extend a scheme that worked so successfully with the _moujiks_ to
the working populations of other countries? She began to have hopes
(with the aid of Bolshevist propaganda) of mobilizing the malcontents
everywhere. Capital, if not wiped out, could at least be frightened or
forced into a period of non-production--or production at high prices.
High prices, in turn, create demands for higher wages--demands that
usually take the form of strikes. Labor troubles may lead to riots, or
even revolution--with consequent destruction. And to judge by Belgium,
northern France and Russia, destruction is what Germany wants.
Meanwhile, rumors of riots in the Fatherland encourage Bolshevism in
other countries. We have had copious news of Bolshevist troubles in
Germany. The fact that we get this news over German wires is evidence
that Germany wants us to get it. It makes a fine smoke-screen behind
which stand her great untouched factories with their unsmashed
machinery.
The Germans told the Russians that the great war was a “capitalistic
war.” Germany was right. But she neglected to say that it was designed
to aid the German capitalists. And if enough fools in every other
country can be induced to smash and tear and burn, saving only (take
note) some raw materials, then with her own factories and machinery
intact, Germany can flood the world with her own cheap manufactured
goods.
For this is the joker in Bolshevism: The providing for Germany, of
colossal markets!
And if she has these markets created for her, the indemnity which the
Allies have demanded, and which Germany says is “staggering,” will be
to her a mere handful of small change.
XXVIII
THE UNITED STATES IN ASIA
It must be fairly obvious to the reader in following my account of
what I saw and heard in Siberia that I regard the whole adventure on
the part of the United States in Siberia as a failure, whether it is
regarded in the light of being an attempt at international diplomacy,
military intervention, a gesture of friendship toward Russia, or an
enterprise in the nature of insurance against the spread of Bolshevism.
Primarily, it began as a new campaign against Germany-to prevent
Germany from getting possession of war-stores in Russia and Siberia and
replenishing her stocks of food, munitions and men and to prevent her
from penetrating the country for conquest. There was every reason for
our being in Russia, both on the Archangel front, and in Siberia, to
accomplish these ends. Our presence in Siberia alone was a menace to
Germany, a threat of a thrust through her back door in combination with
the other powers involved with us, including Russians, Czecho-Slovaks,
British, French, Japanese and others interested and concerned.
But we went about it even before the armistice was dreamed of, in a
tentative manner. We did not start a campaign, we began a debating
society. We twiddled our thumbs all winter in Siberia, while the forces
of evil, Bolshevist and others, took advantage of our lack of decision
on anything and acquired a certain technique in a chicane suitable to
the conditions existing to thwart us in any decision we might reach in
the future.
We kept insisting that we were helping Russia by being in Siberia. The
Czechs, the Russians and the Japanese knew that only action could help,
and action meant fighting those who were ruining the country. We were
helping Russia and Siberia in just about the manner a man might help a
family which was being beaten and robbed by burglars if the man sat out
on the front porch and remarked: “If this thing gets too serious, I am
here with a gun to help.”
And while he sat there, the members of the family still alive, yelled
frantically: “This is serious now--half my children are dead, and the
biggest robber has me by the throat.”
Whereupon the visitor on the porch would reply: “If I do anything
rough I will hurt somebody’s feelings. I don’t want to do that. But if
you kill the robbers, then you have settled the affair yourself, with
my moral support. But I am not quite sure the robbers are not in the
right. I am your friend, if you win this fight; if the robber wins it,
I want to make friends with him. In the meantime, I can supply you with
a Red Cross nurse to bind your wounds if you escape alive; I can give
you food if the robber steals or destroys all you have to eat; I can
send you ministers to bury you with prayers if you are killed, or to
preach to you if you are spared. I am a Good Samaritan but I must not
interfere.”
While we were thus pausing and surveying the wreckage, human and
material, various Cossack chiefs, schooled in the methods of the old
régime, seized power and began building up principalities of their
own--Kalmikoff as governor-general of the Ussuri district, and Semenoff
as boss of the Trans-Baikal.
