THE INTERNATIONAL AT LUCERNE (JULY, 1919)
It was not the full International, but the special Council appointed by
it which met at Lucerne in July of 1919. This time my position was that
of a representative of the Press, and not a delegate. I had an honorary
commission from a London daily newspaper to report the proceedings
of the Conference. I am afraid my report was not too sympathetic.
Everybody felt the same thing in some degree. Far too much time was
wasted on petty national squabbles. The old fight on responsibility
for the war was taken up with renewed lustiness. French and Germans
yelled at one another, like children in a street squabble, with the
old vituperativeness. Meantime the crime of Paris had been committed,
and the world was shrieking from its gaping and undoctored wounds. A
problem presented itself to me: How to make a genuine International out
of men so filled with national hates and envies that they were at one
another’s throats for the slightest word! Of course, I am sure they
said a great deal more than they meant. They always do at Socialist
conferences. Nobody could stay for five minutes in any Socialist Party
I know, if he believed that all the abuse and violence of language used
by members against one another were intended to be taken at their face
value. But it seemed pitiful that the old vice of talking and saying
nothing should have possessed the International at such a tragic time
in the world’s history. Apart from the awfulness of the Peace, the
persecution of the Jews and the Hungarian counter-revolution should
have absorbed the attention of any body of enlightened Socialists
sitting in conference.
Lucerne is not a good place for a congress. It is too beautiful. The
delegates wanted to be out amongst the mountains or to be dipping their
hands into the lake as they rowed lazily on its still surface. The most
inveterate lover of eloquence could not get up any enthusiasm for such
indoor sport when he saw the bright sun on the dancing waves and mopped
his moist brow on his cool handkerchief.
I arrived at the Conference late on account of special difficulties
about my passport. On the way I had a curious experience. It happened
at Berne. I had broken my journey there and taken the evening train.
Into the carriage stepped a dark-haired girl who evidently knew me,
as she called me by my name, and asked if I would mind her smoking
“one little cigarette,” a very mild one. When she had lit it she
settled herself in a corner; and then began a conversation which I
speedily discovered was designed to elicit information. She appeared
particularly interested in Mr. J. R. Macdonald. I evaded all her
questions about Mr. Macdonald, but to silence her on the subject said
she should have an introduction to Mr. Macdonald the next day at the
Conference. Her story of herself was interesting. She had married an
Englishman and divorced him. She had one delicate little son. She had
married again, a Hungarian, a Socialist who had accepted a position
in the Hungarian Social-Democratic Government. She was going to join
him soon. She had been in England, the guest of Miss Hobhouse. She was
extradited from England as a pacifist. I recalled some story about
Miss Hobhouse having entertained unawares a foreign Government agent.
Was this the woman? I introduced her next day to Mr. Macdonald, having
previously cautioned him. He was quite convinced she was pursuing her
avocation. But what was that? _Was_ she a spy?
Some of our delegates were rather apt to imagine everybody was a spy.
One of them was taken to see a certain Austrian diplomat, and all the
time the taxi was rattling there he was looking out of the little
window at the back, quite, _quite_ certain that the cab was being
followed by he didn’t know whom--but somebody!
The personnel of the International gathering in Lucerne was very
largely the same as at Berne. Bernstein was there looking very much
better in health than in Berne. He is generally regarded as the
patriarch of German Socialism. He was one of the victims of Bismarck’s
anti-Socialist legislation, and lived in exile in Switzerland and
England for some years. He is known for his personal kindness and
toleration. His revisionist proclivities would place him beyond the
pale with Lenin and Trotsky. Although a man of immovable faith he
was not fond of blinding himself with illusions. He expected less
of mankind than Eisner or Keir Hardie. His adversaries described
him variously, some as an Anglomaniac, others a Frankophile, the
pan-Germans as a “damned Jew.” His friends knew him to be a true
Internationalist, a good European. He published a book of reminiscences
in 1917, in which he expressed all his really tender love for England.
