SUSPICIOUS BOLSHEVIKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 242, 9 October 1920, Page 17

SUSPICIOUS BOLSHEVIKS.

A PERSONAL RECORD. THE ATTEMPT TO ABOLISH HUMAN NATURE. By CAPT. FRANCIS McCULLAGIi (Wlio lias fl tlioronp'i understanding of the 'Russian language and has just | "returned (roni .Soviet Russia). During three months passed recently, as a supposed civilian, in Russia, I came into personal relations with Trotsky and with a number of the leading Bolsheviks; and this experience pave rue> a vivid impression of what T regard as one of the leading characteristics of the Bolsheviks, namely, (heir intense suspicion and {{real fear of what they <'all "the capitalistic nations'}/ and "the great predatory Empires." The Bolshevist Government now finds itc-elf the only Government of its kind in the world. The (iovernment of Lenin is brand-new, and has therefore none of the forces and sanctions of tradition behind it. It represents hut a very email section of the Russian people and is menaced not. only by powerful interests inside Russia, but also, in the firm opinion of Ihe Bolsheviks l>y all the other Governments in the world, republican as well as monarchical. The Bolsheviks believe that these Governments hate it intensely, and art', some of them, in a state of acute fear lor their own existence. But I have seen myself that the countries which suffer must from this fear—Finland, for example—are by no means in such a state of panic as the Soviet Republic, which i=; convinced, rightly* or wrongly, that all the wealth of the" world and ail the intellect of the world are working against it ceaselessly and with supreme ability. Wealth, according to Lenin, is naturally against him: and intellect has been subdued to the service of wealth by capitalism, religion, patriotism, and militarism. LEXIX'S MISGTVIXGS. Despite all their bluster and all their military success, the Bolsheviks therefore feel themselves at times to be nothing but amateurs in the realms of diplomacy, war, secret service, and economics; and on more than one occasion Lenin himself confessed to a painful sinking nt tlie heart in view of the mighty combination of forces that was opposed to him, and even declared in public that his great experiment would probably fail. The leading Bolsheviks whom I met in Moscow are profoundly convinced that their enemies have a great advantage over them in being able, to offer rewards which they cannot offer—wealth,' comfort, high and permanent positions, the esteem of powerful and ancient Empires, the blessings of religion. The Soviet can only give its agents * hard work, danger, permanent discomfort. It cannot provide them even with good cigarettes or with matches which will light. It can only promise them the applause of a small clique, not the applause of a people. It measures so accurately the tremendous strength of the temptations to which they are exposed that when it sends abroad not only an ordinary agent, but even a leading commissary, it generally keeps his wife or some of his relations behind as a hostage, lest corrupted by the gold of the capitalists, he should grow faint-hearted, tired of the bitter, unending struggle, and abandon them altogether. UNTRUSTWORTHY COMMUNISTS. Lenin has himself confessed, in moments of depression, that though there are nominally 600,000 Communists in Russia there are not GOOO who can be trusted implicitly. Only fanatics can be depended upon in all circumstances, and fanatics are few, even in Russia. The average man cannot rise to the heights or sink to the depths of fanaticism, and (to mention no higher inducement) is easily tempted by the easy, normal life which ensures him cigars, beer, soap, clean linen, and other comforts which Bolshevism cannot give him, not to speak of nine dresses jewellery, scent, and real tea with sugar in it for his wife, as well as playthings for his children. Even the fanatics in Russia have been kept at too tense a strain during the last two years; weak human nature cannot s,tand it. Lenin and Trotsky both, realise this -and are appalled by the infinite staying the long experience, and the extreme seductiveness of the vast, patient force in front of them. They are all the more appalled because they realise that though the workers are tired, the work has hardly yet begun. The foregoing explains why Lenin and Trotsky tolerate, and will in all probability continue to tolerate, such a mediaeval institution as the Extraordinary Commission. Despite the dangerous wideness of its powers, it at least guards them from the anti-Bolshevist conspirators and the foreign agents who, in their opinion, swarm in every part of Russia. Most of the things we say about them they say abojit us. We praise their intelligence, but they think that ours is of extreme and deadly efficiency. They gave mc to understand that more than 99 per cent, of the sympathetic foreigners to wihom they opened their minds have turned out to be agents of their worst enemies. TROTSKY'S "NERVES." Trotsky in particular has become so nervous and frightened at what he regards as the "disloyalty" of sympathetic Britons that he starts whenever he is addressed in English, and, though he speaks English fairly well, conducts the conversation in Russian or French if bis i interlocutor happens to kno,w either ot these languages. He does not understand our institutions; lie is suffering from overwork and nervous strain; he is even afraid for his oivn life. In the Extraordinary Commission at Moscow I was shown a great collection of reports which had, it was alleged, been seized on agents of the Entente or en Russian anti-Bolsheviks. There was nothing to prove that they were genuine, but Trotsky believes them to be genuine, and it is no wonder, therefore, that he has been frightened by them, for they deal with schemes for destroying railway bridges, 'bribing Red generals and soldiers to surrender, and murdering the principal commissaries. According to these documents, several Bolshevist generals had been bribed to desert with their men during Yudenitch's advance on Petrograd, and it was the timidity of the Whites rather than the astuteness of the Reds which saved the latter from destruction. Quite a large detachment of Reds which advanced to join Yudenitch so frightened the letter's troops that they all ran away; and when, -with, tne

best intentions in the world, the Red deserters continued pursuing, the Whites broke up altogether, and even threw away their arms. But the extremely narrow margin by which the Soviet Republic was saved on several occasions frightened the Bolshevist leaders extremely and ha# made them morbidly I need not say that there is no reason for this suspiciousness, and that the British agents in Russia are there to find out the true state of affaire, which they have a perfect right to do, and not to take part in plots for the assassination of Lenin and Trotsky. WORKING AGAINST NATURE. What frightens the Bolsheviks most ot all, however, is the discovery that the very nature of man is working against them. All their attempts to abolish capitalism, trading, and that laudable desire for gain which, after all, makes the world go round are as futile as cutting water with a sword and expecting the fissure to remain open. Not a month passes without the Extraordinary Commission discovering that some new financial or commercial nucleus has formed on the old lines; and, for the past six months, a vast amount of speculation has been connived nt in Moscow and elsewhere. As much of this speculation is carried on, especially in the Moscow Food Control, by high officials of the Soviet itself, the Extraordinary Commission lost heart altogether in April last and has practically ceased to contend against it ever since. Even this natural development the Bolsheviks put down, however, to the intri<mes of foreign capitalists.—"Daily Mail."