They used the old tricks of autocracy--swords and ceremony--which the
people feared and by which they were impressed with demonstrations of
physical power. Then to catch the imagination of the nations which
wished to see Russia rehabilitate herself speedily, they began to
talk in a patter, the key-note of which was, and is: “I stand for a
free and reunited Russia, a Russia greater than the old.” Whereupon
they proceeded to deny anything in the nature of freedom, and to
disunite Russia. All they stood for, and still stand for, is their
own glorification and reward and the gambler’s chance that they
will inherit the throne of the Czars. If they cannot attain to such
ambitions, at least they hope to sell out their usurped powers in
case some figure of imperial lineage comes out of hiding to take the
shattered crown.
We kept assuring the Siberians that our government stood as their
friend, at the same time neither denouncing, nor interfering with these
usurpers. The people, for all their abysmal ignorance, knew perfectly
well what was going on--they recognized autocracy because they had
to submit to it. And, speaking generally, the attitude of the United
States was: “Why cannot you people get together and settle up this
mess--all you have to do is come to an agreement, and reunite Russia!”
This while several civil wars were being fought in the country!
At home our press and public were making a hue and cry against
Bolshevism. Yet in Siberia were Cossack chiefs with little armies
opposed to the Bolshevists, but inactive because they were not sure
what we might do. Our failure to throw in with these chiefs, led the
Bolshevist leaders to hope, if not actually believe, that we favored
Bolshevism, or at least did not dare fight it. At any rate, our “do
nothing” policy allowed the Bolshevist leaders, crafty in intrigue,
propaganda and organization, to whisper to their wavering adherents
that the United States was passively favoring them and that recognition
of the Bolshevist government was only a matter of time.
In effect, our operations for nearly a year, were a subsidy to
Bolshevism. Our civilian-aid agencies were unwitting helpers to the
secret Bolshevists of Siberia, for they gave comfort and encouragement
to the idea that Bolshevism in Siberia was a success. We repaired a
lot of damage that Bolshevism had done, before the people of Siberia
could realize what the destruction meant--before they could learn for
themselves what a mess they had made of things.
Our government did relief work, and became actually thereby an
ally of the Bolshevist régime, though maintaining an attitude of
non-interference--neutrality.
“One faction is as bad as another,” was the way our spokesmen put
it. That was a comforting phrase, but not true. It meant blaming
our own ignorance on the factions. It was on the same scale as the
statement made so often after the outbreak of the war: “Europe has gone
war-mad--one nation is as bad as the other,” a frame of mind which
helped Germany. How the Bolshevist leaders must have chuckled when they
heard that the United States classed them as no better and no worse
than the Russians who were actively fighting Bolshevism, and opposing
it in other ways. And the gallant Czechs were amazed and discouraged by
our failure to coöperate with them to the extent they had been led to
believe that we would.
Kalmikoff and Semenoff, more particularly the former, carried on
executions by the wholesale. It was a system of eliminating such
persons as might oppose them. Some of the victims were probably
Bolshevists, but many of them were decent and orderly Russians from
our viewpoint. They dared whisper their suspicions against the Cossack
chiefs--that was enough to send them to the execution party.
For instance, men and women of Khabarovsk protested to Colonel Styer
that Kalmikoff had their friends and relatives in prison and would
shoot them. Colonel Styer took the matter up with Kalmikoff. That night
fifteen or twenty men were chosen at random from the prison, taken
out into a grove, and shot down. They did not know what they had been
arrested for, they had never been tried.
This sort of thing went on for months after our forces were stationed
in Khabarovsk. But with Washington giving strict orders that there
should be nothing in the nature of “interference,” what could Colonel
Styer do? Yet at the same time we were assuring the “loyal” Russians
that our troops were on the ground for their protection.
To the Russians, who could not possibly fathom our policy and could not
know what was going on between our commanders and Kalmikoff, it looked
as if our troops were there to protect Kalmikoff while he decimated the
population. And Kalmikoff continued to lift himself into power by the
simple process of killing off everybody who objected to his assuming
autocratic powers.
