THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS
In the good old days, when the alliance with Russia was regarded as
the salvation of France, Romanoffs frequently radiated from Deauville
to other Norman watering-places. The honor of a visit from a Russian
royal personage was commemorated in the favorite French fashion by
municipalities where Socialists did not predominate. So at Houlgate,
my summer home, the street leading to the Grand Hôtel used to be the
Rue Marie Feodorovna. In the summer of 1917 we found that the name
had been changed to Rue Prince Lvoff. Before the end of the summer it
became Rue Kerensky in honor of the investigator of Brusiloff’s last
offensive. That name, of course, was no longer possible in 1918. In
the first summer of the victory, after the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles, events dictated Rue de l’Amiral Kolchak. It was replaced by
Rue Wrangel, and then the street was taken away from Russia altogether!
I am not telling this as a funny story, but because it illustrates the
tragedy of France torn from her moorings, aware of her inability to
ride the storm alone on the high seas of recharted Europe, not knowing
which way to turn, and instinctively cherishing the hope that the bond
with Russia would not be definitely broken. Great Britain and the
United States do not need alliances with other powers as the essential
condition of national existence. Italy sees the door wide open to
return to the Germanic alliance. But the Russian revolution confronted
France with a problem that victory over Germany could not solve. Only
with this fact constantly in mind can we discuss intelligently the
internal evolution and foreign policy of Russia under the Soviets. For
all that has happened in Russia since the overthrow of the Czarist
Government is inextricably bound up with the attitude of the victors in
the World War toward Russia. In the great volume of books and articles
on the experiment with Communism one finds an almost universal failure
to recognize this fact. Partisans pro and contra have given us pictures
of Soviet Russia that are accurate enough impressions of confusion and
anarchy, but that are lacking when the attempt is made to explain how
and why these things have happened.
The Russian revolution, occurring at any other time than in the midst
of a war affecting the interests of all nations, would have been
regarded sympathetically, and its excesses would have been deemed
inevitable. We should have awaited patiently the outcome, and it is
doubtful whether any country would have shown active hostility to it
or have been tempted to intervene. But, coming when it did, in western
Europe and America the sole thought was to prevent the revolution
from playing into the hands of Germany. Russia’s continued military
coöperation was believed to be essential to victory; and, except
for Germany’s stupidity in provoking the United States, the Entente
Powers could not have won the war without Russia. Consequently,
Entente diplomacy had only one thought, to keep the Russians in
the fighting-line. It was natural, then, that the logical internal
evolution of the movement was greeted with dismay. Public opinion in
Allied countries read into the events of 1917 and 1918 a deliberate
betrayal of the common cause, cleverly engineered by a common enemy,
with the result that the Russians very soon came to be considered and
treated as enemies.
Forgetting the sacrifices the Russians had made, the Allied and
Associated Powers, without declaration of war, blockaded Russia,
invaded Russia, supported counter-revolutionary movements, used against
Russia the poison gas of propaganda, yielded to the temptation of
taking advantage of Russia’s temporary helplessness to advance their
own economic and political interests, and ignored Russia in all the
treaties and agreements their victory gave them the power to make.
Of the leaders of the revolution, in its incipiency, we demanded the
impossible. We insisted that they force upon the Russian people the
continuance of the policies of the Czarist Government, policies which
it had been the purpose of the revolution to discredit and destroy!
None can study the relations of Russia with the Entente Powers during
1917, and not come to the conclusion that the Lvoff and Kerensky
Governments were discredited and overthrown because they tried to
keep Russia in the war without having secured from Russia’s allies a
restatement of war aims. The revolution was anti-imperialist, and those
who led it could keep the confidence of the people only by assuring
them that the enemies of Germany were fighting for the destruction
of imperialism, for which Germany stood. Germany was the enemy of
civilization because she worshiped brute force as her god and was
waging an unholy war to dominate the world and to force other peoples
into subjection to her people, so that they might be exploited for the
benefit of German industry. Czarist Russia, as had been proved by the
secret treaties, had led the Russian people into a war, under false
pretenses, for the same object as those that Germany hoped to attain.
Revolutionary Russia renounced all the loot of the secret treaties.
She no longer wanted Constantinople and other portions of the Ottoman
Empire. She was willing to withdraw from Persia and consent to the
emancipation of Poland. Let Great Britain and France and Italy give the
Russian people solemn assurances that they also renounce their shares
of the hoped-for loot, and promise that they would apply the principle
of self-determination to peoples subject to them, and the war would be
continued. This proposal was refused. The refusal gave the Bolshevists
their chance to get control of the revolutionary Government.
