Russia and the Allies

by Frederick Seymour Cocks

 

Russia and the Allies.

 

(Reprinted, by permission, from the Herald.)

 

BY F. SEYMOUR COCKS
Author of "The Secret Treaties."

 

PRICE THREEPENCE.

 

Published by the Peoples' Russian Information Bureau
152 Fleet Street, London, E.C.4.

 

RUSSIA AND THE ALLIES

"The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations," says President Wilson, "will be the acid test of their goodwill, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy."

Judged by this "acid test," the glittering professions which have been made by the Coalition Government, like so many of the professions which pour out in an unending stream from the lips of our politicians, are shown to be false gold and base metal.

The following narrative does not pretend to be a complete record of the relations of the Allies with Russia. Many facts have been suppressed by our rulers which have yet to see the light. The information given below, however, will show two things:

First—the incredible stupidity and hopeless folly of which our rulers have been guilty.

Second—The nature of the sinister forces which are new plotting behind the scenes to overthrow the Socialist Republic in Russia, and to place the Russian people again under the yoke of Capitalism and Reaction from which they have shaken themselves free.

It is for Labour in this country to see that these blunders are not repeated, and that British soldiers are not sacrificed for the purpose of enslaving the Russian people in the interest of mine-owners, bondholders, concessionaires, and the capitalist classes of Western Europe.

I.

The First Revolution.

The story of our relations with Russia during the past four years—like the story of our relations with Ireland—is a story of incredible follies and of blunderings unimaginable.

It is the biggest Blunder-Story of the war.

We christened Russia the "steam-roller" which was going to crush its irresistible way to Berlin at the very moment when her munitions were disappearing and her entire industrial system was crumbling into ruins. (To-day the steam-roller has gone, but the man with the red flag remains, and has got to Berlin first.)

We called the Grand Duke Nicholas the greatest general the world has ever seen (Royal Dukes are always great generals!) at the moment when his armies, shattered and demoralised, were pouring back in defeat from Galicia.

And, finally, feeling that something must be wrong somewhere, we sent our great and only Lord Milner to Russia to find out what really was the TRUTH.

Milner's Mistake

He did his best. He worked frightfully hard. He "was at work daily from half-past seven in the morning till midnight, and often much later," wrote the "Morning Post's" Petrograd correspondent, on February 27, 1917.

Industrious man! But he wasn't to be taken in by silly stories of social unrest. Oh, no!

Certain classes of Russians, we are told, tried to interest the Allied delegates in these matters. They thought that they had some bearing on the situation.

"But," says the "Morning Post" man, "Viscount Milner dealt decisively with these efforts in his first public speech at Petrograd, brushing them lightly aside."

"If we believed only one-fourth of all we have been told here," said this far-seeing, damn-the-consequences statesman, "I think we should very soon be candidates for a lunatic asylum."

It was no use mentioning such a vulgar word as "Revolution" to Viscount Milner. He came back to Britain and told us that all was well with Russia. The Tsar had been "very gracious." Everybody in Russia was in favour of getting on with the war. The only controversy in Russia was

"merely a question of administration, in fact, much the same kind of controversy as we have here in England."

"A great advantage," he added, "is getting personally to know the people with whom one is dealing." It is indeed. All this appeared in the "Times" on March 6, 1917.

A week later the Tsar was off his throne, and the Revolution had begun.

Blunder Upon Blunder.

