The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1918. RUSSIA'S AWAKENING

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10135, 25 November 1918, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1918. RUSSIA'S AWAKENING

. 0 In addition to the groat problem of establishing on a thoroughly sound and satisfactory basis a League of Nations that shall for the future guarantee the world's peace, in addition to their own pressing individual problems of demobilisation, repatriation, and internal reconstruction —industrial, social, and political—the Allies arc faced with the exceedingly grave problem presented by the profound state of chaos in which the end of the war finds tlie huge territory and the vast population of what was formerly the Russian Empire. The whole of Russia—both Russia in Europe and Russia in Asia—is in the melting-pot; and the entire future, not only of Russia but, in largo part, of the whole civilised world depends upon what may come forth. "The Russian Revolution, one of tho consequences of tho world-wide war, is," says a writer in the "Round Table," "as disturbing in its results as the war itself, and at first sight even more disconcerting." But a closer study, of tho Revolution reveals it as a very necessary, an inevitable stage in Russia's awakening. Tho accompanying turmoil, with its burnings, lootings and ravishings, its wholesale theft, murder and violence, its massacres worse than thoso of tho French Revolution, is stupendous. But, desperate as is the position, Russia is by no means beyond hope; and, given tactful, disinterested. self-sacrificing co-operation on the part of the Allies, that distressful country should in duo course emerge from the trial chaßtencd but strengthened, a vigorous young democracy capable of playing a great and worthy part in the world.

Tho present phase of the Russian Revolutinn is one of disaster and ruin; but, declares tho writer in the "Hound Table," it "is anything but. a fixed state, a final crystallisation. It is a phase, an episode in the gigantic process of tho reconstruction of Eastern Europe," with Siberia, or Russia in Asia, thrown in. 'There is," he holds, "no need either to justify or to condemn the Revolution" : but "tho complete and overwhelming condemnation of the old regime is that it collapsed as it did. It fell, not through rebellion. not through a frontal 'attack, hut simply because its vitality, its povrer, its utility were gone. It collapsed through its own ineptitude Tho tost of war under modern conditions revealed the inherent weakness of the old regime, the mutiny of tho Petrograd garrison being merely the slight but significant touch that made it topple over in rum. The calamity was not that the old regime toll, but 'that the Russian State was /so largely identified with tho old regime that when tho old regime fell the State fell with it. That regime had left hardly any room for tho development and training of the democratic forces that must succeed it. with the result that when it collapsed under the strain of the world-war it, involved in its ruin fho whole of the political structure over which it, had so jealously asserted its monopoly. The bureaucracy crumbled, anl there was no governing power strong enough to take its place. But, we are assured, tho ruin was not and cannot be hnal. becauso the Russian State was not wholly identified with tho old regime, still less was it solely for the creation of tho autocracy' "The Revolution was so disastrous becauso in completely liberating all tho forces opposed to the old regime it exposed to violent attack all uios© functions which had boon exercised by the autocracy and its agents—that is to say, practically all tho principal functions of tho State. And this at a time when an aggressive neighbour was directing its efforts to the defeat and destruction of tho power of Rus- " A brief analysis of events from March 1917, onwards makes this very clear ' The Duma, tho shadowy Russian ' Parliament, had had no real training in responsible government. Its members had never seriously faced tho possibility that tho old regime would suddenly abandon all its functions They had laid no plans whatever for assuming the whole burden of responsibility. Tho Progressive 8100 of central parties had, it is true, taken stops some three months beforo to prepare for tho introduction of responsible Parliamentary government, but what it looked for was, not a catastrophic, revolutionary change, but an evolution towards a constitutional monarchy. When, therefore, tho Petrograd mutiny broko out, tho Duma was completely 'bowildored. Tho Progressive Bloc essayed to sot up a Provisional Government; but from tho very first day it was confronted by a viva!, reckless, energetic, and perfectly sure of its lim, the Soviet or Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies. This rival body was set up by the revolutionary Socialists, the syndicalists, or 'Bolsheviks, who, though they had not brought about the Revolution, were quick to seize tho opportunity presented by tho Petrograd mutiny. Tho Provisional Government came into being as tho result of a fierce struggle, ending in an unsatisfactory compromise between the Progressive Bloc (6ho

Diberal and Constitutional Duma Committee) and tho revolutionary Socialist Soviet. But the Duma Committee was not capable of multiplication and extension—the Soviet was. The Duma Committee shrank ( from the use of armed force to establish la-,v and order. The Bolsheviks, aiming at lawlessness and disorder—"tho class war" —had no such scruples. Soviets, Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils, were speedily set up throughout tho country. The Duma Commit-too, who wished at leant to defend Russia from Germany, if not to carry out Russia's obligations to tho Allies, aimed at keeping the army in being as an effective fighting force. But tho soldiers, now that tho Revolution had overthrown tho oppression of tho old regime, had no desire to light on; indeed, saw no object in fighting on. And tho Bolsheviks, who, even when not in Germany's pay, were defeatists nil, since they thought that defeat would give tho class war greator scope, set to work actively to demoralise and to break up the army, promising to tho peasant soldiers the dividing up of tho land and to tho workingclass' soldiers Labour control of industry- .

l'hoy succeeded only too well; but, before the army had dispersed, thoy seized tho opportunity to creat-e a l'raetorian guard of their own, the ued Army. Then, masters of the situation, tho Bolsheviks made the infamous Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany, killed at its birth the Constituent assembly, the majority in which was not to their liking, and proceeded to carry out their social experiments, 'ino results—a tremendous, a startling object lesson—are .there for all tho world >to sec: and in Russia as it is to-day there seems little room for hope, much ground for despair. But, the writer in tho "Round Table" points out, "The terrible experiences of Bolshevism and German domination"—the article was written some months before tne end of tho war —"aro driving into tho popular mind the elementary lessons of organised national lifo with a force wholly beyond the rango of any mere) formal or initiative teaching. For tho Russian Revolution is tho awakening of a great people. . . . The Revolution is, in fact, a stirring up of an immense fallow land of reserves of human capacity, with results which onlylater generations will be able to estimate." In spite of its manifest defects, tho Provisional Government, he holds, enjoyed at first "enormous prestige" which, but for war conditions, it "might have translated into terms of real and effective power." "If the Revolution had not taken place in time of war (we are told) this moral prestige would have sufficed to carry the Provisional Government safely through the period requisite for convening the Constituent Assembly." That Assembly was, in fact, convened, but was promptly suppressed by the Bolsheviks; and "it was the war. the dominating fact of the war, which gave tho Bolsheviks their chief power." Happily, however, the war is now over; what the "Round Table" writer terms the "artificial impediments" to tho reconstruction of Russia on sound lines have been removed by tho signal defeat of Germany; the Red Army is incapable of resistance to an organised and disciplined force; the Czecho-Slovaks constitute a rallying-point for all the sane elements in Russia; and given tactful, helpful handling by the Allies, tho Russian peoples, who, apart from tho Bolsheviks and their excesses, are at bottom a humane, liberty-loving race, may yet bo welded, into a limited monarchy, on tho British model, or a federal republic on the United States model, either of which would go far to guarantee tho peace of the world.