The Bolsheviks announced this week that the Russian Co-oper- ative
Union had decided to send five delegates abroad " to establish an exchange of goods between Russia and Western countries." The delegates named were Krassin, Litvinoff, and three others. Krassin is known to be a German agent, and Litvinoff is also a notorious Bolshevik, whose suspicious conduct in London led to his deportation. As we expected from the outset, the Russian Co-operative Societies have not been permitted to choose their own commercial representatives, but have been compelled to accept five of the principal Terrorists. If the Allies hoped that non-political merchants would be sent, they are now disillusioned. They must now face the question whether a man like Litvinoff is to bo allowed to establish himself here, with a staff of agitators and plenty of money, nominally for commercial purposes. Of course a Bolshevik trading agency would not be entitled to the diplomatic privileges of an Embassy, and if it were found to be distributing money, seditious pamph- lets, and bombs among the criminal classes, as the " Red " Ambassador did in Berlin, it could be suppressed forthwith.
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