Yes, the Revolution had begun. What is more, it went on. So did the Allies—they went on blundering. They made every mistake they could make. They made a new one every day, sometimes twice a day. Mr. Bonar Law paid compliments to the ex-Tsar. The Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates was described in the London Press as a band of cranks, fanatics, and extremists. Its appeal to the workers all over the world to oppose the annexationist policy of the ruling classes and to take into their own hands the great question of war and peace was denounced as a "pro-German" utterance. Mr. O'Grady (then in Russia) wrote home that the Russian workers would be glad of advice from the General Federation of Trade Unions. The egregious Mr. Appleton cabled back "Tell our Russian friends that our boys are dying in France while theirs are talking in Russia." Very conciliatory! Very persuasive! Very friendly! The Russian Provisional Government asked that an Allied Conference should be held, at which the Secret Treaties should be replaced by a joint declaration of War Aims in accordance with the principle of "no annexations and no indemnities." The Allies first agreed to hold a Conference; then they cancelled it; then they agreed again; then they postponed it. In fact, they kept on putting it off. Finally, they began to treat Russia in a somewhat offensive way as "a poor relation." Ambassadors lectured the Government on the lack of discipline in the Army, this drawing a protest from the Russian Foreign Minister, which protest was not generally recorded in the Press. Although the Russian Armies were quite unfit for further fighting, the Allies pressed Kerensky to undertake the fatal July offensive, and when this ended in complete military disaster, as it was bound to do, the British Reactionary Press began to encourage every movement in Russia which was likely to weaken the Central Government, and every disgruntled general or knot of capitalists and aristocrats who ventured to talk of counter-revolution and to express the opinion that "times were better when we had the Tsar."

The Stockholm Conference.

In August, the Stockholm controversy (which led to the resignation of Mr. Arthur Henderson) gave the Allies another opportunity of flouting the wishes of the Russian Government and the Russian people.

The Russian Government was clearly in favour of the Stockholm Conference. "We cordially sympathise with the object of the Conference," said Kerensky, ". . . . and in our conversations with Allied Ambassadors . . . we always emphasised our view that no obstacles should be placed to the granting of passports to delegates" ("Manchester Guardian," August 17, 1917). Yet Mr. Lloyd George, with his characteristic regard for truth, saw fit to misrepresent this attitude by making the following statement:

"Although the Russian Government did not deem it possible to prevent the Russian delegates from taking part in the Stockholm Conference, they regarded it as a party matter."

A little later on General Korniloff's plot to overthrow the Government was regarded with unconcealed sympathy by leading British newspapers—until it failed, when their support mysteriously failed as well.

Mr. Leslie Urquhart Appears.

In September, Mr. Leslie Urquhart, who had just returned from Russia, first appears on the scene, and as he will reappear later on, and as his views throw considerable light on the present situation and upon the whole question of Allied intervention, it will be useful to say something about him here.

Mr. Urquhart is described in the "Daily Mail" of September 12, 1917, as "an oil and mining engineer," who had lived in Russia for twenty-two years "As the chairman and managing director of the Kyshtim group of properties, he produces 50 per cent. of the copper, all the lead, all the silver, all the zinc, and one-third of the gold that is raised in Russia."

The following are some of Leslie’s Great Thoughts as expressed to the "Daily Mail" interviewer:

"There will be no separate peace. …"

"The Revolution … ceased to be a salutary movement when the Cadets" (i.e., the middle-class party) "were thrust from the leadership. …"

"The Soviet … is a self-constituted organisation of idealists, theorists, anarchists, and syndicalists, who are largely of the International Jew type, who have hardly any working men or soldiers among them, and some of whom are known to be in German pay. …"

"All Russia is secretly longing for order and discipline. …"

"A military dictatorship has got to come."

So now we know!

More "Great Thoughts" from Leslie.

Mr. Urquhart spread himself at greater length in an article in the "Morning Post" on September 19. These are a few of his more interesting statements:

"The enterprises with which I am associated in the production of copper, gold, lead, zinc, and silver are the largest of their kind in Russia …"

"I have … been a good deal behind the scenes of Russian affairs, both before and since the Revolution."

"Few men have the remotest idea of the immensity of her (Russian) wealth and resources that await development. … She will be incomparably the greatest producer of foodstuffs, of timber, and of minerals that has ever been known in the history of the world."

"Impracticable visionaries, returned political exiles, emancipated criminals, wild idealists, Jewish Internationalists, all the cranks, and most of the crooks, joined hands in the Soviet in an orgy of passion and unreason, the contagion of which … plunged Russia … into a whirlpool of frenzied grab!"

(It must be understood that by "frenzied grab" Leslie is not referring to international financiers, mining magnates, or Allied expeditions. Quite otherwise.)

"While Korniloff seems to have failed in his recent enterprise, a dictatorship of some kind is, in my judgment, inevitable. … There is a chance, and I think, a good one, that a limited and constitutional monarchy may possibly succeed to the temporary dictatorship."