Yet Kalmikoff and Semenoff, if properly dealt with from the first,
might have joined forces with us against the Bolshevists. They could
not have opposed us. They both have certain qualities as military
leaders, and while they undoubtedly are monarchists or “men on
horseback,” they are certainly anti-Bolshevist. And if we had adopted
an anti-Bolshevist policy from the start, this policy would have given
us a point of contact with the Cossack chiefs. We could have demanded
that they behave themselves, get busy and fight Bolshevists at the
front.
But they camped down in Khabarovsk and Chita, clamped a tight lid on
the press in their districts, and inspired the writing of articles
for the local newspapers which extolled their own virtues as Russian
patriots, and denounced the other Cossack chiefs with whom they were at
odds. And the peculiar fact about this press campaign, was that when
each told of the others faults and selfish ambitions, he was telling
the truth, as truth goes in Siberia.
The press muzzled or subsidized, the whole country became befogged in a
mass of rumors, gossip, lies and slander. The Americans heard all kinds
of stories against the Japanese, as no doubt the Japanese heard the
most fanciful tales about us; the Czechs became disgruntled and sullen
because they felt we were not helping them as we should; if an American
officer became friendly with a Russian and sought his views on the
situation, another Russian sought the American out to warn him against
his informant. Each Russian professed to be a “loyal” Russian. I found
that all Russians are loyal Russians. The difficulty was to ascertain
just what “loyal” meant. The test for us, should have been, loyal to
what idea of government?
I am familiar with the assertion that our expedition was opposing the
Bolshevists with armed force. When did we threaten any Bolshevists till
the Bolshevists attacked us? Is inviting all factions to “get together”
at Prinkipo, opposing Bolshevists? Is it opposing monarchists? Is it
opposing _hetmen_ who emulate Villa? Is it backing a democratic form of
government in Russia?
One thing is certain--neither a monarchy nor a republic can be formed
in all Russia so long as Bolshevism remains in the saddle. And our
unwillingness to oppose Bolshevism was in effect giving it aid and
strength. Many who were wavering in their sympathy for Bolshevism,
turned to it again secretly when they saw what the Cossack chiefs were
doing with apparent sanction of the United States.
Our attitude of neutrality in Russian affairs gave the Bolshevist
agents their chance to decry our promises of aid. They said: “Look!
The United States knows Bolshevism is too strong to quarrel with
openly. Who is the United States standing in with? Your enemies, the
Cossack chiefs, who are fighting us in order to restore to power the
old régime. The United States stands back and allows the Cossacks
to execute you. The American commanders protest mildly, but do the
executions stop? No. The United States hopes the Cossacks will defeat
us, but the United States does not dare fight, because they want to be
able to make friends with us when we control the whole country. They
know they will have to recognize us in time.”
No doubt Bolshevism will die out in time. All zealots are born despots,
and Russia will not submit to the despotism of Bolshevism any more than
it will submit from now on for a long period, to any form of cruel
despotism. Can we claim, when Bolshevism burns out, to have aided in
breaking its back?
Neutrality, between right and wrong, is a crime. It was invented by
militaristic criminals who want to murder nations, and make sure that
there will be no interference by neighbors.
The thug, murdering his victim, resents the interference of the
passerby, by saying: “This is none of your business.” He demands
neutrality.
So it has become a virtuous act for a nation, when two nations engage
in war, to declare itself neutral. We realize now that something is
wrong in this system, so we have devised the league of nations idea.
This idea is nothing more than an agreement that there shall be no more
neutrality. If a nation threatens war, all the others agree to take
sides. The fact that all the others may combine against the aggressor,
or the nation adjudged to be in the wrong, automatically prevents the
war. Unless the aggressing nation feels strong enough to defy the
others, or able to accomplish its purpose of destruction before the
others can get into action.
But issues between nations are often beclouded, or the minds of peoples
are befogged, or populations become divided over what is right and what
is wrong. A league of nations, to operate according to the ideals of
the idea, presupposes the ability of peoples, or their leaders, to make
swift decision as to who is right and who is wrong. It calls for not
merely national statesmanship, but international statesmanship--which
is always for right.
