Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1920. WAR AGAINST THE REDS

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 84, 6 October 1920, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1920. WAR AGAINST THE REDS

Though the Western war was decisive, the Eastern war (still flickering) has almost reduced warfare to the level of a moving-picture serial. The sweeping advance of one side in one episode has become the automatic prelude of a sweeping advance by the other side in the next episode; and the episodes have long since ceased to be epic. No doubt the events are in the last degree tragic for the inhabitants —those not versatile enough to co-operate with each side alternately but they are no advertisement for military science unless ifc be a science of slow exhaustion. The ebb and flow of the Russian campaigns of 1914-17 has been repeated in the Polish-Bolshevik war, and the latest movement of the tide is in favour of Poland; but will it stop there? According to some of the members of the British Labour delegation to Russia, Bolshevism thrives on the warlike measures taken against it by outside countries, whose efforts have re-created a. Russian national spirit, and have driven the Russians into Bolshevism's arms. On the other hand, there is evidently a feeling in France that military measures against Bolshevism — by counter-revolutionary forces and by the Poles, with French aid —have almost succeeded, and that another push by Wrangel and the Poles, may prove the last straw. Instead of confirming British Labour's finding fhat war has rallied the Russians determinedly around Lenin and Trotsky, Paris cables that internal disorder in Russia is increasing, that sovietisrn is faced with the most serious clanger it has yet experienced, and that even the bloodthirsty Peters has taken refuge in Germany.

Which of these two readings of the Russian situation is correct, time alone can decide; and in Russia time has a habit of falsifying the estimates even of the most expert authorities. When Paris admits that General Brusiloff, who once nearly conquered the Austro-German Eastern armies, is not only leading the Red forces, but is calling on officers of the Tsarist period to accept commissions in a partly re-disciplined military machine, the admission may perhaps be considered to be some contribution to the idea of a new Russian national spirit. But when the anti-nationalistic and class-flictatoria-1 character of Bolshevism is considered, it is "hard to resist the inference that Brusiloff is suborned, and that Kuropatkin, reported to have become Generalissimo of the Red forces in Central Asia, has been either bluffed into his long-discarded uniform, or starved into it. Does anyone believe that Kuropatkin really hopes, by sacking Bokhara, to regain the reputation, he lost, in the Russo-Japanese War? In the circumstances, the personal conduct of certain conspicuous luminaries of the old .regime is not a convincing test of the real attitude of Russians towards Bolshevism. Helsingfors backs up Paris to the extent of reporting renewed riots and strikes in Russia, " owing to food shortage and war weariness." Two years ago we would have thought that war weariness would have'caused the eaxly collapse of Lenin and Trotsky, but evidence is accumulating that the end may not be far distant of their reign of terror—a dictatorship reign, under which, as the secretary of the British Labour delegation recently stated, no idea of liberty or equality existed.

Still more important than the Helsingfore advice is the report telegraphed from Riga by a correspondent of the usually well-informed Manchester Guardian. This authority declares still more emphatically that Bolshevism has "reached its most extreme crisis." In declaring that the Polish war was the first popular wax in modern Russia, the Guardian correspondent concedes something to the view of the British Labour delegation,' but he speaks in the past tense, and cancels his statement by saying that the -war is now unpopular and that the people want

" pea-ce at any price." Hs provides a possible explanation of the continued Polish advance by stating that the Red j forces have been compelled to concentrate against General Wrangel's South Russian army, for fear that Wrangel j (xvho appear? to be assuming a less autocratic attitude than Denikin, in the hope of conciliating the populations of occupied territories) may make sufficient progress to cut off Soviet Russia's southeastern supplies. With exceptionally bad I winter famine prospects, it is of first importar.ee to Bolshevism to safeguard all available food supplies, and the Polish penetration of districts already devasi ta.ted by war becomes, to Lenin and Trotsky, a secondary matter. To the assassination of its commissaries Bolshevism replies with an intensification of the terror. The Terrorists cannot let down because, at the first sign of wea-kness, many of their own hired or intimidated agents, including "the senior officers of the army," will turn against them. Such, is the view of the Manchester Guardian's correspondent, and it is supported in today's cables by the correspondent of tiie Morning Post, who states that "the Bolshevik position was never more precarious." In the sphere of Labour politics Bolshevism lias received a set-back by the repudiation of its principles by the French General Confederation of Labour and Trade Union Congress. Whether Bolshevism can be fought in Russia, by mean?- of gunpowder may be in doubt, but it can certainly be killed in democratic countries with the aid of common sense. Democratic Labour does not intend fc& risk all that hue bsen won, wid to sacrifice substance for shadsw,