Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1930. THE RED RECOIL UPON POLAND

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 36, 11 August 1920, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1930. THE RED RECOIL UPON POLAND

Britain has pursued two policies towards Bolshevism. She has endeavoured militarily to overthrow the Bolsheviks, and she has also endeavoured tentatively i to trade with, them, and sometimes these two policies have overlapped. Long after pressure of public opinion and of other circumstances had compelled the withdrawal of the British army from North Russia, British subsidies, huge in amount, to the anti-Bolshevik forces of Denikin continued; and, while some of these subsidies were still current, unofficial overtures for trade between Soviet i Russia and Britain were well afoot. Whether it is consistent, or inconsistent, to hit a man over the head with one hand, and to offer him commercial traffic (on terms) with the other hand, is an open question. Possibly it may be argued that Denikin's bayonets constituted the spur, while the trade proposals stood for the carrots, and that both were necessary i to urge the donkey forward. But whether this argument is or is not valid does not concern the present article, the purpose of w*hich is to stress at theoutset I the almost parallel courses of the policies i of subsidised wav and commercial compromise tentatively pursued by Britain in relation to Bolshevik Russia. Only a few months ago it appeared that the military policy had failed and that the trade policy was about to succeed because of the sheer war-weariness of all the parties concerned. And such a development would almost certainly have come about but for the re-emergence as a war factor of the resurrected and treaty-protected State of Poland. ' At Versailles the Allies gave Poland an outlet to the sea by means of the Vistula corridor and the Free (formerly German) City of Danzig. The Allies also gave Poland what theyjieemed to be her ethnographic boundaries, which on the easf\ corresponded mainly with the river Bug. The Poles, whose ancient State comprehended far more than, this, though they appeared to be grateful for a little, yet demanded the whole. They claimed, eastward, their historic and strategic— but, according to the Allies, not ethnographic—boundaries, the Dwina and the Dnieper, some 200 miles eastward of the Bug; and a few months ago their armies | started out to secure this claim. Strategy appears to have included, besides more defensible frontiers, the erection of an independent Ukrainia to act as a buffer between Poland and Bolshevism. Another plea ioi the Polish offensive was the alleged military necessity of forestalling a similar offensive planned by the Bolsheviks. Preventive war ia always a dubious sort of affair, but it 13 hard to see how the Allies could have done more in thci way of restraining the Poles than to warn them that they would be responsible for their own fortunes or misfor- | tunes. This British Ministers unequivocally did. There is some ground for suspicion, not amounting to proof, that unofficially the Polish offensive received I suppoi-t in France. Whether this is so 1 or not, the gamble failed badly. Poland to-day is in great military i danger from the despised but persistent Bolshevik armies, the repulse of which requires Allied aid. Though the Bolsheviks virtuously protest that the trade issue and the Polish issue have no relation, and that the fixing of terras for the Poles is purely a Bolshevik affair, the fact is, of course, that the British. Government cannot either consistently or safely make commercial compromise with the Bolsheviks while they hold the soil of ethnographic Poland. In steering his course towards trade with Russia,, Mr. Lloyd George has met with many dangers to navigation. He has had to measure the force of the North- | cliffe "shaking hands with murder" campaign; he has had to weigh carefully whether any Bolshevik agreement amounts to more than a scrap of paper,, and whether Bolshevik promises to cease rebellion and intrigue in Persia, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, and India are intrinsically worth anything; also, he has had to consider how far, in his Russian negotiations, he can disregard the French j demand for Bolshevik recognition of Tsaristic Russia's debts to France — assets which, if not destroyed by repudiaI tion, are estimated to be more than sufficient to meet all the external obligations of the French. Republic, Past all these and other rocks and shoals Mr. Lloyd George had steered apparently with some success, when tho Polish break-down precipitated a new crisis. Whethei Tsaristic debts can or cannot be jettisoned or discounted, it is clear that Poland cannot be abandoned without stultification of the whole Eastern policy adopted at Versailles. Poland, according to Allied policy, was to be a self-reliant buffer between Bolshevism I and Prussianism, a brake upon either or both.- A reduced Poland, or a dependent Poland, would not meet the case. Still less would a Poland nominally independent but actually Bolshevised.

To-day the Anglo-Russian trade negotiations wait while the Allies, realigned by Poland's plight, make united representations to Bolshevism that it must respect ethnographic Poland and make an early truce or armistice. Ths Allies appear to have been worked up to the point of agreeing to give Poland all military support says soldiers. Nations with armies closer to the battlefield, especially Germany, will make what capital they can out of the situation, offering aid or obstruction to, the AUlmic* v thjslr

' own interests dictate. The Allies have armies on the Rhine, but Poland is far a-way, and they cannot treat Germany as Germany treated Belgium. Properly organised, Poland's own forces should bo equal 10 a counter-attack that would drive the Bolsheviks to armistice; but in the meanwhile the Bolsheviks, while raising diplomatic smoke-screens, are pushing onward in Polish territory with the idea of erecting Soviets and leaving the brand of Bolshevism upon the new Poland. Some of the Bolshevik leadeis claim that the Poles, far from being ready to fulfil the buffer or cordon, policy of the Allies, are really not badly disposed towards Bolshevism, and contain enough incendiary elements to make the nucleus of a Soviet State that, far from obstructing Bolshevism, will aid its westward flow. And it seema to be a fact that some of the bright stars of sovietism are Polish Jews. Broadly, the question is whether tho military and commercial pressure that tho Allies are able and willing to bring to bear can save Poland not merely from being enslaved, but from being Bolshe■vised. To a considerable extent Britain and France are re-united for the purposei jof again propping up Poland. Bnt, once the Polish problem is solved, there is no guarantee of identity of policy in London and Paris on the larger question of general relations with Bolshevik Russia.