TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REAL ISSUE.
IS the will of the majority to be superseded by the will of the minority 2 Are we to remain a free democracy, or are we to substitute for it the dictatorship of the proletariat ?—the proletariat meaning, as we see in Russia, not even a simple minority, but the minority of a minority, supported by mercenaries and controlled by conspirators of an alien race. That is the issue which now faces the country. The Polish and Russian issues are merely excuses for flying the flag of Direct Action and getting the various sections of the Labour Party to agree to a campaign of revolution. The Council of Action is the Soviet, its local Councils the local Soviets of Russia. The country is to be compelled by threats and the fear of starvation to do not what it thinks right, but what the Council of Direct Action tells it to do.
There is no lack of proof that the essential object when this machinery is set up is a great revolutionary change of government, the establishment of a Soviet--i.e., an oligarchic minority, inaugurated, if necessary, in Lenin's phrase, by " a heavy civil war," and maintained by terror and sum- mary executions. The English edition of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat will no doubt start with a genuine desire for as few executions as possible, but, as we are seeing in Ireland, the revolutionary maxim is apt to be, " When in doubt, kill somebody." If the real object had been the prevention of a new war and the protection of Russia from the aggressive policy of reactionary States, it is obvious that such practised politicians as the men who guide the Labour Party would not have chosen this moment to raise the question of Direct Action. They know perfectly well that there are immense numbers of voters in this country who, like ourselves, feel that any attempt at inter- ference with the internal affairs of Russia is not only most undesirable per se, but is sure to defeat its own ends. He who wishes to maintain the Soviet might quite reasonably long for interference. Interference rallies and unites the whole Russian nation and gives the Soviet a new lease of life. For example, the Spectator, though anxious to do what it can to prevent the extinction of Polish nationality, is strongly against a repetition of the policy which. Pitt, with the best motives, put into practice at the beginning of the French Revolution, a policy which at once resulted in handing France over to the Extremists of the Terror, and ultimately in the establishment of an aggressive military Empire under Napoleon. But though we and thousands like us are warned by the failure of Pitt's policy, and have little to quarrel with in the abstract policy of the Labour Party in regard to Russia, we shall be forced by their attack on the Constitution to oppose them at every stage and with every power at our command. When they attempt to usurp the power and authority of Parlia- ment, and to substitute for the will of the majority the will of a self-appointed body like the Council of Action, only one course is open to us—war to the bitter end. The claim to establish a Soviet here under the cloak of a non-aggressive Russian policy is one which must be met and crushed at the beginning.
When insisting upon what is the real issue and upon the necessity of making this clear to the country, we must never forget that this is no abstract or paper constitutional problem, but the grimmest of realities. We are face to face, in the first place, with a genuine attempt to overthrow the constitution by means of the compulsion of a general strike. The Party with whom we are at grips (and remem- ber, it is a Party, as Mr; Lloyd George has so well pointed out, and not a class or a homogeneous section of the nation) is one whose ultimate aim is tyranny and the compulsion of the majority by the minority. The instruments by which the Party seeks to obtain its ends are physical force, terror, foreign influence and conspiracy. By moral and political inspiration drawn directly from Moscow, and by means also, unless we are mistaken, of a free supply of foreign money, the party now in the ascendant in the counsels of organized Labour is designing to produce first the atmosphere of anxiety, unrest and distraction which helps the growth of revolution, and then to follow directly the example of Russia in the organization of political society. It will be remembered that the Russian Soviet began as a kind of voluntary council sitting side by side with the semi-constitutional government of Kerensky, just as in Paris the voluntary clubs and com- mittees developed alongside the elected assemblies and ultimately shouldered them off the 'political stage. The Soviet followed that example in Russia, and those who have established the Council of Direct Action will seek to do so here.
Let us hasten to say that we do not for a moment believe that people like Mr. Clynes or Mr. Thomas, or a great many others among the members of the Council of Action, in their hearts desire to set up a Soviet here. They have probably consented to the action they have taken with a great deal of reluctance and misgiving. That is, they are probably doing very much what the Girondins did when they consented to the death of the King and to other measures with which they disagreed. They thought to buy off the extremists, or at any rate to keep a controlling hand upon them, by .a kind of political jujitsu. They yielded in order to resist all the better later. The Clyneses and Thomases hug the delusion that they can stoop to conquer. They are much mistaken. Though they will not lose their heads like the Girondins, that will only be because, thanks to men of firmer resolve and more common sense, the attempt at revolution will not be successful. If the revolution were to win, the moderate Labourites would be its first victims. The history of Revolution teaches that leaders who unwillingly follow their followers and do evil that good may come are always destroyed. They imagine that they are maldna the extremists their instruments; they find too late that it is the Extremists who have made instruments of them. It is only natural that this should be so. The role of Revolutionaries is to be Extremists, not Moderates.