The Soviet régime would probably have followed the lot of all extremist
groups and been drowned in its own bloodshed had it not been for the
support given by the Entente Powers to various counter-revolutionary
movements and to the invasion of Russia at various points by Entente
armies. The Russians came to believe that the rest of the world was
conspiring to destroy them. They rallied around Lenin and Trotzky,
moved by the instinct of every people to repel the invader. French,
British, Italians, Greeks, Americans, Japanese thus voluntarily
took their place with Germans as enemies of Russians. Hundreds
of thousands in every part of the country would have welcomed the
counter-revolutionary movements and have stuck by them until the
Bolshevists were overthrown had they not become convinced that outside
nations were supporting the counter-revolutionists, not for Russia’s
sake, but to feather their own nests. All that happened in 1918, 1919,
and 1920 tended to confirm this impression. We accuse the Russians of
having deserted the common cause during the war. The Russians accuse us
of having involved them in a war, in which their losses were greater
than those of any other belligerent, by territorial bribes to the old
Czarist Government, and then, when regenerated Russia spoke for an
idealistic peace, of having turned against them.
In dealing with the internal evolution and foreign policy of Russia
during the years following the World War, we must get away from
the belief that Boshevism and Russia are synonymous and from the
comfortable feeling that Russia’s ills and the international troubles
those ills have created for us, are due to the attempt of the
Communists to set up in Russia a Soviet form of government and to
impose their doctrines upon the rest of the world. This is only one
factor, and not the most important, in the great problem of Russia’s
internal and international relations. The difficulties arose before
the Communists got control of the Government. They continued during the
period of the Communists’ attempt to demonstrate the practicability of
their doctrines. They remain, now that Communism has proved a failure
in a country where it had a better chance of success than in any other
great nation.[8]
It is fruitless to maintain, as some zealots do, that Communism was
not given a fair chance and that its failure is due to the hostility
of the world. The complete disintegration of society in Russia, when
the incentive of reward for production was removed, demonstrates the
visionary character of the experiment. By successive modifications of
some of their ideas and the abandonment of others, the leaders of the
movement themselves have confessed that they were unable to make a go
of their communistic theories. Honest foreign investigators, no matter
how prejudiced they were when they went, did not need much time to be
convinced that the theories did not work out in practice. After six
years, the Russian people, from Lenin down to the humblest peasant,
know that the Government does not function when private and personal
ownership of the machinery of production is not acknowledged and
safeguarded. Brains and arms alike are used only when their possessors
know that their efforts bring them some tangible reward. There will be
no surplus over the day’s needs unless there is an assured title to
that surplus. And this means that no usufruct, for an individual or a
community, is ever created unless definite and inviolate ownership has
induced the creation.
Soviet theories temporarily destroyed capital or drove it to cover. But
as soon as it was seen that capital was essential to keep the country
going, the laws passed in the first enthusiasm were not enforced,
and were modified and repealed as quickly as could be done without
losing face. Trading was resumed, and the Government began to give the
necessary assurances to its own people first, and then to nationals of
foreign countries, that the right to amass and transfer possessions
would no longer be denied.
That the workmen could be a privileged class in the community, even
though it was upon them that the revolution, begun and maintained
in the cities, depended, was soon proved to be a fallacy. Food came
from the country; and the peasants could not be forced to raise more
than enough for their own needs unless they got something for their
pains. Once the confiscated stocks gave out, the workmen in the cities
discovered that they would have to produce what could be given in
exchange for food or they would starve. The artificial limits set by
law on the working day could no longer be maintained. First of all,
an eight-hour day was established, soon followed by a six-hour day;
wages were constantly raised; piece-work was prohibited; overtime
was not allowed; and unskilled laborers were given the same pay as
skilled workmen. Four years of this régime convinced the labor leaders
that productive wealth could not be created by legal measures. To get
good workmen back to the factories and to make possible the payment
of wages that would buy food, virtually all the dreams of the early
days were abandoned. Work on Saturday afternoons was restored, as well
as piece-work and overtime. The pendulum has swung the other way.
The labor day is now from ten to fourteen hours in most industries.
Nearly fifty thousand workmen in the “Gozma,” a state factory, found
themselves compelled to work sixteen hours; and, when they tried to
leave, they were told that they were militarized, and were kept at work
under threat of court martial with capital punishment.
