Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1927. PERFIDIOUS ALBION

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1927. PERFIDIOUS ALBION

The persecution of Soviet Russia by the relentless and restless perfidy of British capitalism continues unabated. Slowly but surely the diplomacy of Britain, is drawing its vicious circle around the gentlest and most peaceful of the Powers and forcing upon that Power the appalling conviction that it must either, in violation of its mostly dearly cherished convictions, hit back or die. Three years ago there seemed to be really a good chance that under a sympathetic Government Britain would at last be brought within that circle of peace and goodwill in which the disinterested philanthropy of Bolshevik Russia is endeavouring to include all the nations of the world. The MacDonald Government was arranging a comercial treaty with Russia. There was a prospect of the credits of which the concerted malignity of the capitalists had hitherto deprived that unhappy country. Such was the generosity of some of the Government's prominent supporters with other people's money that they argued that the millions to be advanced under the treaty would be well invested even if not a penny was ever repaid. The Government itself gave a crowning proof of its good-will in the suspension of the proceedings instituted against a' Communist newspaper which had proposed to put the Army and Navy of Britain out of harm's way by fhe peaceful penetration of both services with the principles of Bolshevism. But the cunning of the capitalists was equal to the occasion. By the forging of the Zinovieff letter they shattered these beautiful dreams of good-will and overwhelmed Britain's first Labour Government by one of the largest Conservative majorities ever known.

fhe results of that Conservative victory were what might have been expected. In all parts of the world the peaceful activities of the Bolsheviks have found a vigilant, powerful, and unscrupulous opponent. Whether in China or in India, at Geneva or at Warsaw, the British Government has displayed a persistent hostility to these designs. They have even carried their bigoted intolerance so far as to object to the Bolshevising of the British coal-mines and the British Labour movement and to the conduct under cover of commercial and diplomatic privileges of an entirely peaceful propaganda against the prosperity and the security of Britain. The Arcos raid, the_ unveiling of some of the mysteries of the Soviet House in London, and the brcaking-off of diplomatic relations with Russia are among the most recent and the most shameful fruits of this incurable bias. Would that we could add that they are also the very last and the very worst! But close on the heels of the Arcos raid followed the Voikoff murder, and we are assured by all the politicians and journalists of Russia that the relation was that of cause and effect. With the same unanimity they tell us that Kowerda's crime was but an isolated incident of the murder plots which are being subsidised by British gold, not only in Poland but in Moscow itself and all over Russia. England, said M. i Rykoff at Voikoff's funeral, has "inspired and financed Monarchist organisations on Polish soil." He added that "no hireling like Kowerda should succeed here," plainly implying that the assassin was in Britain's pay. To show that they are not going to stand this sort of thing in Russia, scores of innocent prisoners have been shot without a trial, and Moscow has been worked up to a hysteria of anti-British fury comparable to that prevailing at Hankow, largely under the same auspices, at I the beginning of the year. l Another of Voikoff's mourners, M. Litvinoff, "expressed the hope that the revolution could not be defended without the use of the Red Army." He hopes, but such is his conviction of the omnipotence and the übiquity of British treachery and British gold that he has his doubts. We should have welcomed a more confident note, and are glad to recognise that such a note was not lacking in die manly utterance in which the latest of perfidious Albion's designs against I the independence of Russia has been announced by its discoverer and met with a thrilling challenge. The Soviet Rear-Admiral Smirnov has discovered British warships in the Baltic and has promptly sounded a note not so much of alarm as of defiance.

The British squadron's presence in the Baltic, ho informs the "Pravda," constitutes a militant demonstration against the Soviet Government. Ho assorts that the British are trying to discover the Soviet's naval strength. "Now that the Soviet sailors arc inured to sea-sickness, he adds, the Red Fleet is ready to take on. all-comers, anil -will defend Kronstadt to tho death."

In her usual fashion Britain appears to be displaying insolence and perfidy Jn about equal proportions, She

scuds a squadron into the Baltic in order to show that the hiring of Monarchist assassins is not the only form which her hostility to the peace and good government of Russia can assume. At the same time a subsidiary object of this outrageous performance is "to discover the Soviet's naval strength." It is certainly a queer kind of secret service that conducts its investigations in this way. It looks as though the British Admiralty supposed that powerful ships and powerful telescopes, and plenty of them, and a close range would be needed to reveal the naval strength of the Soviet, and perhaps they were right.

But Rear-Admiral Smirnov is not scared. He is perfectly satisfied that the Baltic Red Fleet is equal to this emergency or any other, and he gives a very good reason. "The Soviet sailors are," he declares, "inured to sea-sickness," and therefore "the Red Fleet is ready to take on allcomers." "Inured" is hardly the right word, but that may be the translator's fault. Taking it, as it was obviously intended, to mean "cured," we are in a position to appreciate the appalling efficiency of the Red Fleet when we learn that its seamen are never, never sick at sea—or should it be only "hardly ever"? Can the Red Rear-Admiral put his hand on his heart and say with the captain of "H.M.S. Pinafore":—

I am never known to quail At the fury of the gale And I'm never, never sick at sea!

or must he, like Captain Corcoran, crumple up on cross-examination and weaken his confident denial to a "hardly ever"? But perhaps "'twere to consider too curiously to consider so." Let us charitably assume that sea-sickness has been virtually eliminated from the Baltic Fleet, and that therefore all its ships are seaworthy, all its officers know one end of a ship, and all its gunners one end of a gun, from the other, and everybody is just spoiling for a fight. And what a glorious example is set by their Rear-Admiral "ready to take on all-comers and defend Kronstadt to the death."

Who dares this pair of boots displace, Must meet Bombastes face to face, Thus do I challenge all the human race! Rear-Admiral Smirnov Furioso, nailing up his sea-boots at Kronstadt and defying the whole world, make an impressive spectacle, and the knowledge that Kronstadt has better defences than the Red Fleet may enable him to do so with genuine confidence.