This contains fascinating pictures of famous English men and women he
had known. The years in England were the happiest years of his life.
This book, published in Germany in 1917, had a considerable success
there. (Remember, the war was still raging.) An English edition of it
has only just (1921) been produced!
After Versailles, many of his friends thought that he, and only he,
would be the right person to represent the new Germany at the Court of
St. James. How little they knew the mentality of Downing Street! The
reactionary Foreign Office officials of Berlin knew a great deal better
than that. They sent a patrician from the Hansa. German Socialists
were good enough to help break Imperial Germany, but British junkerdom
would scarcely find them tolerable as ambassadors. Even a Socialist
Government would be well advised to send a reactionary to London. The
wheels would go round more smoothly. When, a few months later, Edouard
Bernstein wanted to come to London to attend a conference, in spite of
his pro-English record he was refused a visum. Public opinion abroad
is steadfastly of the opinion that England does not know her enemies.
It is manifest she does not know her friends. I have watched carefully
and have come to the conclusion that those aliens who never failed in
their friendship for England during the war are having a worse fate at
the hands of our Foreign Office than those who hate her most. I know of
at least three cases of almost outrageous German pro-Britons who have
received treatment from the British Government which ought to make them
contemptuous of this country till the end of their days. But it will
not. I know them too well to believe that it will make the slightest
difference.
I was interested to see Dr. Smeral and Dr. Nemec at Lucerne. They had
impressed me at Berne. They were the two Czecho-Slovak delegates.
They used to be called “the Inseparables.” Now they are the bitterest
enemies. Smeral is the leader of the Czech Communists; Nemec the leader
of the Majority Socialists. Smeral is an enormously fat man with clear
eyes, and is usually as silent as a statue of Buddha. He did not
speak at either of the conferences. Nemec on the other hand startled
the Conference at Berne with a fighting speech of the first order,
though nobody knew what it was all about! Czecho-Slovakia was one of
the very few winners in the war, and yet he spoke full of hatred,
passion, aggressiveness. He is a sprightly little man, with a red nose
and a perpetual twinkle in his eye. Part of the Conference laughed
good-humouredly at the tirade; others, not understanding, were bored to
tears. Finally Dr. Nemec was stopped by the chairman, and he receded
from the platform firing shots as he went, at the chairman, at the
Conference, at the Allies, protesting, protesting, protesting!
It was explained afterwards that the whole performance was due to mere
force of habit. Having been for ten or twenty years one of the most
virulent leaders of the Czech Opposition in the Austrian Parliament,
Dr. Nemec mistook the Berne Conference for the Vienna Parliament!
Dr. Smeral is supposed to be one of the strongest and clearest
intellects in continental Socialism. Without being reticent he is not
exactly talkative. He was in Moscow shortly before I went there, and
came back with the exactly opposite opinion. I do not know what he
saw there, what he was told, or what was the point of view from which
he examined things. I am sure his opinion was honestly formed. I hope
he believes that mine was the same. Lenin has thought fit to change!
Smeral may do so also.
After his return to Prague the split in the Socialist Movement, which
has happened in almost every country, took place. Smeral’s followers
took violent possession of the Socialist headquarters, printing-press,
etc., and ejected Nemec and his group. For weeks no attempt was made by
the Czech Government to restore law and order. Finally the Communist
minority had to give way. Smeral’s part in all these petty adventures
is not clear; but he is certainly the silent and menacing figure on the
horizon of Czecho-Slovakia’s political future.
His demonstration of how it was possible to grow rich by spending money
amused me. He came to Switzerland from Prague, stayed several weeks in
a good hotel, returned to Prague, and had more crowns in his pocket
on his return than when he left! What is the answer to the riddle? A
fallen exchange.
* * * * *
I was having tea in the hotel one day when an extraordinary figure of
a man appeared at the door. He had a curly black beard and long wavy
hair! He wore a big red tie and a dirty flannel shirt. In his hand was
a black slouch hat, and on his feet a pair of sandals. He was carrying
a packet of pamphlets written by himself and asked me to accept one.
