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Evening Star, Issue 16908, 4 December 1918, Page 4

I What is or Is not happening in Russia it is not possible to say Mysterious .-with certainty. The Russia, whole of that great country—groat, that is, in its extent and population —is, said Mr Lloyd George on a recent occasion, in a state of confusion bordering upon chaos. Yet, it is not the less true that such conditions of internal turmoil and similar terms imply can only refer relatively to small areas of territory, and for the most part are confined to the main Western industrial centres. If it had been possible to disperse and dissolve those huge aggregations of humanity known as Petrograd and Moscow, the history of the lust 1.2 months and, more in Russia would, not improbably, have been other than it is. Tho normal state of average mankind is not one of destruction, crime, outrage, and bloodshed, but of peace, and a desire to retain tho comforts and decencies of peace. Even tho most degraded criminals have their periods of repose, and are subject at times to the desire to live the life of ordinary humans. Hence reports to tho effect that the- whole of Russia is in a state of absolute terrorism, .that human life is nowhere safe, and that her people pass their existence amid a continuous orgy of bloodshed can only bo intended to refer to those cities and districts where it is possible for tho move wiki and disorderly sections of the people to come together quickly and in such strength as to enable them for a timo to defy whatever forces of authority it is possible to gather. In other words, the crimes and excesses of the Bolshevists do not represent the whole of Russia, nor are they a just reflection of the sentiments, wishes, and aims of tlxo great majority of her people. Sir George Buchanan, the late British Ambassador to Russia, speaking at the British Russia Club in London some throe months since, said ! “ Wo must not Isold tho Russian people responsible for the orgies, which the great majority of them abhor. Russia in her agony is crying aloud for help, and wo must respond to her call. She cannot emerge without outside assistance from the chaos into which war and revolution have plunged her, and it is from tho Allies that this assistance must come. Russia has ceased to exist as a political entity, and there is no acknowledged head of tho Russian people. This, however, is but a parsing phase.” There aro few men better qualified to speak with authority in this relation than Sir G. Buchanan, and his words may bo accepted as an assurance that Bolshevism and its manifestations are in no sense either representative or permanent, but a passing sanguinary and horrible phase. Unless a large portion of the earth’s population is resolved to revert to tho cave of tho savage and the lair of tho brute stage of being, of which there is no dependable indication, Russia then must shortly perish front off tho face, of tho earth, tho unpitiod victim of her own extravagance and violence. Bolshevism is not and cannot bo a stablo condition. From the first hours it raised its head, threatening with its pestilential teachings all sane and rational life, tho world lias been more or less anxious as to its future, knowing, as it did, that in all lands and countries there are numbers who, in their blindness and indifference, are prepared to break down and destroy anything and everything if by bo doing they can but wreak their vengeance upon those, whom fortune has favored beyond themselves. “Bolshevism,” said tbs. Vienna ‘Neuo Freio Prosse,' at a time when Austria was hourly expecting her own visitation of the unwanted guest, “ from tho outset boro

within itself the seeds of death . . . simply because, under its banner, workmen and soldiers ana proletariat were able to live free from all restraint, and to enrich themselves at the expense of the bourgeoisie—that is, to rob and plunder as they pleased.” A diagnosis net the less .sound because it comes from a biased

Where, then, do the Allies stand in their relation to Bolshevism? Their answer must be found in their policy. They propose to restore Russia to the rank of & free nation. That first of all; thereafter it will be for the Russians themselves to decide on that future, whether that future be under ona or several Governments. The Allies are not “out” to restore Tsardom nor .my othw form of autocracy, much less that most primitive and bestial of all—a Government based upon class hatred, terror, and murder; and this last is what Bolshevism is to-day. Tha intervention, at the request of the non-Bolshavik element, of tbs Allies in Siberia from the Far East r.r-d in Russia from the North, is, according to M. Lonin, an outcome of Anglo-French. Imperialism threatening the existence of the Soviet Republic. To tho Bolshevist leader the distinction between Gorman and what ho calls Anglo-French Imperialism is nil. Both are hateful, the latter oven more so than the first; and at this hour, with German Imperialism safely ant of tho way, thanks to the hated Allies, it is the only ona to bs feared. Bolshevist loaders do well to fear it. They have nothing to offer those of their countrymen whom their fanaticism has so cruelly misled into acta before which mankind revolts in horror save further violences, and neither individuals nor communities can hope to establish themselves on such unstable foundations. The Allies’ task to-day is to help to clear Russia of her own worst enemies.