Bolshevist propaganda abroad was a failure from the beginning. It was
evident that a Government which could not succeed in establishing the
communistic theory in its own country had nothing to offer to the rest
of the world. There never would have been even a Bolshevist scare if
other Governments had not professed to take seriously the sending
out of emissaries from Moscow to unite the workers of the world in a
common movement against capitalism. Had the Bolshevist movement been
ignored it would never have made the stir it did. The horrible example
of conditions in Russia was sufficient counter-propaganda. The saving
grace of common sense has been enough to checkmate any attempts to
foment a world revolution. Bolshevist propaganda fell on deaf ears, for
it could not give a plausible answer to the argument, “Physician, heal
thyself!”
So much for Bolshevism in its social aspect. Although the Moscow Soviet
still controls, more strongly than ever, the destinies of Russia,
Bolshevism has passed into history.
Had the present rulers of Russia been loyal to their own economic
doctrines, they would have long ago disappeared. But they are
politicians first, and have had in mind from the beginning the aim of
politicians, which is to govern in such a way as to remain in power.
It must be confessed that their success in subordinating doctrines
to realities, their knowledge of controlling the people, and the
growth of their qualities as statesmen have enabled them to prevent
the political disintegration of Russia against great odds. The errors
of their colleagues of Entente countries and the United States have
helped them over rough places. Most important of all, the outlawing of
Russia and the disregard of her sovereign rights and world interests
by other nations have given Lenin and his associates the impulsion to
defend Russia _as their country_ against the contemptuous rapacity of
other nations. Their activities in this direction won the approval of
all Russians, and gradually they began to see that their foreign policy
was their best card in appealing for popular support. They modified,
and then abandoned, their early theories of international relations as
cleverly as they abandoned their early theories of internal government.
This curious fact is not so curious after all when we consider that
the Russians are human beings, ignorant perhaps, but not at all
unintelligent, and that their reactions to the treatment their country
has received are what ours would be, were we in their place. The
instinct of self-preservation showed them the fallacy of the Bolshevist
economic theories. Our blockade and non-intercourse policy helped to
open their eyes to social and economic laws. Similarly, the Entente
policy of grab, of ignoring Russian interests, of punishing Germany, of
tolerating Poland’s inordinate territorial ambitions, taught the Soviet
leaders the absurdity of playing a lone hand at internationalism in a
world where none would follow their example but simply where all would
use their profession of disinterestedness to Russia’s disadvantage.
Signor Nitti knew what he was talking about when he said:
Russian hatred is growing more and more bitter towards those who,
during the war, drove her to the greatest sacrifices, but, when she
was crushed by force, took advantage of her fall, the fall of a
friendly people, to attempt to restore the most brutal absolutism
by reactionary armies, and then tried to impose a system of
capitulations, in order to obtain the monopoly of her raw materials
and hidden resources. In the future, even if Bolshevism has to
sustain the grave charge of having reduced Russia to extreme misery
by its experiments in Communism, it will have the glory of having
defended the liberty of the Russian people, and of having renounced
every offer of credit rather than forfeit or curtail Russian
liberty in the face of the foreigner.
The great economist who, as Italy’s premier, was one of the Big Three
during the eventful year after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles
saw underneath the surface and was able to realize that the manner
in which the Entente Powers were abusing their victory over Germany
was welding the Russian people together once more into a powerful and
united nation, convinced that its salvation lay in rallying round the
Soviet Government, arms in hand. Overboard went the absurd theory of an
army in which all the soldiers had an equal part in the discipline and
the determination of policy and strategy!
In 1918 the Moscow Soviet emphasized the right of self-determination
and encouraged the non-Russian peoples of the empire to establish their
independence on the theory that the new world was going to consist of
small nations, in which all peoples would have equal opportunities,
based on inherent rights, and not on the strength of their armies. With
what result? The French and British came into the Baltic states, the
French into Poland, and French and Greeks into Ukrainia, the British
into the Caucasus and northern Persia, and the Japanese into Siberia.
