Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1917. THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 115, 12 November 1917, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1917. THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY

Of the 180 odd millions of people in the Russian Empire, a certain definite few have succeeded in displacing the Provisional Government at Petrograd, and in establishing themselves in that portion of the great Eurasian land-mass over which the Tsar once ruled. Such a change of control at the capital would not be altogether disastrous if there was a Russian public opinion capable of making itself felt. In that case, the new controlling faction, if it is bent on surrendering Russia to the German, would soon be disposed of in its turn; it would be either mended or ended. But the fact is that Russian public opinion in the Western democratic sense appears to have no existence; in place of it there is, in Petrograd, a compound of Utopian doctrine and pure indifference, in which, by lack of serious opposition, the Utopians exercise the strongest pull. While ary soldiers and a revolting section of the Baltic Fleet fired on the Winter Palace, the Provisional Government's last tenement in Petrograd—the German Fleet meanwhile converging on Helsingfors— the people gathered at a theatre to hear Chaliapine sing! Over at the Palace an ominous thing was happening;'the last roots, in the capital, of a Government faithful to honour and treaty were being pulled out by avowed treaty-breakers. But what of that, so long as the Petrograd public can hear Chaliapine sing! At the finish, it seems, the defence of the Provisional Government depended on women and " tanks." The women marched finely, fought well; but by the "men" of tho multitude their reception was " frankly ribald." Now there is to be a Utopian Cabinet without a Prime Minister, but with a movable chairmanship; and it "exhorts " the soldiers to remain in the trenches on - the understanding that it will continue to fight Germany if the latter's* peace terms are not right. And Germany's terms, it is cabled, will be right subject to another " if " • that is, subject to the Utopians' remaining in power. Herein is seen characteristic Prussian clear-sightedness. If only the Utopians will maintain Russian powerlessness during this crisis of the war, the Prussians know that thereafter they will be able to work their will with the Utopians and with Russia also.

How fraudulent the whole transaction is, so far as Germany is concerned, is sufficiently indicated by the Kaiser's action in executing every fiftieth soldier in a Russian division that marched into the German lines, bringing its officers bound as trophies and peace-offerings. The Hohenzollerns want the Russian units, and are willing to seduce them by the meanest treachery, but they dread to ft lustrate that black art to their own people, and above all they fear the effect of an outrage on officers upon the discipline of their own soldiery. So surrender to Germany, the outcome of Leninite propaganda, is attended by German reprisals such as should convince even the Petrograd proletariat of the immense gap between the tjtqpiun idsah wWf.li iVftey, Sin& and the Prussian, militarism.

which they serve. Another eloquent fact is that these Russian soldiers who bound and sold their officers could be executed under Prussian law but not under the law of the Russian, who has abolished capital punishment. But if the Russian factions cease "slanging" one another; if, instead, they get down to business, and that business should prove to be civil war, then idealistic notions concerning the taking of life will promptly go overboard. Already the Revolutionary Military Committee has seen fit to proclaim dire punishment for disorder. To avoid the use of the word execution, the committee naively suggests that offenders will be "wiped off the face of the earth," which evidently is not the same thing at all.

Recent events are culminating evidence that the Russian tragedy can now be corrected only by the shock of civil war. H M. Kerensky stands for anything at all, he-must now take up the challenge and return violence for violence. Whether he will be able to recruit a following on the fighting front, or in Moscow, or in one of ihe Cossack districts, the time has come for backing words with deeds. If Russia cannot shake off the power of political mountebanks who bribe the urban proletariat with promises of high wages and the. peasantry with a prospect of confiscated land, the future of Russia, not only as a military but also as a political unity, is dark indeed. Politically she has arrived at the parting of the ways, and must choose between sane government and the social fireworks of a triple revolutionary like Lenin; a choice which an educated democracy would be quick enough to decide, but which in slow-moving Russia may take weeks or months or years. Meanwhile, Russian partnership in the war, though still full of potentialities, is no longer a force that the Entente can rely upon.