From the above remarks readers will draw certain conclusions, They will realise that Russia is a country of immense wealth, that capitalists in Britain and elsewhere would like to develop that wealth, that they object to common Socialists saying that this wealth shall belong to the people and not to the profiteers, that they will not relinquish this rich prize without a struggle, and that, therefore, they wish to overthrow—with or without the aid of Allied bayonets—the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic and to establish a dictatorship, a monarchy, or some other form of reactionary government in its stead (any government, in fact, which will give them a free hand to exploit). As early as October 13, 1917, we hear the Petrograd correspondents of the "Morning Post" saying that "the Russians in bulk can be driven by appropriate methods in any direction. … Upon England lies the duty of . . . . applying appropriate remedies, which remedies," we are further told, "hardly fall quite under the rules of the normal course of the normal English normal life." (Faugh! We stifle as we read the suggestions so insidiously conveyed! Please open the window, someone!)

This capitalist point of view will become still more apparent later on when we come to the time when the Russian Majority Socialists or Bolsheviks at last took the command.

The Fall of Kerensky.

Towards the end of October, Kerensky was declaring that Russia was worn out and could fight no more, and Mr. Bonar Law was making a final blunder by stating that the Allied Conference for the Revision of War Aims, for which the Russian Government had so long and so earnestly pressed, would not discuss war aims at all, but merely methods of prosecuting the war. This was the end. The Bolshevik Revolution took place. Kerensky fled. And the first Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic was established in the government, which, despite all the predictions of the Capitalist Press, it has maintained, with increasing power and efficiency, ever since.

II.

The Second Revolution.

Directly the second, or "Bolshevik," Revolution took place, the Bolsheviks ("Bolshevik" is only the Russian word for "majority") were bitterly attacked in the Capitalist Press of Britain and her Allies.

Wildly waving their gold-tipped fountain pens, newspaper editors and proprietors directed a furious barrage of abuse and calumny upon the devoted heads of Lenin and Trotsky, a form of attack which they seem—strangely enough—to have survived.

Why were the Russian revolutionaries attacked so bitterly and so malignantly?

We haven't far to look for a reason. In fact, it wasn't a question of one reason, but of three. The Bolsheviks took three important steps by which they incurred the undying hate of three powerful classes of people.

The Three Sins of the Bolsheviks.

1st—THEY PUBLISHED THE SECRET TREATIES.

This enraged all the Allied Governments and all the Allied diplomats. It showed them up in the eyes of their own peoples. It exposed in all their indecency the Imperialistic plans of conquest they had drawn up without the knowledge or consent of Parliament or of Senate. It discovered the fact that whilst on the public platform Allied statesmen were making broad their phylacteries and proclaiming to the world the high moral character of their intentions, all the time in secret and in darkness they were consenting to annexationist designs which had never been sanctioned by the people who were making the sacrifices. It made bare the whole black business of Secret Diplomacy.

The Diplomats and the Foreign Offices and the Cabinet Ministers (with all their toadies and flatterers and hangers-on) will never forgive the Russian Government for this,

2nd—THEY NATIONALISED THE LAND, THE MINES, THE FORESTS, THE BANKS, AND THE INDUSTRIES OF RUSSIA.

This enraged all the Capitalists and Mineowners and Concessionaires, who naturally desired to exploit to their own advantage the inexhaustible riches of Russia. In the "Times" of November 20, 1917, we read the sad and terrible news that the Russian Government had decreed the final solution of the land question. "This decree," says the "Times" Petrograd correspondent, "which threatens to inaugurate civil war in the rural districts, declares all private ownership of land to be annulled, without compensation to the owners. The land is to be nationalised, and handed over to the cultivators. … All mines—coal, petrol, salt, etc.—forests and waterways possessing national importance are to pass into the possession of the State."

How abominable! The land to go to the cultivators! The people who cultivated the land actually to possess it! Sacrilege! Infamy! A long wail went up from the Dukes. And, perhaps, an awful thought possessed some members of the Coalition, "It's that Lloyd George who started this in 1909," we can hear them whispering. "He's all right now, it's true, but he sowed the seed. …"

Then, all the MINES were to belong to the State! There was consternation in the City. "If the mines pass into possession of the State, where will the company promoters be?" "And what about the gigantic profits we expect to make out of the fabulous wealth of Russia?" "The Bolsheviks must be madmen. Let's stamp them out."

