The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED. The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1918. BOLSHEVISM AND WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 82, 6 April 1918, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED. The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1918. BOLSHEVISM AND WAR.

For the cause that leeks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, Atsi the good that we can <fc*

The great struggle on the Western front has for< the moment diverted the world's attention from Russia, but changes of a far-reaching and impressive character are now in progress in that unfortunate country. In the first place it is becoming clearer day by day that the Germans have no intention of being bound by either the letter or the spirit of their arrangement with the Bolsheviks when it suits them to break their promises or to interpret doubtful points in the compact in their own favour. Of course, no one who was got deluded and blinded by superstitious reverence for the fetish of "international solidarity" could have expected anything else. But the important point to be observed | just now is that the Bolsheviks themselves are beginning to realise this, and to admit to themselves that in their visionary fanaticism they have sacrificed their freedom to a tyrannical .and implacable foe. And an even more noteworthy fact is the difference that this disclosure of Germany's real intentions has made to the policy of the Bolsheviks. For now that they are forced to see that the Germans mean to exploit Russia for their own ends, and that under German domination liberty and independence will be vanished dreams, and the work of the Revolution will be undone, the Bolsheviks have resolved to defend their country and their newfound freedom by force of arms. To do the Bolsheviks justice we must remember that when they first began to negotiate with the Germans they explained their position clearly enough. They stated that what they wanted was a general peace, and that if fighting continued elsewhere between the Central Powers and the Allies, they would feel free to choose their own course accordingly. But even if we discount the evidence which suggests that some of the Bolshevik leaders have been deliberately playing into the hands of German}', the general impression which the spokesmen of the party produced certainly was that so far as the Bolsheviks were concerned, the war would stop as soon as possible. _lany of the Bolsheviks maintain Tolstoy's curious doctrine of "non-resis-tance," and nearly all of them have a profound and almost child-like faith in internationalism and the "solidarity" of the workers throughout the world. This means that they are opposed to all ■wars, as inimical to the recognition of that " Brotherhood of Man " which they expect the world some day to realise— though it may be said, in. passing, that the Bolshevik conception of fraternity and friendship rigidly excludes all who stand outside the charmed circle of the " proletariat." However, when the Bolsheviks denounced this war as a "bourgeois " war, and assured their followers that it was being carried on for the sole benefit of the " bourgeois" capitalist, they were certainly doing their best to prevent its continuance. But now that they have been compelled by the inexorable logic of circumstances to see that the war 'will go on in spite of them, and that if they 'will not protect themselveß, the evil forces arrayed against liberty and justice will crush and destroy them too, they have cast aside the guise of pacifism and are now preaching patriotism and the necessity for self-defence, with a fervour quite worthy of their desperate situation. That the situation is indeed desperate can be understood even at this distance, by a glance at the internal condition of Russia and the vigorous efforts that the Germans are making to take full advantage of the opportunities that the Bolsheviks in their fatuous credulity have offered the enemy. But what we are concerned with at present is the policy which the Bolsheviks have now adopted for the purpose of grappling with the perils confronting them. They have done done their best to destroy the armies and navies of Bussia, and the systems of organisation on which they were based; and they are now forced to set about the work of reconstruction, with the enemy actually within the gate. But having determined on this course, they have thrown over paficism with an energy that they could hardly have been expected to display. The heads of the Bolshevik government have proposed the adoption of compulsory and universal military service, that system which has always been the "accursed thing" in the eyes of all pacifists and internationalists; and though the Soviets may not yet have formally adopted this policy, the suggestion marks a tremendous change j in the sentiments of the Russian revolutionaries toward -war. But more than this, the Bolsheviks have been forced to recognise the value of the methods of military organisation, which they have striven to destroy, and so we learn that they have summoned all officers to undertake the work of training the troops, and that tbe old system of discipline, including the enforcement of absolute obedience to authority, and the infliction of the death penalty when necessary, is to be restored. When we remember that Bolshevism has hitherto, in effect, repudiated the necessity for self-defence, and in its attempts to extirpate the old orde_ of things, reduced all officers to an equality with the rank and file, delegated the work of military control to

committees of the soldiers, and abolished the death penalty altogether, we may get some idea of the great etiangs through which the Russian revolutionaries are paßsing now. It is possible that the work of reconstruction has begun too late, and that the utmost the Russians will be able to do will be to occupy the attention of a substantial part of the German and Austrian forces for some time to come. But what is most interesting in this situation is the light it throws upon the utterly visionary and impracticable character of the Bolshevist creed. In their zeal for the abolition of war, the " extension of '" fraternity" among the workers throughout the world, the Russian revolutionaries have left themselves so completely helpless that they are now in the face of'imminent danger compelled to undo their own work, to restore official authority and the death penalty in the armies, and to 'appeal to the people to wage a patriotic war against an alien enemy. Surely such an object lesson as this will not be wholly lost on internationalists and pacifists and advocates of universal brotherhood throughout the world.