Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1927. "NO FLOWERS BY REQUEST"

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 137, 14 June 1927, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1927. "NO FLOWERS BY REQUEST"

With greater pomp than-that of any Soviet funeral since Dzerjinsky's and in a place of honour of which even he had not been deemed worthy, the body of M. Voikoff was laid to rest on Sunday beside that of Lenin. When Wellington was buried in St. Paul's, , Tennyson imagined Nelson stirring in his sleep to ask:— Who is lie that eometh/Jike an honoured guest, "With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? . And the answer to the question was:— -.;'■ Mighty seaman, this -is ho Was great by land as thou by sea. May we think of the sainted founder of Bolshevism waking from his sleep in the Kremlin to ask a similar question on Sunday last? We say "similar" and not ."same," for we are fully aware that the reference to the priest would be hopelessly out of date in Moscow to-day and that at a time when the "anti-God campaign" is reported to have been languishing seriously it might be peculiarly painful. The campaign against the bourgeoisie is proceeding merrily, as the shooting, just before this funeral, of twenty of the worst of them, who were already under lock and key, conclusively shows, but the Bolsheviks are finding God less easy to kill, and for the Russian at any rate God connotes priest. Subject, however, to the deletion of the offending word, the question might stand, and what of the answer? To suggest any comparison, even in blood-guiltiness, between Voikoff and Lenin would be to compare a pygmy with a giant, and a comparison in any of the elements of greatness, which, outside of Russia, are more highly valued, would be Still more absurd. But a pygmy may appear ,great when he stands on the shoulders of a giant, and fortune may make a small man look big from his typical or representative importance. To Lenin belongs the honour of having turned the almost bloodless revolution which had upset the Tsar to Bolshevism as its goal and murder as : one of its weapons. Voikoff, who had hitherto been but a humble subordinate of Lenin, may be said to have: had Jgreatncss thrust upon him in 1919, when it fell to himas President of the Ekaterinburg Soviet to sign the death warrant of the Tsar and his family, but he proved that he was hot unworthy of the honour by his personal attendance in the cellar where they were all done to death; In number it was a very small haul,'and he doubtless had many humbler victims to his credit. But even if Voikoff had slain thousands Dierjinsky had slain hundreds of thousands, and it was the quality of the Ekaterinburg crime that gave Voikoff his special place in the Soviet hierarchy. Even so, it was not enough to give him a place beside Lenin wliich was denied to the archmurderer. It is the manner of Voikoff's death that has thrust upon him a still more distinguished greatness, and would surely enable the mourners to satisfy any curiosity of the shade of Lenin as to the identity and the merit of the honoured guest now laid beside him. The^eath of Lenin himself was not more magnificently exploited than that of Voikoff, and even the death of Lenin failed to make the Reds see so red, or to set them raging so furiously together, and imagining vain things with such a hysterical unanimity. The Bolsheviks are mourning Voikoff and megaphoning their grief and their hatred all over the world, not because he was killed by a fanatical follower of the Tsar whom they murdered, not because he was killed in the territory of a weak neighbour with which they desired to pick a quarrel, but because they believe, or pretend to believe, that Britain, their arch-enemy, is really at the bottom of the whole business! After several specific warnings and a display of patience so protracted that it had begun to savour of weakness, Britain was compelled by the plots which I were being carried on against her in her own capital under cover of diplomatic and commercial privileges to Kreak off relations with the Soviet Government. Immediately after receiving their notice to quit the principal Soviet representatives were entertained by members of the Opposition at'lunch in the House of Commons. A week or so later they were given a public farewell at Victoria station with no demonstrations of violence or disorder, and the admiration of their friends was freely testified by red bouquets, red favours, and even the exchange of kisses. The nation whose crowds can comfort themselves in this way in the face of almost intolerable provocation is now accused of a' murder plot against those who had so abominably abused its confidence! This incredible turn was first given to the assassination of M. Voikoff by the Note which within a few hours M. Litvinoff dispatched to Warsaw, linking up the crime. with the Arcos and Pekin raids and the British rupture of diplomatic relations. This official cue was immediately taken up with savage violence by the Press and the public all over Russia. The terrorism which is indispensable to the maintenance of Bolshevik tyranny has been intensified. Twenty impotent and innocent representatives of the old order have been shot with a, brutality which has disgusted even j

the friends of the Soviet Government in Germany, and the revulsion of feeling is said to "brand the rulers of Russia as outside the boundaries of civilisation." Against Britain, the top note of fury has been appropriately sounded at Voikoff's funeral. A funeral in which sorrow is replaced by anger and hatred and venomous political propaganda is an indecency which even Soviet Russia may find-it hard to beat. The entire staff of the Polish Legation drove up, we are told, in three motor-ears, bearing enormous wreaths, contrasting with the meagre Soviet flowers, Moscow having decided not to send flowers, but to give money "for our answer to Chamberlain." It was a tactful performance on the part of the Poles, but so far .as the Reds were concerned it was a case of "No flowers by request" in order that the money might be used to promote the real object of the funeral—the pumping up of more hatred against Britain. The speeches were to match. "The British breach with Russia made this murder possible," said M. Rykoff, and he professed to have proof that "England inspired and financed Monarchist organisations on Polish soil." It Is far better so than that M. Ryko'ff and his friends should be bullying Poland. Britain has broad shoulders and can stand worse than this. Her sense of humour will even enable her to enjoy the fun.