BOLSHEVISM.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160735, 23 August 1920, Page 6

BOLSHEVISM.

(BY CANON NEVILL). I suppose it is a fairly accurate statement to make, that very few people read History with a capital “HA frith any degree of thoroughness, with the exception of university students reading for a degree, Or possibly members of the W.E.A. If more people did read history they would hud that Bolshevism, instead of being the portent it represented, is becoming more and more like tho French Revolution every day. 1 do not think that the world will fail to see in the first place a very striking resemblance in the circumstances of the immediate breaking out of both revolutions. In France we have the tragic story of Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace, and tho ominous conjunction of the Cardinal dc Rohan and that well-bom adventuress, the Countess de la Mote, an illegitimate Yalois—a conjunction that would seem as if the fates were revenging the sins of the Bourbons by one of their own bastard slips. Then the “Sicilian jailbird Cagliostro,” tho highest Church dignitaries waltzing in Walpurgis dance with quack prophets, pickpurses, and public women, as Carlyle said. Compare this with the Rasputin episode. The extraordinary and shameful influence gained by this debauchee over the ill-fated Empress, and the amazing resemblance of the character of Nicholas 11. to that oji-'Louiil XVI., full of good resolutions and amiability towards his people, but entirely under the sway of his wife, and lei to destruction by her, as Louis XVI. was. Then we come to the Girondist period in the Revolution. All the intellectual theorists in Russia thought, as tho Girondists thought, that the Revolution was going to be one of intellect plus rose water. Everybody was to bring in the Age of Gold, and enlightened oratory was to guide a rejuvenated world. Such was the dream of the unfortunate Girondin Kerensky, whom Carlyle would have called a windbag driven by the Fates. But Kerensky found, as the Girondins did, that a revolution was not to bo guided by rose water and perforvid sentiments of brotherhood; so the Jacobins (tho French Soviets) took charge. Marat, St. Just, and Robespierre were tho forerunners of Lenin, Trotsky, Jacobs, and their like. V.'c afe horrified to-day when we read of the earlier atrocities of the Bolsheviks; hut Carrier, at Nantes, Le Bon, at Arras, Jourdan, at Avignon, were not very different; and the September massacres would have been quite to the taste of any Bolshevik. Tho similarity is equally striking in tho issuing of enormous quantities of paper money, and the placing of power in the hands of the Saus-culottcs. In France there wore no factores at that date, hut all industry ceased in the same way. The paper money became valuc'ess. and universal poverty was the result, except for the happy band of rascals who had gained the power. In 1013 the power was taken away from the Soviets and the great services of the country wore nationalised, as Lenin found that anarchy was getting ever nearer. The railways were almost useless, and it was found that syndicalism was threatening to control even the Government itself. Anyone who has read Carlyle’s “French Revolution” will remember how tho “sacred right of insurrection” again and again nearly pro - , ed tin destruction of tho young Republic; how the mnb dictated to and th.-onioned tho members of the Convention with death uidess thev voted as they required. The Paris mob had a certain sense of grim humour which tho Russians seem to lack. The Parisians got up pageants of all the nations, and earn; in and acted their little impromptus in full Parliament, or took i,. nr:re"s and placed her on the altar f Metro Dame, dressed in very scanty ■ o- J iu-:;', and tin result tho i f IL'-nny which it certainly was .-L. ibc ;>iv now to vuilv in the French ib" oh; dm van in the French '•-■mV.-:. When ;on bare to face death ■vv, you vindy Lave to feel that v.r.t .'•yiiipataire, with a mob who only vre id r muic u* and loot; and the ■ prwv i ■ ov to be in motion in new. le. v:\il id - '. Lev. ever, the Russian •Vole- t.vh over ah Dewee, even crushout .Trikes and auolirit'ng ail trade me:;-'. '] he old joyous days of the •V iVv when everyone went his own way were over, and a new bureaucracy ■.vae, rising into power. But this new never was bad. If not worse, than d;c old Tsarist regime. Everybody was master. they wore all generals and no privates, all masters and no men. Consequently hr 1910 the system of national'::;', tion had proved a horrible falure, for no prr.ducton could bo secured. in France during the Revolution the course of events was slightly different ; the para 110 l cannot always be sustained. Franca had no industrial class in the sense of a class such as worked in the Russian factories and inhabited the Russian towns. In France tho military successes trained an army ready to follow a successful general, as they did Napoleon, and there was no. steadying middle class tn Biake military usurpation impossible. The noble:;, the country gentry, tho Church were all involved in the same rniu, and all that was left was tho proletariat and tho Convention. The Convention failed to hold the power, as all talking bodies must fail when they are not supported by the unanimous backing of the country, and Napoleon took their place. In Russia there is no middle class, and never really has been till recently. Consequently, whether it is Tsarism or Leninism matters very little, and is only a question of degree. As long as Lenin and Trotsky can command the Russian armies they arc safe. The moment Ihey cease to do this is the hour of their destruction. At present Bolshevism as a theory of life is discarded even by Lenin and Trotsky. They have militarised even labour itself. No man in Russia to-day is free. He is cither a military or industrial conscript, and is simply an example of the patent fact that Syndicalism, if it is to existoat all, must become an industrial tyranny. The interesting question for Russia, now is: What is going to become of the military triumphs of the Reds? Not a victorious Syndicalism, for Lenin and Trotsky have destroyed that already. Is Brusiloff the coming Napoleon?