We wanted to operate on the patient in Siberia but the doctors could
not decide whether to take out the appendix of Bolshevism, or cut off
the head that ached without a crown. The patient is still suffering
from a bad appendix--and a violent headache.
We said at home that Bolshevism menaced the world. It had ruined
Siberia. We were in Siberia with troops. We should have attacked
Bolshevism on its native heath, and declared to Russia and the world
that once the Bolshevists were whipped and knew they were whipped, we
would stand beside the nation till it had reorganized itself in its own
non-Bolshevist way.
Japan expected us to do those things, just as England did. We
practically forbade Japan from going into Siberia without our sanction,
or without us. We decried intervention or interference, and then
proceeded to intervene. I do not care what other term is used in
describing our landing an expedition in Siberia--it was intervention.
It was a measure for the safety of Russia, and for our own protection.
The minute our first armed man stepped upon the dock at Vladivostok, we
had intervened--we had interfered. It was our business to be effective,
to justify our presence there, to act in the manner we thought proper
and be responsible for our acts. All the others would have been glad to
coöperate with us, I am sure.
In fact, all parties looked to us for leadership, regardless of what
their private ideas or ambitions may have been. Japan was ready to
coöperate with us, but we disgusted Japan by our failure to do anything
but sit on the lid of the Pandora’s box in Vladivostok. Japan went
ahead and did a few things on her own account, and then there were
whispers in certain quarters that Japan wanted to grab Siberia.
If Japan did want to grab Siberia, it was because the lackadaisical
attitude of the United States made Japan feel that whatever Japan did,
the United States would not do much more than mildly protest.
I do not doubt that Japan would like to have Siberia, or at least
the littoral of the Maritime Provinces with ownership or control of
Vladivostok. She would like to hook that country up with Korea, and
have a barrier between her own Empire and whatever Russia will develop
or degenerate into in the future. And considering Japan’s position in
Asia, her necessity for expansion, and more particularly her system
of government, this ambition to control the Siberian littoral is
consistent with her whole scheme of self-protection. The morality of
the policy is not for discussion here.
England would have been willing to follow our lead, and coöperate with
us. But tired of our dallying, England sent her forces up to the front,
and took a chance of having the Trans-Siberian railroad break down
between her advanced troops and their base. And England stands higher
in the regard of Russia to-day than we do, and always will, despite the
fact that we talked much of friendship for Russia and Siberia. England
said little, but acted with troops in supporting the anti-Bolshevist
forces.
I consider the Siberian campaign a failure, for the simple reason
that what we failed to do in Siberia will eventually aid Germany.
Germany is bound to penetrate Russia economically, and control the
country financially unless we change our tactics. We went to Siberia to
checkmate Germany--we have aided her. This is because the Russian will
never take us seriously again--we are regarded nationally as a “bluff.”
We went into Siberia with armed forces to help Russia, and did little
but talk, nurse the railroad, distribute pamphlets, and show pictures
to prove to the Russians what a great nation we were--at home. Among
the pamphlets we distributed was one in Russian, entitled: “If you want
a republic we will show you how to build one.”
In effect, we told them that everything we did was right, and
everything that they did was wrong. The wiser ones smiled, shook their
heads, and tolerated us. How, they asked, are you showing us the way
to build a republic if every time we submit a problem to you, you
throw up your hands and say: “We cannot advise you, for that would be
interfering. This is something you must settle for yourselves.”
There was no reason why, when the Siberian situation developed its own
peculiar problem after the armistice, the Siberian expedition could
not have been increased to a strength which would make it possible to
protect itself, and carried out a definite policy in regard to Russia.
If we could formulate no policy for Siberia which seemed to fit our
national aims toward Russia and Siberia, our expedition should have
been withdrawn.
I feel that none of the things we set out to accomplish in Siberia has
been accomplished. And many of the things we wished to prevent, have
been carried out by Bolshevist forces--at least we have had little if
any hand in checking Bolshevist activities.
