MISGOVERNED RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16761, 30 January 1918, Page 4

MISGOVERNED RUSSIA.

The suggestion of a newspaper correspondent that the Allies should recognise the Bolshevik Government at Petrograd will meet with grave questioning in Londoi} and Paris. There certainly is some danger of a peace between Austria and the Ukraine, but it may be doubted whether the strengthening of the Bolsheviks is the way to avoid such an agreement, or whether the Allied cause can be served by such a course.

The brief history of the rule of the Bolsheviks shows that they arc tho enemies, not the friends, of Russian democracy. They seized power on November 7, on the eve of the date originally fixed for the election of 'a Russian Constituent Assembly. There was then a hope that in another month at most Russia would have a duly-accredited and popu-larly-selected Government. The Bolsheviks saw that if that hope could be realised their last chance of prominence was gone, Once in power they sought by threats and by violence to secure the election of a sympathetic Assembly. In this they failed, and as a cousequeuce the Assembly chosen by the people was dissolved by armed sailors, assisted by tho Red Guard. The Tsar's Government could have struck no more direct blow at Russia's democratic ideals. Before recognition can be given to any Russian Government it would seem necessary that some of the students and thinkers who were the leaders of the democratic revolution should take the place of the adventurers who now rale Russia by terrorism. For the present it appears that when Russia dethroned the Tsar in • March, it merely got rid of ono autocracy to set up another, and the Allied Governments are not likely to grant ready aid to autocratic tyrants, whether they are monarchical or proletarian.