SOVIET RECOGNITION.

Northern Advocate, 24 July 1923, Page 4

SOVIET RECOGNITION.

In reply to a request for recognition of the Soviet Government, the United States Administration has made its attitude -yery plain. The ,Soviet aims to do away with democratic institutions such as exist in the United States, , and as long as that is the policy of tho Soviet America officially will have nothing to do with it. The policy of the Bolsheviks is, of course, the policy of Lenin, a leader who has many remarkable qualities. Lenin went into the revolution knowing his own mind; he was a fanatic who would' stop at nothing to achieve his aim 3. He believed that if the new Russia was to be evolved it was first neccssary to destroy the old Russia, root and branch. | A smaller man would have shrunk from the step, a greater would have devised a less drastic method of reform. But Leilin had no scruples, no sentiment, no touch of pity. This doctrinaire had at least the courage of hi 3 convinctions. He was prepared to bathe Russia in blood, to make her a waste of ruins in order to attain his ideals. He had also the courage to admit his mistakes. Before long he .recognised that many things utterly antipathetic to Bolshevist theory were in point of fact indisdensable. Capital, a bourgeois an i professional class, the institution of property —his disastrous experiment showed that without these Russia ;vas swiftly relapsing into savagery. He saw that human nature cannot be J changed by official decrees and that ! th 3 millennium cannot be establish?.! by a stroke of the sword. Accordingly he began to retrace the path marked by so much slaughter and destruction. Under the later regime the tenets of Bolshevism have been watered down, and in consequence Russia, though j very slowly, painfully, and uncertainly, is beginning to find hor feet again. Jt is noteworthy that through all vicissitudes Lenin has held his own! In general the day of a revolutionary leader is short-lived. He is ousted 1 v a successor who outbids him for popular favour. But for five and a half years Lenin's personal ascendancy has never been challenged. His position in Russia has been unassailable. It was announced recently that the States in Russia had formed a new federation and chosen Lenin as their head. If this meant that w Russia would begin a fresh reorganisation on new linos she would soon obtain recognition from America and other powers. But there is no evidence that Lenin and his colleagues have abandoned

their ideal of a tiforld revolution. They still apparently carry on their propaganda against ih'e established sociil order of other countries. In order to obtain recognition they must first make up their minus to attend to their own business and leave other people alone.