Moreover, "factory control by the workers" had been established, so it is not surprising to read in the "Times" twelve months ago that "many old-established British industrial enterprises here have been liquidated or sold, as it is quite impossible to put up with the ignorant control and exorbitant demands of the Russian workmen."

The Capitalists and the Concessionaires and the Mineowners and the Exploiters will never forgive the Russian Government for these measures of practical Socialism.

3rd—THEY ABOLISHED THE NATIONAL DEBT.

This naturally enraged the holders of Russian bonds—and there were very many people who had invested in these insecurities, especially in France. It 1s true that the action of the Russian Government, as the "Manchester Guardian" pointed out at the time, was, for a Government which had already abolished large property in land and other forms of private ownership, "more or less consistent." It is also true that much of this debt represented money lent, not to the Russian people, but to a corrupt and tyrannical Tsardom, and that, indeed, some of the capital thus subscribed had been used by the autocracy to shoot down the Russian workers in 1905. Nevertheless, in the opinion of the bondholders and their friends (and, of course, we must all agree!) this action placed Russia right outside "the bounds of civilisation." Some little hope, however, still remained:

"The vast wealth and resources of Russia will be there, and available to pay her debts, when the Lenin gang has run the short length of its tether,"

said the Financial Editor of the "Daily Mail" (December 8, 1917), whilst a little later the Japanese Ambassador is reported ("Daily Express," December 24, 1917) to have made the threat that

"Japan would hold the Maximalist Government responsible if Japanese capital in Russia were endangered, and would reserve the right to intervene, if necessary; which, if forced to do so, she would demand territorial compensation."

At any rate, we can assume that

the bondholders and International Financiers will never forgive the Russian Government for this.

The reasons for Allied intervention in Russia thus became perfectly clear,

Allies Encourage Civil War.

The events which followed the establishment of the Socialist Republic in Russia are too numerous and complex to be detailed here. Their narration would fill a book, which has yet to be written. Later in 1917 we came across the interesting item that "large numbers of the well-to-do classes (of Russia) are migrating to Archangel." An early straw! And from the time when Socialism was first put in active operation in Russia down to the present moment the efforts of the Capitalist classes and the Capitalist Press of Western Europe have been directed to encouraging every movement in Russia—middle class, capitalistic, reactionary, royalist, militarist or Nationalist—which might embarrass the central Government and destroy the Socialist State. Sometimes it was General Korniloff who was thus favoured, sometimes General Kaledin, sometimes General Alexieff, sometimes Admiral Koltchak—sometimes it was the Cossacks, sometimes the Ukrainians, sometimes the Finns. Any stick was good enough to beat Lenin with—although, alas and alack! some of the sticks broke in the process and others left many a muddy stain upon the hands of those who used them. And how the sea of carnage and misery has been extended and deepened by this support of Civil War and internecine strife!

Two Bad Shots.

Two very bad shots were made by the Allies in this connection. The Ukraine is a very rich part of Russia. It is the region of the famous "black earth," upon which great crops of corn are grown. It contains the cities of Kieff and Odessa. And it was hoped that by withholding the corn and coal of the Ukraine and Southern Russia from Petrograd the Bolsheviks would be starved and frozen into surrender. There were two parties in the Ukraine: There were the Bolsheviks, who had established a Soviet, and there were the rich and the middle classes, who had set up a Rada, or old fashioned Parliament, The French Government supported the latter: they actually lent the Rada £7,000,000. Immediately it had secured this money, the middle-class Government of the Ukraine made a deal with Germany, signed a separate peace, and, by thus weakening Trotsky's hand at Brest-Litovsk, helped to force the Russian Government to consent to that humiliating peace. (it must be noted that it was the custom in this country to describe the Bolsheviks as "German agents" at the very moment when they were appealing to the German and Austrian Socialists to revolt against their Governments, inciting the subject-races of Austria-Hungary to rebellion, pouring revolutionary literature across the frontiers of the Central Powers, and using language about the German militarists which would make the most ardent Hang-the-Kaiser advocate wince. To give two mild examples, they described the German militarists as "military millionaires transmuting the tears of their people into pearls for their wives," and characterised Chancellor von Hertling as "a hypocritical, impotent old Jesuit.")

