THE RUSSIAN JUNTA

Evening Star, Issue 16624, 5 January 1918, Page 8

THE RUSSIAN JUNTA

THE MEN " WHO WANT MORE." /' . -> A PRECIOUS PAIR. Nikolai Lenine, the directing power behind the most recent outbreak in Russia which raised him almost to the throne, the leader _ of the Bolshevik movement—Bolsheviki, by<the way, means "the men who want more"—is described as quiet, reserved, and studious. His chief lieutenant in the present crisis, Leon Trotzky,. the man whom the- neutral nations refused to recognise as the War Minister' of the newly-set-up Government, is apparently his opposite in temperament, carefully groomed, even in the working man's attire ! that he affects, smiling and debonair, in the face of a situation affecting the fate of nations. Lenine has been denounced by moderate Liberals as the evil genius of the Russian revolution and a paid agent of Germany. He was the acknowledged leader of the Maximalist uprising in July, after which he went into hiding. He was reported to have been in Sweden, Switzerland, and 1 inland, but wherever ho managed to find c ° v f r m was in const ant communication with Trotzky and other Bolshevik leaders. Une aocount has it that his real name is Zederblum. The 'New York Times' has a different story. It says of him: - _ Lenine, like most of the prominent Russian agitators, had to use an alias in his revolutionary activity. His real name is Vladimir Ulyanoff. He was born of a noble family at Simbirsk, on the Vol°a, about 1370. An elder brother was executed for complicity in a plot to kill Emperor Alexander TL shortly before that ruler was actually assassinated in 188 L Lenine became prominent in the early nineties as a leader of the radical Social-Demo-crats who insist on the literal application ot the Marxian theories, as against the more nationalistic view, with greater attention paid to the peasants and their- actual condition, which was entertained by the Socialist revolutionists, the party of Kerensky. His most noted book is' «The Development of Capitalism in Russia.' He was elected to the second Duma after the revolution of 1905, but was compelled to go into exile, a thing, he had often done belore, when the reaction triumphed. At the beginning of the present war he was in tolcow and was interned as an enemy alien, but was shortly released and allowed to proceed to Zimmerwald, in Switzerland where a colony of Russian revolutionists was already established. After the revolution the Provisional Government of Russia entered into an agreement with Germany by which the Russian revolutionists m Switzerland were allowed to return through Germany in return for the release of German civilians in Russia. Lenin headed the party which returned by tins route, and his social programme, which he has been advocating ever since, was drawn up a .s ho passed through.- - He reached Petrograd on April 16, just after the pacifists in the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies had forced the ressignation of Mihukoff, and at once began to preach immediate peace and general con-' nscation. At first the Government seem to have underestimated him: Tcheidzo said that probably the revolution would absorb him and that if it did not there was little difference. But soon his newspaper, the Iravda, featuring violent attacks on iingland and France, became influential, and the tolerance of the Government was now based on the theory that arrests would make him a martyr. Certainly at first there was general disapprobation of his extreme views, but gradually he began to gam in power and to become' the centre of the radical pacifists, despite the constantly reiterated charges that he was in the pay of Germany. A peace pfcn of his advanced in a speech, was publicly denounced as given verbatim in a wireless message of Prince Leopold of Bavaria and no satisfactory denial was ever made of Brussiloff's accusation. Nevertheless, he gained in power. Seated in the palace whicbhad formerly belonged to the dancer Ivshesinskaya, the favorite of Nicholas protected by the First Machine Gun Regiment, which was constantly loyal, he resisted all attempts to oust him until failure in the July rising drove him to temporary hiding, in which he appears to have plotted the new outbreak. Trotzky, who by many is considered the real head of the Maximalist revolt, is well known in New York, where he worked as a reporter for £2 10s a week on an East bide newspaper during lus brief exile in America, alter having beeu driven out of Germany, France, Switzerland, and Spam. Like Lenine, ho uses an alias, his real namo being Leber Braunstein. He was born in a town in the Russian GovernI ment of Kherson, near the Black Sea, He became an extreme Socialist, and, being gifted with a forceful literary style, won distinction and prominence * among the revolutionary leaders before the end of tho nineteenth century. In the revolution of 1905 Trotzky published a book which j\practicaliy set the sky as the limit for the hiissnm revolution then apparnetlv on its way to a favorable issue. He demanded .the_ application of the full programme of Socialism, not only i;i Russia but everywhere, _ and until this was accomplished revolution must never rest. The collapse of tho movement in tho following year sent him to Siberia, but, after "several years he was released, resumed his revolutionary activity, and was compelled to go abroad. At the beginning of the war he was in Berlin, but the radical teachings of his there were too much ° for the I Lerhn Government, which had no taste tor Socialist programmes except in foreign parts, lie was compelled to go to Switzerland, but here, too, he found the atmosphere chilly. . After a time he landed in il-ans and edited a newspaper there, but the French Government refused to allow his doctrines to be spread after Russain troops arrived in Franco, and he moved on to Spain. Trotsky, however, could not be suppressed. They might expel him ,and deport him, but wherever he landed he became a leader in radicalism and a vigorous journalistic propagandist. Spain found him so hard to bo rid of, and such a serious menace to her peace and quiet that it was finally necessary to shanghai him out of the country, and the write? in ine: limes declares that ho awoko to hnd himself on board a steamer bound for Cuba. While this did not greatly disturb us equanimity, he found the field for his talents limited. In fact: was too small a country for l-rotzky's energies. Ho sailed at once from Havana for New York, and reached here on January 14 last.' Trotzky was welcomed not only by the most radical faction of Russian Socialists, but bv the German Socialists, too. Leaders of'radicalism on the Fast Side and in Hariem contributed furniture foV the house where he established himself in the Bronx, and it caused considerable feeling amomr them when ho eventually left town in such haste that none of the contributors were notified, and the furniture was left to tako ■care of it-self i:i the empty house for a considerable time. While ' in New York he wrote many articles for the ' Vorwarts.' the Jewish Socialist paper, and was for a considerable timo the principal editor of ' Novy Mir,' organ of the Russian Socialist-. 'Novy Mir' has since como under tho ban of the Post Office Department, and has been refused mailing privileges, for . its extreme pacifist attitude ; but at that timo a majority of the Board of Managers were -not in. favor of Trotzkv's propaganda for immediate peace, and according to men who knew him, be'was eventually jisked to resign. He was in active relation with both German and Russian Socialists, and American opinion is divided as to whether or not he has been an agent of Germany since the outbreak of tho revolution. In view, how T ever, of tho fact that Lenine was accused by Krrensky of being in German pay, and that Trotzky is apparently acting as tho vizier of Lenine, the presumption that he is in German pay has been increased by recent events. It is said that just before he left last March a German Socialist group at a hall in Harlem gave a dinner for him—not the first time he had been «> honored by radicals of that nationality in New York. Trotzky sailed from New York for a Scandinavian port on March. 27, but was taken off the ship at ' Halifax bv the British authorities, who knew his record. There were loud and vigorous protests from American radicals at this action,

and . OTenfcna% Uha Abe* Rnsstan Provl. sionail Gwerxunieni, ' appanewtly unaware at that tim© of the strength and tendon - oiee of'the Bolsbeviki, was induced .to ask for bis release. Tbo British thereupon permibbwl him to go on his way. Upon arrival at PefcrogSaA hj» joined the radical faction, -which, was busy denouncing America and the Affiles, and saheming to overthrow the Provisional Government an< to bring 1 -about immediate peace-