I would have attached our Corps to any army strong enough to fight the Bolshevists and the Germans in the name of democracy. There was only one way to fight the Bolshevists—to mobilize the Japanese. This, neither America nor Paris nor London was prepared to do-as became apparent when, as I shall tell, our men came into conflict with the Bolshevists in the summer of 1918.
For us, in our isolation, neutrality was the more necessary on account of the political conditions in our army. A serious reverse would have imperilled its unity, since we should have been fighting for too negative an aim-an aim all the more negative because the Russian anti-Bolshevists were disunited, uncertain of the future of Russia and incapable of organization. And the Bolshevists, too, were Russians. In my eyes, Lenin was no less Russian than the Tsar Nicholas; nay, despite his Mongolian descent, there was more Russian blood in his veins than in those of the Tsar.
The Russian Bolshevists, and some of our own, have often sought to use against me an incident that occurred on October 29, 1917, during my absence from Kieff. In the fighting with the local Bolshevists, the Russian Commander led a section of our second regiment against them—treacherously—with the help of Colonel Mamontoff, who falsely alleged that he was acting under my orders. Maxa soon cleared up this ill-considered episode, though Dürich appeared on the scene with a number of lunatics. On the other hand, the Bolshevists fought side by side with our men against the Germans at Bachmatch. True, they were Ukrainian Bolshevists whose subordinate part in the affair was fortuitous, not inspired by a definite anti-German policy.
In the interest of historical truth it should be recorded that, even after the conclusion of the armistice on December 6 and 15, 1917, and during the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, the Bolshevists thought of reorganizing the Russian army to fight Germany. At the beginning of the war, Trotsky had written a sharp little pamphlet against the Germans and the Austrians. In February 1918 he proposed to the Central Committee at Petrograd that they should get France and England to help in the reorganization of the army. Lenin approved of the plan. This I learned on the spot from trustworthy witnesses, though I cannot give details; but it is known that, in January and February 1918, Captain Sadoul informed the French Government that the Bolshevists wished the Entente to help in reorganizing the army. It is known also that the Bolshevists