By giving financial aid to the Ukraine Rada the Allies had made an extremely bad shot. They made another bad:shot in Finland, The middle-class Government of Finland declared for separation from Russia. Its independence was recognised by France. Instantly the Finnish Government entered into an Alliance with Germany and secured the assistance of German troops to slaughter the Red Guards and to drown the Bolshevik movement in Finland in an ocean of terror and blood. But our space is running short, and we must come to the Allied military intervention.

III.

The Capitalist Intervention.

The Allied intervention in Russia has merely had the result of "precipitating Russia into a bloody political conflict without issue and condemning her to super-human suffering caused by famine."—M. Marchand, Petrograd correspondent of the Paris "Figaro" (quoted in the "Manchester Guardian," November 22, 1918),

The Brest-Litovsk peace having been signed, the Capitalist intervention began.

For the first intervention the German capitalists and Imperialists were responsible.

These scoundrels sent their soldiers to put down the workers and Socialists of the Ukraine, Lithuania, Courland, Livonia, Esthonia, and Finland and to support the so-called "German Barons" of the Baltic shores in oppressing and dominating the proletariat, These territories all formed—before the Revolution—a part of the Russian Empire, and in Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia—all along the Baltic shores, in fact—the majority of the upper classes are of German descent. It was the presence of this element which gave to the German Government the excuse that they were occupying these districts with the consent of the people—the "people" meaning, of course, the rich and propertied classes, not the peasantry or the workers. (In Esthonia, for example, 50 per cent. of the land is owned by about 200 great landowners of German descent—who are known as the "German Barons"—and who terrorise over the peasants in the proper feudal and Prussian style). The beginning of 1918 found the German troops supporting the upper classes against the workers. The beginning of 1919 (the German troops having been withdrawn) finds this country supporting very much the same sort of people against the Bolsheviks.

Demand for Japanese Intervention.

But then came the demand, first in France (where the bond-holders were so active and so irate) and then in this country, that the Allies should intervene also.

One excuse given was that active measures must be taken to prevent Germany over-running Asia, and Japan was urged to land forces in Siberia before the German troops could cover the 7,500 odd miles which separated them from Vladivostock. And so foolish have our rulers been (did the War Office not send a shipload of sand to Egypt for the purpose of filling sandbags?) that it is quite possible that some of them believed in the reality of this danger.

Another excuse was that we had to intervene to rescue the Czecho-Slovaks who were wandering about Siberia and endeavouring, it was said, to get back to the Western Front. But when these unfortunate people got to Vladivostock the Allies sent them back into the interior to fight the Bolsheviks. And there they still are—75,000 of them. "Their one desire," says Professor Masaryk, President of the new Czecho-Slovak State, "is to get home." "The Allies," says the "Manchester Guardian," "are forcing them to stay in Siberia and kill and be killed, with no other result than to put in power a gang of reactionaries who are seeking to restore the good old days of the Tsar." However, in the end—good excuse or bad excuse—the interventionist agitation succeeded, and Allied landings were effected on the Murman coast, at Archangel, and at Vladivostock, the Allies at the same time stating that they had no annexationist intentions, and that they would not interfere with the internal affairs of Russia.

What has happened since?

The Truth About the Bolsheviks.

