THE BOLSHEVIK MIND

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1918, Page 6

THE BOLSHEVIK MIND

Early in the year M. Jean Finot, editor-in-chief of La Revue, declared that the Bolshevik leaders were " agents of Germany, carrying out faithfully the complex plan which they promised to execute for her advantage." That plan •was to detach Russia from the Allies, and, by dismembering Russia, to eradicate for ever the danger to Germany of the vicinity of a strong, well-organised nation, which might take exception to her boundless and ceaseless ambition. M. Finot wrote:

The Anarchists who have seized possession of power in Russia are devoid of patriotism. They have aroused separati*. sentiments; disorganised all authority, including the army; emptied the prisons; and sowed terror, disorder, ami crimes. Let us not cherish illusions: Behind Lenin and Trotsky, it is Germany that reigns supremo in. the ancient Empire of the Tsars.

We have not hitherto stressed this accusation, because the evidence of a leading Parisian editor might be considered ex parfe. But there is now to hand a statement not from any individual journalist, nor from any Entente capital, but from the United States Committee of Public Information, an official and judicial body which views European events through Western spectacles and without European prejudices. New York announces in this issue:

The Committee of Public Information has _ published documents proving that Lenin and Trotsky and their associates are German agenta, and that the German Staff arranged the Bolshevik revolution, which was financed .by tho German Imperial Bank and others.

Coming from such an authority, this indictment is too impressive to be set aside even -by those "who desire to see whatever good they may in the Bolshevik adventure. No leader on the Allied side adhered to the theory of Bolshevik good intention longer than did President Wilson ; and he above all men would not stand for an indictment thakhe di yd not believe to be overwhelming. This development comes at an opportune time, for there are local Bolsheviks,' self-con-fessed and even blatant; and men must on all occasions be measured by their ideals.