RUSSIAN CHAOS ANALYSED

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 66, 11 December 1917, Page 6

RUSSIAN CHAOS ANALYSED

"BLIND AND INCOHERENT REBESF

THE ANARCHY OF THE ILLITERATE

The Russian revolution, which fired the democracies of the world with enthusiasm and high hope five months arro stands in grave peril of breakdown and defeat, and it is important that the causes jeopardising its success should be clearly understood by socialists in all countries lest they shou.d bo tempted to defend that which is neither socialistic nor defensive, thereIjv discrediting and damaging their cause (writes Alexander M Thompson, of "Tho Clarion," from Potrograd). The plain truth is that whiten manySocialists helped in making the revolution the great mass of the revolutionaries, are blind and incoherent rebels, f,U of wants, but utterly empty . of knowledge, experience, or governing faculties. The despotwm wEose.barbarons repressions goaded them to i&volt had cunningly shaped its policy to the deliberate end of making reVO j^® n .' if ever it came, a mere wlnll and clash of incompatible and undirected force® doomed by their own vague aimlessness toimpotence and mutual destract.c«. That deliberate purpose of Imperial rule has up to the present achwvrf its devilish purpose, and the that the revolution has prouucea gßS&t&s "waste chaos of a dieani.

80 Per cont. illiterate. The reactionary parties are qui e right iu contending that the grea miioritv of the Russian people are not, ani never have been, S° cial j sfc ® j d fourths of the people—one hundred a«L twenty of the country s one luincireci and sixty milli<cns—are engaged in agriculture, and, like the most countries, they are ' ,j eager to acquire property to destroy tllem, teli, the Socialist Minister, -what pio portion of the Riissianpeasantrycoud be counted as Socialist*, with cvnical but convincing frankness. "You may count all those who have nothing, but when they have anything vou cannot count them aw WAs p?obably 80 per cent. of to are wholly illiterate, and as no ™ au he truly accounted a Socialist 01 Democrat without some study of e "~ social altruism may not be dispu te^- _ The fact is that. people hawi been as firmly rooted m this soil of diunKen auperstitim, uorance, as in the tilled and whoso ownership tliej eted The revolution, with its boast of freedom and its challenge established authority, has g' v ' Cll t . heDl ( j, opportunity of appeasing their earth hunger, but certainly it lias not made. 2 socialists. Their methofUf &s----serting their new rights ls > n g £ reverse of socialistic, for the socialist Minister (Chernov), the peti* tion of the reactionaries, lias Been driven to resign because, as he ex plained to nie, he has been trying, or socialistic measures, to P r6^ e ' i; Anarchist scramble or the best slices of laud in which, m some <»hs, en tire village communities have oeen kill cd or wounded. . , , The industrial classes m the towns aro as their wild, chaotic, purposeless insurrections of fast mouth r- S equally ignorant and anarchistic. Ineir claim to an improved standard of life is most manifestly just, but tlieir impossible demands, are simpiy parab BmS industry and ruining Russia. British trade unions in liignly organised dustries are doubtless quite capable of sharing in the control of the mills or mines whose conditions of labour they already regulate, but the Russian workers who are actually try ng, in many cases to leap straight into .absolute ownership and control of theirindustries, have only been allowed, to begin their education in trade unionism silica the Revolution, and have never serv d an apprenticeship in management, actmini3trative responsibility, or trading conditions. The Socialist Minister for Labour (Skobeleff), whom I found v«y, sympathetic and understanding, is doingnis utmost to divert the industrial tumult into Socialistic order b«t ® also finds his task terribly U" ler ® d u / the Anarchist tendencies of the workers But the worst trouble or all 1S > of course, the anarchism of the Army, and here, I must msist, the fault lies chiefly in that vague pacifist sentimentalism with which ,|xll- m eamng idea i t of our own party have infected bocialI ism.

Premature Internationalism. Socialism is a theory of Government designed to extend opportunities of decent life by the more equal and equitable distribution of produced. wealth. Its hearing on a nation's relations and conduct to its neighbours is not more H'elevant than that of, let us sa), Theosophy or cotton spinning. A nation may rule' its internal affairs ou Socialist principles, and_ yet suiter racial, geographical, religious, or commercial differences with other nations, as is actually proved by the acuta difference which has compelled tlio Socialist Government of Russia to issuo a virtual ultimatum to the Socialist Government of Finland, A wise nation will naturally use its utmost efforts to settle suoh difference as wise men try to settle their individual diffeenS by argument, by leference of the disputed.matters to , d 7" te , rest „. friends, or J>y their submissioni to thorities specially J wigdom purpose; but this exerci Onpini. is not more' direct y i»t, Government m nations tnan uj; pLS Methodism or Vegetarianism i \SSists should stand for the maintenance of peace is n tionahsm to secure \ Tnnr useful for experience proves tint the normal citizen who ismot a professional politician is at flie outbreak of war less concerned for party, shibboleths tlian for the safety of his fl" h and blood and Ins country. Further it should be obvious to all sensible people, whether Socialists or others «ial when once the mad dogs of war have been loosed, all hindrance of effort means increase of slaughter. Tragic examples ot that fact jiave' unhappily been furnished by all the democratic countries in this war, but most unhappily by Russia, and the respons - bility for that fact lies with the pacific sentimentalists of the Soviet.