According to the Governmental Press, Russia under Bolshevik rule is the scene of daily massacres and of horrors unspeakable. Many of these stories are obviously untrue, and the well-known New York review, the "New Republic," has found occasion to protest against their circulation. "Is the anti-Bolshevik cause so weak," it asks, "that it must be sustained by all these lies?" Information of a very different character regarding the real state of affairs in Russia is filtering through, however. "Nine-tenths of the stories of outrages and murder are pure inventions of the regime," says Colonel McCormick, President of the American Society of Engineers. Mr. Reynolds Ball, who has spent two years in Russia, writes to say, from his own personal experience, that "It was possible to travel unmolested from Moscow to the southern limit of the Caucasus through Bolshevik territory," and that whilst in Moscow and Petrograd he "saw no scenes of violence and disorder." Mr. George Russell (A.E.) states that in Russia 30,000,000 people are now living under co-operative production and distribution, and that the Bolshevik Government, knowing that education is the foundation of all permanent progress, have already founded six new universities, are opening schools and scientific institutes all over the country, and have placed the distinguished Russian author, Maxim Gorki, at the head of an organisation which is reprinting the classics of Russian literature in the cheapest possible form, so that these treasures of wisdom and learning shall be at the disposal of even the humblest folk. Whilst in a remarkable article, which, it is claimed, actually represents the present situation, the "New Statesman" says:—

"Order in Russia is more thoroughly established than at any other time since the fall of the Tsardom . . . . . Factories are rapidly restarting work so far as raw materials can be obtained . . . . . The Bolsheviks are . . . . . clearing the country of bribery and corruption . . . . . Corruption is almost stamped out . . . . The great mass of the professional and petty bourgeoisie have gone over to the Bolsheviks . . . . . In the large towns the workmen are almost unanimous supporters of the Soviets . . . . . (The great majority of) the peasants (are) now keen supporters . . . . . Any Government established by us would have to be supported by foreign bayonets, as the Russian proletariat has been thoroughly imbued with Bolshevism . . ."

Reaction and Finance in Siberia.

In the meantime, what are the Allies doing, and what do they intend to do in the future?

In Siberia the Provisional Government, which had been formed at Omsk, has been overthrown, the Members of the Ministry clapped into prison, and the administration replaced by the dictatorship of the notorious reactionary, Admiral Koltchak, formerly the Tsarist Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, and a personal friend of Mr. Leslie Urquhart, who, as chairman of the Irytsh and Tanalyk Corporations, has recently been discoursing on the stupendous mineral wealth of Russia. Of one mine alone he said that its ores would yield £13,000,000 in net profits at pre-war prices.

The chief financial adviser of Admiral Koltchak (whose Government is supported by Allied troops, which include the Middlesex Regiment) is a Mr. Feodossieff, who is also the managing director of Mr, Urquhart's companies.

It can hardly, therefore, be described as strange that Mr. Urquhart is now strongly supporting Allied intervention against the Bolsheviks.

Referring to our support of Admiral Koltchak, an Englishman at present with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Siberia, writes to a friend (in a letter printed by the "Daily News" on February 12, 1919) as follows:—

"We are this moment assisting in the most active way possible a man who in every way represents autocratic as against even the semblance of democratic power. He calls himself Supreme Ruler, has locked up all elected representatives, and deported many of them from the country.

Workmen Flogged.

"And his edicts make the declarations of the Tsar seem like the Sermon on the Mount. Political liberty of every kind has simply ceased to exist. No one dare say a word for fear of being dragged before a field court and either killed or getting penal servitude for life. Workmen have been flogged in numbers, the meetings of labour union committees forbidden; in fact, Siberia never had less liberty.

"And this governing Admiral Koltchak wouldn't last five minutes without us, so we are, in fact, supporting ruthless tyranny here. I beg you to believe that I do not exaggerate. It is the obvious truth which anyone must recognise who takes the least trouble to inquire among the Russians themselves . . . . .

"Our present position is shameful and unprincipled, and is so regarded by the great majority of Russians. We are supporting one side against the other, and the side we support is very properly regarded as the enemy of freedom. I beg your serious consideration of this matter."

African Troops at Odessa.

In the South we have occupied Baku (where the oil wells are), and French African troops from Senegal and Algeria—not white troops be it noted—have been sent to Odessa, which they are holding against the Socialists. Of this expedition Dr. Harold Williams, writing in the "Daily Chronicle," makes the following cryptic remark:

"It is pitiful that we should be reduced to employing coloured troops in the South of Russia for purposes that many know to be necessary, but for which our various authorities dare not employ white troops for fear of a public opinion which is kept in the dark."