The American expedition degenerated from a military expedition into a
political expedition, or probably what might be termed a diplomatic
expedition. I maintain that it is a great error in governmental policy
to attempt to turn a soldier into a diplomat, or a diplomat into a
soldier. The soldier should not be called in until the policy of the
nation had been clearly defined, and then the soldier should act, free
from all political complications. An American military expedition
should never leave our shores, till the government can tell its
commander what to do, and his instructions should be defined in terms
of action.
If Washington did not want to restrain “agitating peasants” by force of
arms, it never should have allowed our forces to enter Siberia, or to
remain a day after the signing of the armistice.
To land an expedition in a country, and then attempt to tell the
country that we do not intend to interfere in its internal affairs, is
absurd.
If a foreign power, during the Civil War, had landed military forces
on the Atlantic coast, no matter how much that power had assured us
that it did not intend to interfere, we would have demanded instant
withdrawal. And in replying to assurances of a non-interfering
intention, we would have replied: “You have already interfered--you
are on our territory, and if you do not come to aid us, our enemy will
be able to assert to his adherents, that you have come to aid him. You
must do one of two things--fight with us or against us. We mistrust
you, for we feel that if things should go against either side in this
quarrel, you would throw your forces in with what appeared to be the
winning side.”
And in Russia, and Siberia to-day, we are inclined to think that the
issue is between Bolshevism and non-Bolshevism. It is a greater issue
than that--it is a fight between an imperial form of government and a
republican form of government.
When Maximilian set up his Empire in Mexico, we regarded it as an
unfriendly act, and drove him out; and our own Monroe policy forbids
foreign powers from landing forces for aggression or anything else
in any part of the Western Hemisphere. No matter what a European
chancellory might assert as the motive for sending a military
expedition to this side of the world, we would regard it as an
unfriendly act.
I wish it borne in mind that I am not attacking the administration
for sending an expedition; but I am criticising the sending of an
expedition; and having no policy.
We sat around all winter in Siberia, refusing to oppose “agitating
peasants,” or “anti-Kolchak forces,” and when Spring came our own men
were killed and captured at the Suchan Mines, not far from Vladivostok,
by agitating peasants and anti-Kolchak forces, now revealed as
Bolshevists. The errors of statesmen are corrected with the lives of
soldiers.
What should we have done in Siberia? We should have done the only thing
a military expedition is supposed to do--prevent disorder, insure
safety to the inhabitants who go about their business, and demand that
the Russians in such places as we occupied get busy with plans for
government, and till they did so, go on and administer local government
with their coöperation in accordance with our own ideas, and with our
future intentions toward the people clearly stated and pledged.
That sounds like a big order. But those are the things we were expected
to do by all hands--Russians, and our Allied interventionists. Also, no
doubt, the decent element of our own country expected such action--and
thought it was being done.
We have lost face in Asia, and if we ever find we wish to make a
threatening gesture in that direction, we will not be taken very
seriously till we have carried out the threat at large cost in blood
and treasure. We may never have to make that threat, but we may be
menaced from that direction some day, because Germany will expand in
that direction, if not territorially at once, at least economically.
And one thing we must realize--Germany has far better chances of
merging with Asia than we have, because Asia understands the German
idea.
Asia does not understand our ideas or ideals in government, and since
seeing us operate in Siberia, is more puzzled with us than ever. Asia
realizes our strength, and fears us for that reason alone; but she has
seen our strength poorly demonstrated on her own soil, and she feels
inclined to say: “Pooh! The giant of the Western Hemisphere is afraid
of us, after all. He shakes his fist, but does not want to fight, he
does not want to exert himself in this direction, he does not want to
control us in any way. He is a good-natured giant, and there is no
reason why we should fear his bluster.”
Asia is saying that herself. If ever the day comes when another power
whispers to her that she is right about us, and that if she will join
up with them we can be driven out of Asia and kept out, then Asia will
in time be a serious menace to our peace and safety, and our existence
as a nation with Western ideals.
We may think Asia is “slow”--in many ways Asia can out-think us. The
land that had Confucius, the land of soul-searching which is India,
the land of the Grand Lamas which is Thibet, the land which produced
Buddha--they cannot be fooled.