DEMOCRACY AND RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16798, 14 March 1918, Page 4

DEMOCRACY AND RUSSIA.

The allied world will agree most heartily with President Wilson's desire for the triumph of Russian democracy, but it will' be gravely doubted whether it was wise or politic to address his messago to the Congress of Soviets. Perhaps it was hoped that a sympathetic message from tho President of tho United States would influence the Congress to repudiate the peace treaty with Germany. If so it has obviously failed. It has been suggested that Japanese intervention may add to the chaos in Russia. No doubt there is reason in this view. While there was hope that Russia could recover her strength and keep the enemy at bay it was very generally held in allied countries. But with Russia at Germany's feet and Petrograd "becoming a desert" it is not surprising that sentimental considerations are being set aside in favour of practical action. Mr. Wilson, it appears, has decided upon a neutral attitude with regard to Japanese intervention, but his atti tude to the Bolsheviks will be regarded in Russia as something more, or less, than neutral. If -Japanese intervention is a doubtful experiment what can be said of a policy of encouraging the Bolsheviks at a time when the saner elements of Russian democracy are struggling to their feet? The one thing that is clear in the tangle of Russian politics is that there can be no safety for life and property, and no government in Russia until the Bolshevikregime ends. It may end by the acceptance of German-made order or it may come to a happier end by the establishment of a government, or governments, representative of the Russian peoples and under which they can live free from German domination. The situation is unquestionably critical. Russia's problem is not to be solved by the transmission of good wishes for tho future of Russian democracy, and it may easily be complicated by the expression of such sentiments at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Addressed to the Russian people and spread broadcast over Russia Mr. Wilson's message would have been unobjectionable. In such a form it might have been signed on behalf of all the allied peoples. But sent as it was to the Bolshevik Congress, and conveying to that body of international anarchists a measure of America's recognition it cannot be classed among Mr. Wilson's best efforts.