of a provincial chemist, Lciba iir.onstein, or, as he is now known to the world, Lev Davidovitch i'rotsky, is_a Jew of tho Jews. From his earliest years he has been in revolt against society, and as a boy of 15 '.ye hear of his being expelled from school for desecrating an ikon. When only 22 he was arrested at OSessa on acccount of his connection with the South Russian Workmen's League, anu was banished for four years to Eastern Siberia. In the third year of his exile he escaped frorii the town of Verkholeusk, to ' appear again in the revolution of 1905' as President of the Petrograd Council of Workmen at the early age of 28. After the collapse of the revolution he was again arrested. On this occasion he was deprived of all. his rights as a citizen and was again exiled —this time for life —to.Eastern Siberia. Here' ho lived at Berezoff, the last resting-place of more than one great Russian statesman who had lost the favour of liis Imperial mastpr or mistress. Trotsky, however, must have a genius for escape, for .within six months of his arrival he once more evaded his guards and disappeared abroad. During the succeeding 10 years he lived in turn in France, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, supporting himself mainly by journalism, for which he has a decided bent. In Vienna he edited an Austrian " Pravda," while in Germany he published his well-known history of. the first Russian Revolution. Like Lenin, he has an excellent knowledge of German, speaks fluent French, and understands a little English. At the beginning of the war he. was in Paris, where he edited a Russian Socialist paper called " Nashe Slovq " and the " Golos." Unlike" Lenin, Trotsky has not always been a Bolshevik, and his Paris articles were,subjected to severe criticism from the pen of his present chief and colleague. After the great split in the Russian, Social-Democratic Party, Trotsky sidcd[ with the Menshcvists. A little later, however, not knowing which party was' destined to cenno to the top, he formed a small party of his own, known as the " Trotskists,". whose aim was to steer a middle course between the two currents of Menshevism and Bolshevism. To-day, however, Trotsky has committed himself irrevocably to the Bolshevik cause, but it cannot be said that he has the same rigid political principles as Lenin. 'At times, too, in his imnetuousness he has found it difficult to fall into line Vith Lenin's policy of " reculer pour micux sauter." While Lenin is almost " tempernmentlos," Trotsky ifi all fire, all passion. He has the temperament of the artist and delights in theatrical heroics. " While Lenin sneers at public honour, presumably on the grounds that there is no honour among thieves, mid therefore none among capitalists, Trotsky makes great ,ph\-y with the word. He.wns defending Russia's "honour" at Brest. It pleased him to-bnndy paradoxes with the Gorman Generals. When the Bolshevik Government left Petrogrnd in order to ratify the peace; at the Moscow Congress. Trotsky remained behind to /milk in his den at Smolny. A. few days later, however, his equanimity was restored- by the offer of tho Commissariat of War—an office in which his boundless energy and organising talents have been of the greatest service to the Bolsheviki. Impetuous and hot-headed, he is apt, like the Queen in " Alice in Wonderland," to solve every crisis with. a wild shriek of "Off with his head !" On more than one occasion it hns needed all Lenin's tact nnd discretion to rescue tho Bolshevik barque from the rocks on to which Trotsky's fiery energy had driven it. As Tchitcherin said last July, "it is funny how the military idea has sone to Trotsky's head. A few months ago Lenin had to restrain him from making war on Germany. Now it is Lenin's cool brain that holds him back from declaring war on the Allies." As an orator Trotsky is a powerful demagogue, hissing out his words with a degree of hate which is not without effect. He is apt, however, to lose his temper in the face of opposition and to take refuge in mere abuse. Rumour has many unkind things to say about his private life and his commercial honesty. They may be untrue, but they eive an illustration of the different estimate of the characters of Lenin and Trotsky which exists in the mind of the Russian people. Always neatly dressed and with carefully manicured nails, he is the best dressed of all the Bolshevik Commissaries. Vain and easily susceptible to flattery, he is by no means averse from publicity, and is, or at any rate was, for more accessible to foreign journalists than his more famous colleague. When the world is going well with him, he can be very affable, and, indeed, is not without a certain charm of manner. In this way he has been able at times to make a favourable first impression UDon foreigners, one American in a fit of exuberation once describing <, him as "tho greatest Jew~since Christ." j These impressions, however, do not stand the test of time. Behind those fierce, black eyes lurks ever the demon of suspicion and mistrust. It is this over-present fear of treachery which inspires the terrible, pitiless cnielty of which he .has been guilty. It was probably after much hesitation and with some- misgivings that Trotsky finally threw 'in bin lot with the Bolsheviki. To-day, however, he knows that he has crossed n. Rubicon to which there is no l'-oturning. More conscious of, less mdd iff front too, than Lenin to the fate that awaits him in the event of failure, he is prepared to sell his life dearly ;!!'(] to shrink before nothing in his attempt to enrry Bolshevism by fair "i«ruis or l'ou] into the fr.ur corners of Europe.