THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 49, 26 February 1918, Page 6

THE WAR

(As each new crisis arises in Russia, the Bolshevik leaders have proved over and over again that they are mere mischievous ■ adventurers, destitute of all those qualities of wisdom and determination which many of the adventurers of history possessed. They start off with bad intentions, and by their astonishing incompetence and confusion of thought they produce even worse results. And, if the cablegrams do justice to the situation, they never appeared a greater sham than at this the. eleventh hour of their unexampled opportunity. They cannot give a, clear lead, not oven a clear lead to national destruction. Their orders to the people are a series of contradictions whose logical result would be chaos. When a great conglomeration passes into the crucible the solid body is absorbed for refinement and what comes to the top is the scum. This is the stage which Russian evolution has reached.

From hour to hour the Bolshevik policy passes 'from resistance of the Germans to tolei-ance of them. Not long ago arms.were distributed to the people, to the trusted proletariat, especially to the hooligan element thereof. Now with looting and outrage rampant, and practised by Russian upon Busman, die order is that persons possessing arms are to

"hand them o-^er to the military authorities." Other messages make it <Joubtful whether Russian military authorities, in the .proper sense of the term, can be said to exist.

Lenin and Trotsky started out to settle the peace of the world. They have not even secured jpeace for Russia, unless the word peace can be applied to the degradation underlying the German terms. When the Brest Litovsk manoeuvre hadl palpably failed, Lenin and Trotsky for a moment looked like tackling the.contract of carrying on a class war and a war against the enemy at the same time. The hollowness of that pretence is shown by the easy nature of the German advance. To-day the war against Germany is slipping from their grasp, but the Bolshevik leaders hold on grimly to the class war. It is their own especial child, and even if everything else is lost to the enemy, they will not be cast down if there remains to them some portion of Russia where the game of proletariat and peasant v, plutocrat and landowner may continue to be cai-ried on, and where (this is most important) the bourgeoisie and all middle parties can be harassed from every conceivable angle.

"We,are not the less determined," says TrotsKy, T'to carry on the "class war." Also (the same' old promise) : "We know how to make our war cry reach the German masses, despite the imperialists." Compare this with American Labour and Gompers. Asked by German trade unionism (through Dutch trade unionism) whether American Labour is prepared to "discuss peace," Gompers discussed it in one sentence to the full limit that the situation requires. ""Either you smash your autocracy," said Gompers, "or we will smash it for you." Putting the Bolshevik message to the Germans into similar phraseology, it would read:— •Either you smash your autocracy, or we will give if Western Russia for a present." Now, which is the true friend of Labour and of freedom—the temporarily militaristic Gompers or the class-warrior of the Lenin-Trotsky type?

These conflicting popular phenomena merely reflect different stages of evolution and education. America is modern, and Russia has barely escaped from mediaevalism. ■ American Labour has clearly grasped the tremendous burden entailed by a war to abolish war. British Labour has not seen it quite so clearly—or, at all events, the engineers have not. Yet, generally speaking, English-speaking and Latin Labour. appreciates the situation. Russian Labour just as certainly does not. Blind, and led by blind leaders,, the Russians are very likely to fall, economically and sooialiy, under the German heel, where they would undergo a tutelage of duration uncertain. But the underlying Slav mass would, in that case, be no more overborne than the Anglo-Saxons were by the Normans. Instead, it is quite likely that, however subject they might become, the Slavs of Western Russia would profoundly modify their conquerors. Reform from the bottom would come all the quicker the further the Bussian flag was flown over the ever-full-Slavic cradle. But that consideration is prospective, and has no decisive bearing on the problem presented to-day.

A recognition of this danger to Prussianism is discernible in the terms imposed by the . German Government on Eussia. Germany will not gobble up the Western Russian races, but will use them a3 buffers, and she will turn Russia.generally into a lemon which she can economically suck dry. The Bth and 9th paragraphs in the German peace terms are intended to reduce Russia to. commercial slavery. Other paragraphs show that Russia is to lose the Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Lithuania,. Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. This is a tremendous land-slide, and the Lenin-Trotsky war on the bourgeoisie has contributed far'more towards it than German bayonets. Yet the German peace terms contain not one word to guarantee an unfettered self-de-termination by any of the races to Ke severed from Russia. "Germany, and Austria-Hungary will define the further fate of these regions in agreement with their populations." This is the brilliant result of Bolshevik external pacifism and internal class-war !

The United States Government, when a neutral, was tender iv the matter of belligerent embargoes on supplies to neutrals. As a belligerent, the United States Government finds that firmness is essential. The American embargo, it is cabled to-day, has greatly reduced the food exports to Germany from Northern European neutrals. And that is one reason why the Central Empires must, at almost any cost, tap the grain supplies of v the Ukraine.

Under the vigorous administration of Sir Charles Monro, India has contributed largely to the war. The spirit was always there, but the organising power of the Indian,. Government was sadly lacking in the earlier stages of the conflict, and the great material resources of India and her vast population were inadequately Used. The Mesopotamian campaign revealed the Indian Government's sins of commission, and there were many sins of omission which a competent organiser could have made good.' Apparently that organiser has now been found. As a factor in war-making India 'hae a tremendous potential value/ One dreads to think what India would have been if in German hands. Germany has tried to reach India via Turkey and Mesopotamia, and so far has failed. But the Turkish blockade has enabled Germany to overthrow Russia, and through Russia the Germany of the future will endeavour to force' a new road to India; —unless a decisive Anglo-French-American victory on the Western front breaks forever the back of Prussian militarism.