COMMON-SENSE ABOUT RUSSIA. A LTHOUGH the collapse of the campaign carried
on by Admiral Koltchak and General Denikin is a very disagreeable fact—also a hurtful one to British people, since it shows that our Government failed in insight— it is nevertheless an elucidation of the Russian problem. If the situation is still full of difficulties, we see a little more clearly where we stand. The old policy has broken down, and a new one is necessary. Armies do not fail in the field solely for military reasons. Moral reasons are always at work alongside the rise and fall of military skill and strength. No doubt the Government satisfied them- selves that on purely military grounds Admiral Koltchak and his friends had a good chance of success. Certainly the Government supplied them generously with equipment. First and last, we suppose, not less than a hundred million pounds of British money has been spent on the anti-Bolshevik campaign in Russia. But it is rather humiliating to think that the Government did not know more about the moral factors which were all the time operating, and in the end deprived the anti-Bolsheviks of the benefit of all their military successes. So long as we were kept in the dark we were bound to hope that the Government had informed themselves well on all points. The facts, ho Arever, have proved that they did not. The Manchester Guardian has been publishing this week a series of extremely interesting letters which were sent from General Denikin's head- quarters to the headquarters of Admiral Koltchak. A letter written on April 9th, 1919, by a M. Chockoli says :— " Our chief misfortune lies in the fact that we are carrying on the contest. against the Bolsheviks, against the Red Army, but not against its roots, Bolshevism ; likewise not against, the idea, and not even against its accompanying symptoms, bandit doings, because bandit doings have likewise appeared on our own side to anything but a small extent. This produces repulsion, and the citizen who a short, time ago worshipped the army and hoped for liberation from Bolshevism and the restoration of State authority iegradually passing into an almost hostileposition. .. . Nobody is satisfied unless it be speculators, and these have become as numerous as bugs. The citizen stands amazed— why were there none of these under the Bolsheviks and where do they come from now ? and he draws the conclusion : there- fore the Volunteer Army has no power. . . . The frame of mind here is fairly hopeless—not at the front but at the rear,
where victory or defeat is bred." •
That is to say, while the military situation wore a bright complexion the anti-Bolshevik people, who ought either to have joined the Army or to have worked day and night for its support, were gradually becoming estranged. We thought that the collapse was too grave to be accounted for only by military causes, and here is a very clear and distinct expression of the other causes— the moral causes. If the British Government knew anything of this, they at all events said nothing. Perhaps the cardinal moral mistake of Admiral Koltchak and his friends was to refuse to recognize the independence of the Baltic States. Thus the Baltic States were hopelessly estranged, and when the decision of Admiral Koltchak was announced as final the Esthonians and other Baltic people, instead of any longer contemplating co-operation with General Yudenitch, passed into a state of open hostility. The decline of the anti-Bolshevik military power then became more rapid than ever.
But what is the new policy to be ? A perfectly logical person, exercising no common-sense, might say that the hateful tyranny of Bolshevism, the cruel exaltation of the rule of a small minority, is just as much a danger to the world as Germany was in the days of her strength. He might argue that there is no future for a League of Nations unless the League is powerful enough to suppress this destroyer of freedom. If the League, he would go on, hesitates to do this work because the work is supremely difficult, it instantly writes its own doom. But this argu- ment, translated into practice, means that there ought to be another great war involving nothing less than the conquest of Russia. For our part, we can say without hesitation that such a scheme is impossible. The various peoples who are now lying prostrate on the ground panting with exhaust-ion could not and would not take part in another great war. Moreover, history has shown us that Russia is probably unconquerable. It is not that Russia is more scientific in waging war than other nations. Several other nations can give her points in this respect. The reasons why Russia has never been conquered are the vastness of the country and its natural inhospitality to an invading army, the frightful rigours of the winter, and last but not least, what we may call the `loose- knittedness of the Russian people. An invader can never say that, having disposed of a great military machine, he has conquered all. He is always up against an in- calculable hostility, springing up here and there, so that he can never exactly define his position. Let us write off the very possibility of the conquest of Russia. With an equal conviction we may write off the prospect of doing any good by backing this or that group in Russia against the Bolsheviks. That is the policy which we have already tried, and it has failed. The friendly invader who goes into a foreign country to help the law-abiding people against terrorists always finds that he has united a large proportion of the people against him. The intervener is never liked or trusted, however good his intentions may be. What then remains ? We might negotiate a full and ample peace with the Bolsheviks, or we might make a very much simpler and less ambitious beginning by recognizing the independence of those ex-Russian States which wish to be independent, by refraining from goading into war States which would always fight badly against the Bolsheviks because they would fight unwillingly, and by opening up trade with Russia without attempting to take sides with Russian political parties. Such a policy of course would not involve a formal recognition of Bol- shevism. We could modify or expand it as occasion served. So far as we can judge, this is the policy of Mr. Lloyd George—a policy of moderation—and we must say that we think it a sound one.
