RUSSIANS AT GENOA.

Grey River Argus, 3 July 1922, Page 7

RUSSIANS AT GENOA.

(By G. Slouombc in ‘‘Daily Herald.’’) No men from a far and mi t ravelled ] country of the .Midtile Ages v, ere u\'e.‘ subjected to a mure curious scrutiny i or a franker shameless interest than < the live men who lead the Soviet Dele- < gution at Genoa. The veil drawn across Kus. in by live years of block- ' adv, war and intrigue has at last beuii drawn, at least enough to allow these » envoys of the first Workmen’s and 1 Peasants’ Republic, to emerge into hostile territory, and there be judged by ' Western conventions. And there they ‘ have debated with statesmen on an | equal footing, and sometimes defeated 1 them by their higher intelligence; > hey ' have been received by a King (fa Western dynasty, and lie has not pro- ( tested against the fate of the kom- , anolls; and they have, alone aimmg the Delegations in Genoa, bcm < . rci in the street by their fellows ot th" , proletariat of Italy. And they now know what men these are. Wheic other delegates of capitalist nations ride about all day in L< niercnce cars with a blue star on their wind screen, Tchitcherin comes into town from the Russian hotel at Santa wlarguarita by train, or else in the single rev! car provided for the 40 members of the Russian delegation by the generosity of the Italian Communists. In Genoa on those rare visits that arc not connected with meetings ot Comjnissions. he walks through the streets quickly with his nervous step, his queer smile, his peering but absentminded eyes, amt slightly bowed shoulders. A Mind Incorporate. He hates photographers, shrinks from interviews, and is indifferent to personal ease or repos-*. He Ims changed hi« Moscow habit of beginning work at. midnight and never sleeping in so tai that at Santa Marguarita he works until 5.."<0 in the morning and rises at 8.30. And all day his body is rest less, and his mind alert and indei at igab e. [ At meals, he arrives at table last and ' leaves first, peering down through spectacles at documents placed by his plate, or peering up over them to smile at y remark from his fellow delegate... He is altogether, I think, intelligence carried to the pitch of Passion: a mind incorporate. Kr-assin, that steadfast, simple, and slow ..peaking man, accepted the K«volut on, you know already in London. Litvinoff has the habit of caution: he smiles and says little, or smiles and says nothing. He. is well-dressed, cheerful-faced, highforeheaded, and a Marxian. Marx enables him to tolerate diplomacy, in which nevertheless ho excels. Ma.x also enables linn to suffer interviewers, and never to tell: them anything of importance. 1' Litvinoff who is the principal bate- > noire of the French experts on Hie Russian Sub-Commission. He is bland . smiling, and impenetrable, and the. mor.-, excitable they become the more bland, smiling, and impenetrable hei becomes. . Joffe is the silent member ot incDelegation; a broad shouldered tm-e--headed man, with a full bl,ack beard with patches of grey and stiver in it, a firm mouth and ealm, kind, contemplative eves. <>no afternoon last week he talked to me with enthusiasm ot Liberia, looking out reflectively through the windows of the Russian hotel t.o the blue Mediterranean, whilst the American. sculptor, -To Davidson wiki' feverishly and like a man possessed at a bust that does excellent .justice to both artist, and mod-,-1. He talked with enthusiasm of the Siberian climate, the Siberian fertility, the Siber- / inn future; but not uni., arterwaids ML. did I learn that he had only know thl ' ou ß' h tlie bara of ” a l’ ri9o “ Rakovsky. (■But of all tile leaders of the Russian to Genoa, the best known k jKi Press correspondents ot all the X, JTi who throng l-his town is Rakov-

sky. the President of tin* Ukraine. Rakovsky is tin* only successful substitute to Eord Riddell whom this Conference has discovered. During the first two days of the Conference th-e newspaper correspondent who wished to hear the views of the Russians, or who were curious to meet, th.- Russians —and they are legion—hud to make the long, uncomfortable am! occasionally perilous tri]> io Santa Marguarita along the winding road, in motor cars driven by men pursued by demons. During the next t ’W days Rakovsky was persuaded to receive the Press in the bedroom : of a Genoa hotel. and there, standing ‘under the central light of the room. ; dose pressed by a strange eager and impatient crowd of newsthirsty joui’n- - alists, he explained the views of Ivussiu, answered lhe score of questions thrust upon him by Italians, French- | men. Japanese, Dutchmen, Americans and Germans, and finally retorted upon hostile Frenchmens with very scholarly lessons from the French Revolution. Now. by courtesy of the head of the Eniversitv of Genoa, Rakovsky talks to correspondents in a lecture theatre of the University, and wc are like boys again arning hist (Try. Rakovsky stands at the professor’s table, with a blackboard on his left, and, in front of him, reaching high up into the celling, tier upon tier of curious laces look down, some interested, some hostile, some cynical, some indifferent. Rakov>kv smiles, and in his perfect and easy French, teaches us history, the history of Rcvq'”ion. ,