NOTES ON THE WAR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17664, 17 December 1917, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR.

Some verv interesting aspects of the Russian revolution are discussed Dy the Petr.ograd correspondent of ''The Times" in the course of a recent series of articles, and he throws much now light on events. Ho insists that the, Bolsheviks were not numerically the strongest party in tlhe State, but they ■had the advantage of organisation and their agents were so actxvo in the early days that they secured control of the Soviet or committee system. Moreover, they attracted the agents of the old Okhrana, or secret police system, most of whom joined the Boblhevik wing of the Socialist Party, and the Okhrana agents, with the most violent of the reactionaries, whose purpose is to wreck the revolution, have largely influenced the policy of the Maximalists. Tfiie union of these forces, says the correspondent, " implies a particular danger for the country, because their longstanding experience in terroristic and destructive activity. givos them a formidable advantage over all the political parties that remain in the field of practical politics, namely, the Menshovik, or Minimalist wing of the Social-Demo-crats, led by M. Tchkheidze, tho So-cialist-Kcvolutionary party, represented by M. Kerensky, and the Constitu-tional-Democrats, directed by M. Miliukoff. Tjho Bolsheviks and their allies, Russian and German, have been tho smallest but tho most active and influential force in Russian politics; they have always worked in dark and devious ways—through Rasputin, Azeff and a host of spies, informers and agents provocateurs before tho revolution, through Lenin and a well-trained and organised army of agitalr.rs .v.:l demagogues since the Revo!;:' ...

The policy and programme ,of Bolshevism have boon clear virtually from the beginning of the revolution. It was responsible for the breakdown of all tho regular machinery of government .on which tho promoters of the revolution depended. It swept aside the Zemstvos and municipal councils and replacod them by committees of uneducated men, directed by terrorists. It introduced the committee system in the army, and reduced discipline to a mere name. Whenever Socialist groups have endeavoured to unite with ono another or with constitutionalists and Cadets, the Bolshevik agents 'have set to work to prevent the union. They wero activo in every combination, always insisting on conditions that rendered the movements abortive. They wrecked ono coalition government after another. They were unscrupulous and tremendously industrious. "Constitutionalists and moderate Socialists sought t,o work together. The former hoped thereby to save the country from anarchy; the latter realised that revolutionary excesses would lead to reaotion and compromise Socialism. But neither ,of them could develop the strength or the organisation or tho unscrupulous activity of the Bolsheviks. M. Kerensky, himself a revolutionary politician of no mean order, tried conclusions with uhc Bolsheviks, sometimes with their own weapons; but what could one man do against the constant insidious activity of the Bolshevik organisation? Ho was handicapped by. his own antecedents, by the fact that many .of tho Bolshevik chieftains had been, and nominally remained, his political associates."

Tlhe Bolshevik influence on the mass of the people is not difficult to understand. ' ; Unprepared for political independence, incapable of resisting demagogic tide," the correspondent writes " tho non-Socialist parties and tho bulk of the intelligentsia drifted helplessly. Many entered" tho Socialist-Revolution-ary stream, vainly hoping thereby to check tho swifter Bolshevik current. Bolshevism attracted tho primitive, untutored minds of tho multitude Lenin spoke, a language that the simplest mujik could -understand. Utterly befogged by tho learned arguments and foreign words so abundantly declaimed by Social Revolutionaries and Sociai Democrats, quite unable to reconcile their pacifist tendencies with outward readiness to earn' on tho war, tho ignorant masses, and especially tho demoralised soldiery, listened delightedly to Lenin and his hordo of pro-German agitators. ' Take tho land ;it is yours by right. Do not light, All men are brothers; there should bo universal brotherhood, no war.' This was the sort of Socialism that tho mujik who was yesterday a serf could digest with ease and comfort. He' was then prypared to swallow a cruder dose. 'lf the owner resists, take tho land by force. There is no such thing as property—there should bo no owners.' He did not mind the trap concealed inthi? utterance. Onco he got tho land he would take caro that nobody else should take it from him. Then camo the final and least digestible bolus: ' The Germans aro your friends. They aro fighting because England will not make ponce. England is prolonging the war because she is making a good thing out of it. You aro England's tools!' Under various guises and disguises this has been tho substance of the Bolshevik propaganda."

The correspondent is prepared to say that possibly a Bolshevik Government is a necessary evil, and that not until Russia has passed through a Bolshevik regime will the mass of the people realise that the Maximalists are the trtio counter-revolutionaries, that they are doing their best to ruin the country and that, they aro working hand in glove with the enemies of Russia and the agents of tho monarchy. There is an aspect of tho present disorders to which the correspondent does not refer, and which, curiously enough, seems to have been overlooked by all tho correspondents. In no other country in tho world did anarchism and nihilism, as creeds, receive greater attention than in Russia. Some of the ablest men in tho country have been professed nihilists. Elsewhere the tendency was to emphasise the philosophical side of anarchism, to elevate it into a branch of reasoned political science. But in Russia there were thousands of anarchists waiting for just tho opportunity that the revolution offered, eager to wreck ull human governments, opposed as bitterly to republics as to monarchies. Tho Maximalists must havb drawn no small share of their extraordinary influence from tlho anarchist and nihilist organisations, and tho fact that so little notice lias

been given to those organisations is surely remarkable.

The correspondent looks to the Cossacks as the hope of' Russia, though ait may bo observed that if Kaledin is in tflio hands of the Bolsheviks there can bo small prospect of a Cossack movement succeeding. "Numbering several millions, grouped in twelve armies, wido flung along the southern borders ,of the Empire, between tho Don and the Pacific Ocean, the Cossacks, whether of Russian or semi-Asiatic descent, had long been accustomed to freedom and bad been inured to discipline and hardship," the correspondent writes. " They (held broad lands from the State in return for military service. Serving with the colours, fighting tho frontier tribes, or protecting tho border, or working in their villages, they wore all ooliged to appear, horsed and armed, when danger threatened tho State; They .had largo vested interests at stake; what is more, they had an inbred tradition of duty and patriotism. Therein they differed from the.ordinary peasant, and it was this difference that rendered the Cossack so quickly alive to the dangers that threatened himself and his country and enabled him to focus and develop the instinct of self-preservation among his weaker, less advanced countrymen. He was not a counter-revolu-tionary, but just a plain, honest yeoman, a soldier-farmer. We must appreciate these elementary truths about tho Cossack, casting aside tho absurd picture of him in the guise of a bloodthirsty ogre which .has been handed down to us since the days of the, Napoleonic invasion, for unless wo know the Cossack as ho is we shall fail 'to understand tho real significance of the events that are happening and preparing in Russia at the moment."