He also invited me to come to a meeting at the Volkshaus to be held
that evening. I promised I would do my best, and he appeared satisfied
and shambled out of the room a little abashed by something. Nobody
knew who he was, but later in the evening the rumour was afloat that
an eccentric American millionaire Socialist was trying to get up a
Bolshevik agitation, and was canvassing the delegates for support. I
heard afterwards that his meeting was a failure.
* * * * *
A character I met of a different sort, and anything but a Socialist,
was a Russian diplomat of the _ancien régime_. He was at one time
Russia’s Chargé d’Affaires at Berne. The sight of him swinging his cane
along the Lucerne boulevard reminded me of his interesting career.
He had the reputation of being the most intelligent diplomat in
Switzerland; of his private character the most merciless stories were
openly told. It was taken for granted that even before the Revolution
he had been in the pay of the Austrians, but as an excellent Russian
patriot he took the Austrian money and gave them Tartar news! He
was elegant, amiable, and amazingly frank. Contrary to many of his
colleagues, he did not pretend in the least to have any liking for
democracy. He was a thorough reactionary, not only in feeling but in
ideas. He did not merely abuse the Bolsheviks. He studied and analysed
them. He was extremely cynical but clear thinking. He had marvellous
powers of conversation, and could describe things with a fullness of
language that made them stand out in the imagination of the listener.
Under the spell of his voice the old Russia stood clear as the new.
During the Peace Conference he pretended to be Clemenceau’s chosen
instrument against Bolshevism. Many people in Berne who were waiting to
be admitted to the holy precincts of the city of Peace paid him large
sums of money to procure them a French visum. Some of them are said to
have succeeded in getting one. Others gave up their money, their hopes
and their Peace Conference!
In those days his funds ran low. With the assistance of his beautiful
wife he established a gambling _salon_ at his flat, where a number of
young diplomats, and very many of the aristocratic refugees from the
Central Empires, were thoroughly plucked. Berne being rather a dull
place, and the waiting for visa rather tedious, this establishment
became an invaluable social convenience.
Continuing to live at the very height of extravagant luxury he could
not avoid his financial collapse. His costly furniture was sold, and
one day his orders--Russian, Austrian, Italian, German, English--some
of which were of solid gold, were passed on a beautiful plate round the
cafés of Berne for sale.
Whatever the truth about his character, it was a fact that most of the
diplomats of Berne on both sides would have nothing to do with him.
During his last few months in Switzerland he divorced his wife, on
which occasion it was revealed that his wedding a dozen years before
was attended by the cream of the Russian aristocracy and that he owned
vast estates in Russia. He is rumoured to have left Berne for South
America in the company of the beautiful blonde manicurist of the Belle
Vue Hotel! _Sic transit gloria mundi._
* * * * *
Miss Catherine Marshall appeared at the Lucerne Conference. She is one
of the ablest of the feminists of Great Britain. For some years she had
been very ill, the victim of overwork and overstrain. It was feared
she might not return to public life. Her appearance in Lucerne gave
everybody pleasure. She was lately returned from Germany, whither she
had gone in defiance of prohibitions, and had a strange, sad story to
tell. Reckless of her own delicate health she had lived as the people
live, and showed marks in herself of the poverty of that living.
The restlessness of her mind and body were evidence of continued
ill-health, and I strongly pressed her to go home and take a quiet
time in the country somewhere. The most pitiful thing in creation is
the nervous woman unable to rest. The deliberate waste of great powers
by their ill-regulated use robs the gift of them of half its worth.
Together we walked in the woods and on the hill slopes of Lucerne, and
I talked to her, with the cruel candour of a friend, of the need for
“going slow” if she wished to do more good work for the cause of women.
At the end of four days I returned to Berne to prepare for a longer
journey than I had hitherto taken. I would make an effort to go to
Vienna.