If peace in the full sense with the Bolsheviks were attempted, we should obviously have to make very definite and stringent demands. We should have to require the acknowledgment of debt and the instant surrender of prisoners, and we should have to exact a pledge from the Bolsheviks that they would not attack the Baltic States or Poland, or carry on any aggression or propaganda in the Middle East or in the Far East or against India. Quite apart from the distastefulness of making a formal peace with the unpurged Bolsheviks, we obviously do not know enough about them to say whether they would dream of satisfying our conditions, or whether they would have the ability to honour pledges if they made them. Lord Robert Cecil has suggested that a Commission of Inquiry should visit Russia and report upon the actual conditions. Very likely the Bolsheviks would refuse to receive such a Commission. In any case, a regular peace with the Bolsheviks, in default of such information as a Commission of Inquiry could supply, is out of the question. By elimination then we see that the only possible policy is the gradual building up of a modus rivendi, for which, as we have said, Mr. Lloyd George seems to stand.
At this point we must take cognizance of the fact that a much more pugnacious policy than Mr. Lloyd George's is in the air, and may not yet have been altogether dis- credited. The newspapers of Friday week published a remarkable semi-official statement from the War Office pointing out that as a result of the Bolshevik occupation of Transcaspia the situation in the Caucasus had become " one of considerable difficulty." The Republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan (whose independence has been recognized by the Allies) are threatened, according to the War Office statement, by invasion from the North, where General Denikin's right wing is being pressed back, and also from the East across the Caspian: It was pointed out, too, that there is a large Bolshevik element at Baku ; that Daghestan is in " an even more helpless " position ;' and that a number of Turks are penetrating into the Caucasus from the South. " The Bolsheviks continue to pour troops into Transcaspia. They are recruiting their forces from the prisoners of war in Turkestan. There are 37,000 of these, mostly Hungarians, and all active communists. . . . The Bolsheviks have opened a large number of propaganda schools in Tashkent where Oriental languages are to be taught, and from which agents will be sent to India, China, and all Moslem countries." Almost simultaneously with this alarming statement it was' announced that Mr. Churchill, the Secretary for War, and Mr. Long, the First Lord of the Admiralty—Mr. Long had postponed an important political engagement for the purpose—were rushing over to Paris to consult with the Prime Minister. It was also announced that ships of war in the Mediterranean had received orders to be ready to sail at once. Within a couple of days a cold fit followed the hot. It was explained that the War Office statement had been issued without due authority. It was also explained that the hurried visit of Ministers to Paris and the activity of the Navy were all " a pure coincidence." There are, however, coincidences which can easily be avoided, and we imagine that Mr. Churchill took no trouble to avoid any. To be quite explicit, we believe that the ideas of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill are struggling against one another for supremacy. The Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian has stated, very likely with Mr. Lloyd George's sanction, that Mr.-Lloyd George disapproves of Mr. Churchill's manoeuvre. It is even whispered that Mr. Churchill and Mr. Long were not summoned to Paris at all, but conceived themselves to be invited by the urgency of the circumstances. We can only comment, in the words of Byron, that
" Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem the sport of men."
Other reports say that Mr. Churchill has been trying to enlist Marshal Foch on the side of a forward policy.
The nation is entirely in favour of moderation and economy, and against adventure and expensiveness. We have very little doubt that in the conflict of policies Mr. Lloyd George's policy will win. It deserves to do so. So far it has scarcely been formed, but a beginning has been made by raising the blockade of Russia and starting trade by means of barter—since the currency no longer has any meaning in Russia—with the Co-operative Societies. The Co-operative Societies, which are the economic wherewithal of great numbers of the peasants, are a very considerable system in Russia. A .doubt, however, at once presents itself whether it is possible to trade with these Societies behind the back of Lenin. We know that Lenin tried to collar and suppress these Societies when they would not bend themselves to his will ; but later information shows that Lenin has learnt a wholesome respect for them, and that they have main- tained their independence. If this be so, it is quite in accordance with Lenin's general line of progress. Over and over again when he has failed to suppress he has temporarily abandoned his principles, and cynically used institutions in their existing form for the simple reason that he could not get on without them. It is not for us, however, to make objections. If objections come, they will come from Lenin himself and not from us. It will probably turn out, and we had better face the fact, that trade with the Co-operative Societies will be trade with the Bolsheviks. Perhaps that will not much matter. Fighting against the Bolsheviks and blockading them have alike helped Lenin when he declared to the Russian people that their greatest enemies were the Allies. The great thing is to coax back Russian life to the normal by means of trade, and to leave Russian politics to look after themselves. We feel sure that this is right because if the Bolsheviks try to stop trade, in other words to prevent the Russian people from getting what they urgently require, the Bolsheviks will soon find intense unpopularity' undermining their whole position. They cannot afford to refuse trade after having made it a grievance for many months that the Allies refused them trade. Since the Russian view of Allied policy was that it was a policy of withholding and taking away, the new policy ought to seem to them to be a policy of giving something. That looks to us like a very good substitute. Again, Lenin may find it highly desirable to treat Esthonia and Latvia reasonably, if not gently, for it will be essential for him to trade through. the great ports . of Revel, Riga, and Libau.
Of course if Bolshevism should throw up some great military leader and tyrant, as the French Revolution threw up Napoleon, that would be another matter alto- gether. If a new Napoleon should try to overrw the world, the world would have to • defend itself. But we -need not go out. of our. way to provoke trouble and to incite Napoleons. The various phases of a revolution snowed one another rapidly. We are only beginning to know what there: is to be known about Bolshevism. We . must now sot by stages and be sensible and practical ; we must- not be entrapped by Mr. Churchill again. The Russian butter which is already on its way across the North Sea is a kind of symbol. In these days we would rather buy butter, even though it bear the brand of Lenin, than enter upon a, new war.
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