THE SLAVE EMPIRE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 10 August 1925, Page 7

THE SLAVE EMPIRE.

DOOM OF BOLSHEVISM

REVELATION OF ITS FATE

Evidence is slowly accumulating, week by week and almost day by day, that the Bolshevist regime has entered on its last phase of- disintegration and dissolution, says Professor Charles Sarolea, in the New York Outlook. The quarrels between the leaders who are conscious of the sword of Damocles suspended over their heads, the discontent and revolt of the peasants, the roving bands which in the outlying districts are massacring the supporters of Bolshevism, the chronic menace of famine, the collapse of Soviet linances, the fiasco of Soviet diplomacy, are so many signs which indicate that the re. gime is nearing its end. It is politically, financially and morally bankrupt. If it is to succeed in keeping down the overwhelming majority which is opposed to it, an infinitesimal minority can only' do so through a policy of terrorism. As soon as it ceases to strike terror into its enemies that minority’ is doomed. Nor can it resort to democratic methods and restore popular elections, because a popular and free election would at once put an end to its tyranny.

1r re voca blv Gondemned. If we judge the Soviet regime by any test which can be applied to any human government, it stands, irrevocably condemned. But the condemnation will fie equally final if we judge it by its own ,-socialist standards ana principles. For it has repudiated every one of those principles, it has broken everyone of its pledges and millennial promises. It began in a frenzy of almost Mohammedan fanaticism. It ends in the most cynical and repellent corrup. tion. The present strength, or rather, the weakness, of the Soviet regime was dramatically tested by' what happened quite recently' in Estlionia. That minature republic of barely' one million inhabitants possesses for the Bolshevists a political importance which is entirely out of proportion to its numbers. The capital, Reval, occupies a' commanding position on the Gulf of Finland. Its possession is almost indispensable to the dictators, both as a naval base and to maintain their free lines of communication with Europe and because if it came,into the power of u hostile force it would threaten the very’ existence of the Soviet Government. Estlionia’s Triumph.

It is easy to understand why the die. tutors should again and again have made desperate efforts to capture so essential a strategic position, to bribe and to corrupt the Estlionian peasants even as they had corrupted the Lettish peasants and to engineer Communist s revolts against the Esthonian Government The Esthonians are too near the Bolshevist frontier and they know too much about its methods ever to submit to a Bolshevist tyranny. Therefore, when a few weeks ago the Bolshevist emissaries and hirelings once more organised a rebellion against the Esthonian Republic, that rebellion was at- once ruthlessly suppressed by a few brave men who realised all that was at stake. Within 48 hours ldO of the Communist conspirators had been executed. Obviously, if there had been any fight left in the Red Army, if.there had still been any ‘‘organisers of victory” in the ranks of the dictators, they would at once have sent out a punitive expedition. They would have put an end to the Esthonian Republic. even as last year they put an end to the independence of the Ukraine and of the Caucasian Republics. But they had no longer the power to make even this little military demonstration against a Lilliputian State, and thev had tamely to submit to an ignominious defeat. The Esthonian peasants had challenged the might and ina. jesty of the Bolshevist Slave Empire, and this time it was the peasants who won. This abortive Esthonian rebellion is a significant and, indeed, a momentous event, for the lesson which has thus l>een given bv the peasants just outside the Bolshevist border will lie learned sooner or later bv the peasants inside Russia It will then be brought home to the patient and hitherto passive muzhiks that to liberate themselves from an intolerable yoke is by no means a- forlorn hope, an impossible or even a difficult task, and that what was done by a mere handful of Baltic yokels can also lie accomplished by themselves. The Means of Liberation.

Professor Sarolea suggests that the final collapse of tho Soviet may occur suddenly, and he says that while there may be doubt elsewhere as to how and by whose action liberation will be gained, there can be little doubt as to the' workings of the minds of the Russian people themselves. He admits that the dumb and oppressed millions inside Russia have no means of making their voices heard, but their feelings and aspirations are not beyond discovery Ijv discreet and careful investigation. His conclusion is that to restore the political and spiritual unity of the people lias become the common ideal of every Russian patriot. And even they are also agreed as to the means. They are convinced that the political and spiritual unity of the Russian people can only be established ,by a ,strong G)ov|D,r nine nth- in other words, by a restoration of the monarchy. Three millions of Russian refugees are scattered about Europe, and, as the result of systematic inquiries among them during the last five vtars, the writer is convinced that every other consideration of class or creed or politics has been subordinated to the hope of liberating their country from the tyranny of Bolshevism. The Peril of the Jews.

ProfessorSarolea concludes his article with A significant passage. “At a recent meeting in a Continental capital where I was asked to meet leaders of the various Russian .parties,’.’ he says, “an influential Jewish publicist made the unexpected declaration that, although a republican by conviction, yet. speaking as a Jew, he could only desire the restoration of a strong monarchy. And he was reluctantly driven to accept this as the only solution for the tragic reason that only the restoration of the monarchy could eventually save the Jewish people from the elemental passions of hatred and revenge which would certainly sweep over the Russian continent immediately alter the downfall of Sovietism. If the pesw sants are to be left to their instincts, if they are not restrained by the strong hand 'of authority and of enlightened despotism, there will be a wholesale slaughter of tli<j Jews compared with which even the massacres of the Ukranian Hetman Bogdan Chmielnicki in the seventeenth century were an insignificant episode.’’