In the north at Archangel our troops are enduring the hardships of the Arctic winter amidst the ice and snow of the White Sea, and, despite the rising tide of popular feeling against the continuance of this adventure, Rear Admiral Kemp, late British Senior Naval Officer in Russia, has the face to write to the "Times" to advocate "continued intervention" involving, Great Heavens! "the occupation of Moscow and Petrograd, together with the control, for a time, of all means of transport and communication and of the economic system in Russia generally."

In the Baltic the strangest things are happening. As the German troops are evacuating the Baltic provinces, so the Soviet armies are advancing, and in many places the people are rising to join them against their oppressors. This has led to an attempt at co-operation between the Allies and German troops against the Bolsheviks. Both Marshal Foch and the British Naval Authorities are reported to have ordered the Germans to stay in Russia to fight the Revolutionaries, and it is also stated in the "Vossische Zeitung" that German troops and British marines have been fighting side by side at Riga against the Russians. Just consider! A year ago we were all denouncing the Germans for their infamy in occupying Russian territory. To-day our high authorities apparently think it is better that German Militarism should be there than Russian Socialism. And so it is—better for the Reactionaries. Unfortuntely for the Capitalists the German armies, like other armies, want to be demobilised, and are refusing to stay and fight, with the result that Riga is now in the hands of the Soviet. Much the same thing is happening further North, where thousands of Finnish White Guards—the former allies of Germany—are being brought over to Esthonia, under the protection of the British Fleet, to fight the armies of the Revolution,

"The irony of the situation," says the Berlin correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian," "is that the driving force on the German side who organises military resistance to the advance of Russian Bolshevism are German Baltic barons, perhaps the most reactionary gang to be found anywhere in the world."

So German and British capitalism are to unite, to form an alliance, to become blood-brothers, to make common cause against Socialism and the Revolution!

A War Against Socialism.

The pretence that we are in Russia to fight the Germans has long since become unbelievable. Recent proceedings in the Baltic have turned it to a wild and wicked jest. Why then are we there at all? The answer has been given by the "Manchester Guardian" (December 18, 1918):

"In Russia we are fighting neither against the Germans nor for the Czecho-Slovaks, nor for the Russian anti-Bolsheviks. We are fighting against a form of the State and a conception of property which we dislike, and which we have good reason to dislike, but which is not our business to overthrow by force of arms, in another country. That is why we are in Russia, or, as the "Financial News" (November 20) more crudely puts it: "In the City it is realised that events are shaping more and more towards an international suzerainty over Russia, modelled on the British surveillance of Egypt. Such an event would transform Russian bonds into the cream of the international market."

According to recent announcements the Government do not intend to send further forces to Russia—at the moment. The present policy of Western Capitalism (and we must now conclude that German Capitalism is in the plot as well) is apparently to encircle Russia, to ring her round with a cordon sanitaire, to cut her off from the corn and coal of the South, and the resources of Siberia, to prevent her getting raw materials by blockading her coasts and occupying her ports, in a word to starve and freeze her into surrender no matter whether 20,000,000 Russians die in the process this winter or not. If this does not succeed there will probably be more expeditions in the spring. Thus do the Capitalists plot and the Governments imagine vain things.

Up to now the Capitalist attempt to strangle the Revolution is not proving very successful. As swiftly as it is put down in one place it spreads to another. Suppressed at Vladivostock it spreads to Vienna. Put down in Baku it breaks out in Berlin. Arrested at Archangel it approaches at Amsterdam. Trampled upon at Murmansk it threatens Madrid. And if our Capitalists really attempt to destroy it at Petrograd and at Moscow then they should be solmenly warned that such action would be the surest way of setting the Revolutionary fires ablaze nearer home. There is no desire for armed Revolution in Britain. No humane man wishes to see machine-guns and Mills' bombs and massacre in Whitehall—nor at Versailles. Everyone would prefer that the Revolution should come through the mind and the ballot-box and by orderly constitutional means. But organised Labour must not allow British soldiers to be killed in Russia at the bidding of financiers nor Russian workers and women to be starved at the dictates of money-lenders. The war with Germany is ended. There must be no further war with Russia. All our expeditions in Russia must be withdrawn. So both in the new Parliament and throughout the country, let the demand of Labour be: NO MORE CASUALTY LISTS! HANDS OFF RUSSIA! AND BRING THE SOLDIERS HOME!

 

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