Who are the extremists in this case ? We know we shall be accused of being sensational, excitable or even panic-stricken when we say that in the last resort they are to be found not in London but in Moscow. It is there in the last resort that the piper is paid and the tune called. When we assert this we are not accusing a number of English- men, the majority of whom are as incorruptible and as anxious for the good of the country as any in the land, of conscious treason. They have been manoeuvred by very skilful conspirators, intriguers and secret service agents (the secret service of the Soviet is the best in Europe or the world) into a thoroughly false position. If Russian money has been spent upon extremist Sinn Fein Labour newspapers and extremist organization, as we believe it has, it has been contributed so cleverly that the men' who received it and spent it probably have not the slightest idea of its real origin. Those who have had any experience of collecting money for a cause in which they are interested know how very difficult it is not to be carried off one's feet by a big subscription, and how absurd it seems to be doubtful about receiving good money for *a good cause. Yet with such influences abroad as those which abound in Moscow under the government of Lenin and Trotsky, and, what is even more important, the sinister committee which is entrusted with the work of defeating counter-revolution, the administrators of funds to support the Labour Party ought to have been very specially on their guard.
One may picture the sort of thing which happens or tends, to happen on such occasions. Some enthusiastic Labour zealot finds that he cannot get on with his organiza- tion or maintain the newspaper which reflects his particular views without more money. One unlucky day money is offered him from " a friend of the cause who doesn't wish his name mentioned, say,. for family reasons, but who is introduced by a comrade who vouches for the bona fides of the transaction and who assures the zealot that he has taken great precautions to make sure, that it is not money provided by the "agents provocateurs of Scotland Yard and a rapacious capitalist Government." When the money has been spent and a little more is required, the intermediary through which the money flowed hints that his extremist friend is not particularly pleased with the results of his subscription. He implies that there has been much too much timidity and modera- tion and so forth in the conduct of affairs. At any rate, the subscriber will only consent to a further subicription if the agitation is raised to concert pitch. The terms are accepted. Then comes the last stage. The inter- mediary one day coolly says, " Of course you know where the stuff really came from. You don't ! You mean you thought. I really had a rich capitalist friend of the cause in Greenock ! Well, that beats everything, Anyway, they're not satisfied with the results and are getting quite peevish about it." Then it is intimated quite plainly to the amazed zealot that he has been taking foreign money, and that he has very possibly placed himself within the grip of the law. Finally he receives a hint that it would be quite easy to denounce him to the authorities here if he showed any signs of falling away from Soviet grace. " Don't make any mistake. They're awful chaps to deal with if they once get really nasty."
We admit that the suggestion of pressure of this kind sounds like melodrama or a political detective story, but at the same time it is by no means a possibility which ought to be left out of account. Plenty of revolutionaries in times past have been hounded on to extreme action by the fear of exposure of milder action, and we have no reason to think that modern conspiracies and modern political intrigues will produce a different crop from that which was produced by similar incidents in the past.
Suppose, however, that we have been fighting a shadow here, and that there has been no direct influence from Moscow, no Russian money, and only a very carefully balanced, correct and moderate imitation of the great model of the Russian Soviet. Assume that the action of the extremists of the Labour Party after the closest investigation shows nothing wrong or dangerous or inconsistent with their complete independence of foreign influences. If that is so, none will be more delighted than we shall. It is in no cynical spirit, therefore, that we urge once more that it is the business of the Government to inquire into the nature of the influences exercised here by the Russian Government, and to investigate with special minuteness the charge that Russian money has been used for purposes of propaganda in the United Kingdom. If Labour is wise we shall, in making this demand, have the strongest support of the Labour leaders and Labour M.P.'s. If any of their colleagues have been maligned they may feel quite sure that these colleagues will get full justice done them. Take the case of the inquiry into Irish Crime set up by the House of Commons when grave charges were made by the Times against Parnell and the Land League. The worst of these charm, were not sustained, and the Home Rule cause, instead of being injured, was unques- tionably furthered by the Parnell Commission We are perfectly willing to take the risk of the same thing happening again. We ought not to call it a risk, however, because it would be a result which we should regard with the utmost satisfaction. Nothing would please us more than that the Labour extremists should clear themselves from all suspicion of complicity with external foreign influence and of anything in the nature of a conspiracy with foreigners to upset the constitution of this country.
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