WHO IS GERMANY'S REAL ALLY?

Grey River Argus, 19 September 1918, Page 4

WHO IS GERMANY'S REAL ALLY?

(By Frederick C. Howe, in "New V Republic")

Russia continues to perplex the Al: lied Governments largely, because of our profound, and necessarily profound, ignorance of the economic foundations of Russia. The cleavage in Russia proper, as well as in Finland, Courland, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, is noil between political parties as such, but between economic groups. Practically all of Europe east of a line drawn north and south through Berlin is still almost as feudal as it was in the 18th century. There is little peasant proprietorship. The great estate owners predominate. East Prussia, Pomerania, Posen and the eastern provinces of Germany are the home of the junkers. They own a greaiJ part of the land, which has come down to the present owners through direct line of descent from earlier centuries. Thfe same is true of the Russian Baltic provinces. It is true of Aus'i/ria-Hun-gary. It was true of a great part of Russa as well. ' In Western Europe, on the other hand, the feudal system was destroyed by the French Revolution. If broke up the land into small holdings. This was particularly true in France, Switzerland, South Germany, Holland, and Denmark. But the economic forces of the French Revolution were stopped at the River Elbe and the reforms of Stein and Harderiberg in 1807 were halted by the Prussian junkers, who refused to permit the decrees of the king, abolishing feudal conditions, to be adopted in their provinces. Both politically and economically, the feudal system was not abolished in Finland until 1907. It was ended iii Russia by the revolution. In the Baltic provinces, in Poland and Ukraine, the junker class not only owns the land, but is frequently of an alien race. The Prussian junkers are ethnically related to t'lie ruling junker class of the Baltic provinces from which they originally came. And the Baltic junkers have been not only the land-owning caste; they have been the exclusive governing class as well. We can only understand that part of Europe east of the Elbe, and the Allied Powers can only approach a solution of the Russian situation by acknowledging and acting on these facts. They are -fundamental to the entire Russian"situation. And the outstanding factor in this situation is that the medieval, land-owning junker aristocracy of Russia, from Finland to the Baltic Sea, is inevitably the ally of Prussia, while the peasants and workers of this whole territory are potentially at least the allies of the Entente Powers. BETRAYED RUSSIA TO SAVE THEIR ESTATES. When the revolution came in Russia its first act, on which all parties were united, was the expropriation of the feudal land-owning classes and the distribution of the land among the peasants. The Russian revolution took a page from history of the French revolution. It determined to end for ever the power of the ruling classes by taking away their property. The old feudal nobility, like the emibres of France, turned to Prussia. They turned to a neighbouring country and a country ruled by the junker class. They turned for protection, and they united with the Prussian junker in the counter-revolutions of the Baltic provinces, Poland and Ukraine. For it was to the interest of Prussia to maintain the old feudal classes in this part of Russia, even it could not be accomplished in Russia proper. The White Guard government of Finland is an aristocratic junker government* And the same is true of the other provinces. In other words, the Russian junkers betrayed tiieir country in order to save their estates. But they betrayed it to a class with which they are both ethnically and economically identified. They think alike about Socialism, revolution, disorder. And the bond between these classes is | so powerful and the economic union so inevitable that the Allies can never hope for any support from the landed junker and larger bourgeoisie classes in Russia or the Russian provinces. WHY GERMANY BROKE HER PLEDGES. Similar reasons underlie Germany's betrayal of the Brest-Litovsk treaty. It was the junker military caste that refused to be bound by the revolution or' the. .Reichstag majority. This junker class. .as stated above, controls East Goriuuny. It:* provinces border on Poland/ Lithuania, and Finland. And the

could not Avith safety pernm Germany Prussian junkers did noU dare and to recognise a revolutionary government in territories bordering on the East Prussian provinces. In self-pro-tection they had to maintain a series of buffer feudal States from the' Baltic to the Black Sea. The Prussian junkers disregarded the resolution of the Reichstag as a means of protection. They would have been lost with revolution at their back door.

The junker was driven to repudiate Germany's pledges for yet; another reason. The great estates of the Prussian junkers had been stripped of agricultural workers. They were being stripped before the war by the industrial section to the great industrial, cities in Western Germany. And the junker had been going to the Slavic provinces of the east for cheap labour. He cultivated his estate by immigrants who came into Germany during the agiicultural season to the number •of several hundred thousand a year. They returned to their homes in the fall. And these great estates can only be cultivated in this way. Especially will this be so after the war. Had the Russian revolution swept over the western Russian provinces and distributed the land among the peasants' there would have been no migratory labour for Prussia. The peasants would i have remained at home and cultivated their own lands. The junker would own his estates, but he could not cultivate them. In fact, he was faced with bankruptcy should the Russian revolution extend throughout western Russia. So the German junker did a perfectly natural thing. He created buffer States, destroyed the revolutionary forces, and placed the Russian junkers in control of the Government and in possession of their . estates as w«"ll. By so doing he saved the old feudal system; he created Governments ethnically and economically sympathetic with Germany, and provided a bulwark against revolutionary contact from the East. Quite as important, by this means he provided hundreds of thousands of landless men who will migrate to Germany as casual labourers, as they have in the Do not these conditions determine for us our relations with Russia? Do they not make it evident that we have nothing to hope from the old ruling classes in Russia or from any groups or classes identified with them? Their only possible hope is ii Germany. And they are united with Germany by ethic and economic bonds more strongly than with any other country in Europe. These conditions also determine for us! the only possigle line of action that lies open to the Allied Governments. Our only hope in Russia lies with the, revolutionary groups. Not necessarily . with the Bolslieviki, but with what- ( ever Government the peasants and tlie artisans may sec fit to erect. And these arc our natural allies. Whatever then form of government be, it must be anti-German, because the interest of the peasants and workers lies in preventing the Prussian Government from reimposing the old feudal system! in Russia, which is the one thing against which all revolutionary classes arc united. Over and above everthing elso ihe Russian- peasant wants to own t^e land. It is not necessary to accept the Bolsheviki or any other party in recognising that our interests lie with the Soviet Government. But thcic is every reason in the world for believing that the form of government now existing in Russia will be permanent no matter what party comes into power. For the Soviet is the natural foim of government in Russia. It i& merely making constitutional the old community Mir, an organisation that has existed in Russia for centuries. It is local, intimate, and established on the broadest possible basis of participation by all the people. It repre- ! sents primarily the peasants. And the peasants will probably never lose the land* For in every country in Eurone in which the land has been distributed distribution has remained intact. The French revolution distributed ; the land among the French peasants. There have been monarchies and reactions since then. The Bourbons and Mapoleon came back. But the land never went back. And the essential demoracy of France has never changed from a democracy of peasant owners: The local government and the Chamber of .Deputies have always reflected the opinions and will of the millions of French peasants who were converted from serfs into prbprietors, and who for 125 years have remained firm in their possessions. The same is true Switzerland, and Denmark. Unce destroyed feudalism cannot come back. And when destroyed, the feudal classes lose their political power because their economic power is gone. The only aristocracies' in Europe that; exercise any material influence on the politics of their States are those aristocracies that have clung to their old feudal estates. And we may confidently expect the same to be true in Russia. It is for these reasons that it seems irrefragable that the aristocracy' of Russia and the buffer States would ally themselves with Prussia,. and that the only possible class in Russia with which we can identify our interests is the class of peasant proprietors now coming into existence, who number 90 per cent, of the population. '