The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1918. BOLSHEVIKS ON THEIR KNEES.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1918. BOLSHEVIKS ON THEIR KNEES.

Most people considered that Russia had sounded the depths of degradation and could- nus, possibly be in a worse plight, but this, as events have proved, was fin optimistic view. Probably one of the recent cables explains the position when it records that the Bolsheviks are at their wits' end—and no wonder. No greater exhibition of national folly has ever been perpetrated than for such mountebanks as Lenin and Trotsky to pit their shallow tains and ignorance against the perfected art of diplomatic trickery as embodied in the AustroCerman diplomats. The recent news from Russia was certainly the most astounding and degrading act of selfhumiliation in human history ever perpetrated by a nation. After having declined for several months to accept Germany's terms, and having during that period been busy reducing themselves and their country to a state of almost absolute helplessness, while calling loudly upon the populations ot' the Central Powers to be guilty of similar insanity, the Bolsheviks have abjectly collapsed at the first sliake of the Prussian fist in their faces- The occupation of Dvinsk and Lutsk has led them to send a message accepting without qualification the enemy's terms. And such a message it is! A Russian official message states that Lenin and Trotsky have protested against the German invasion of Russia while the Russian army was being demobilised. "The Council of the People's Commissaries were now forced to formally declare their willingness to sign a peace treaty upon the conditions dictated by the Quadruple Alliance at Brest Litovsk." So, while the innocent Russians have deliberately demobilised in face of the enemy, and rendered themselves practically helpless, the crafty and unscrupulous Germans are taking advantage of the situation thus created to enforce their own terms. An exceptionally well-informed Southern critic remarks thus:

No wonder that Lenin and Trotsky aro hurt- They appear to have expected better tilings of Germany Still they will doubtless be well content with the approval of their own consciences. Having followed a course of' conduct the results of which could have been predicted by a child of tender years, they will discover, now that their folly has produced its inevitable consequences, that everyone has been to blame except themselves. The Allies will be blameworthy for not having consented to be guided by Bolshevik wisdom. The enemy tvill be to blame for an unscrupulousness which, so far as the Bolshevik intelligence is concerned, could, not possibly have been anticipated- Qftjy Lontn and