The Entente Powers, joined by the United States, seized Archangel,
aided the reactionaries in the Crimea, and took over the Transsiberian
Railway as a military line for operations against Moscow. Everywhere
they went these precious Allies declared that they were only trying to
deliver Russia from Germany. After Germany was beaten they said they
were remaining in order to restore order. But secretly they were all
the time trying to grab oil and coal and copper and wheat and timber,
and to organize the liberated peoples against Russia. While this was
going on, the Peace Conference was held at Paris, and it was seen
that none of the victors had any idea of applying the principle of
self-determination except against the vanquished and Russia. The whole
Paris settlement, including the League of Nations, read like a scheme
to eliminate Russia equally with Germany from the list of great powers.
Followed the continuation conferences in Europe and the Washington
Conference. Surely no European nation had greater interest than Russia
in the Near East and the Far East. Surely Russia was the European
nation most vitally interested in the creation of Poland, Greater
Rumania, the zone of the Straits, and the future of China; was equally
interested with Great Britain in the future of Persia; and had as vital
rights in the Pacific naval armaments as Japan, the United States, and
Great Britain. And could the League of Nations be regarded as an honest
effort to ameliorate international conditions without providing a
permanent place for Russia on its Council?
The thesis adopted by the victors was that the Soviet Government did
not represent the Russian people. But was it less representative than
the old Czarist Government, to which France and Great Britain had
allied themselves on equal terms? Was Lenin less entitled to speak for
Russia than a member of the British Cabinet for India? Were the Poles
more entitled to independence than the Irish? By what right did the
Entente Powers presume to give Bessarabia to Rumania? Why were British
armies in the Caucasus and northern Persia?
Wholly aside from its internal economic experiment, which was proving
a lamentable failure, the Moscow Government realized that Russia was
doomed to a worse fate than that of the conquered nations unless these
schemes were checkmated. Theories of international relations had to be
thrown overboard. Self-determination could not be used as a cloak by
the enemies of Russia for undermining the Russian Empire while they
refused to entertain self-determination as a principle to be applied
within their own empires.
Germany, powerless, had to submit to the dictates of the victors.
Russia did not. Warding off this danger, of course, meant the
abandonment of the ideals preached in 1917 and 1918. It meant the
return of militarism, of centralization of power in Moscow, and
probably of the old Czarist Imperialism. There was no choice, however.
The leaders of the Soviets soon became autocrats, militarists,
imperialists. As in their internal affairs, they continued to preach
cautiously the original doctrine, but in practice they fought fire
with fire. And they began to see that the new Russia, internally and
internationally, could not exist with policies radically different from
those of the old Russia unless the other nations changed at the same
time.
The first move was to get rid of the counter-revolutionary
insurrections. Successively Yudenitch, Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel
were utterly defeated. The next move was to bring back under the
central authority of Moscow the outlying provinces whose independence
was being used as a means of stealing Russia’s natural wealth and
organizing counter-revolutionary movements. The Soviet form of
government was successfully established in Ukrainia, the Caucasus
states, including Armenia, the central Asiatic emirates, and throughout
Siberia. This took several years, but, with the exception of Poland,
Bessarabia, and the Baltic states, it was accomplished before the end
of 1922 and entailed the evacuation of Siberia by the Japanese and of
the Caucasus by the British. The ill fated Archangel expedition was
allowed to freeze itself out.
Along with this astoundingly successful policy of reunifying Russia,
vigorous diplomatic campaigns were carried on, the first to bring
within the orbit of Russian influence the Asiatic neighbors, alliance
with whom was necessary to prevent a recurrence of the effort to
destroy the empire; and the second to reëstablish peace with European
neighbors and secure recognition from the larger powers, trade with
whom was necessary for the revival of Russian prosperity. The two
campaigns were carried on simultaneously, and the Asiatic objectives
were skilfully used to bring about the European ones.
Soviet Russia has not yet succeeded in coming to an understanding with
China, because of the continuance of civil war in that country. But the
policy of Moscow since the Washington Conference leaves no room for
doubt as to the complete change from the attitude of 1918, when Russia
gave up voluntarily all the rights and ambitions of the czarist régime.
Now that the Russians are back in Vladivostok and have resumed through
service on the Transsiberian Railway, they have once more taken over
the military control of Mongolia and are beginning to insist on their
rights in Northern Manchuria. It sounds like old times to read Comrade
Joffe’s answer to the protest of Peking:
There is none who could prove or so much as sincerely believe that
Russia pursues any selfish or imperialistic interests whatsoever
in this Mongolian question. The stationing of our troops there
concerns Chinese interests no less than Russian; and while, in
the name of my people, I reject energetically the demand for
their withdrawal from Urga, the only reason is that I am totally
convinced that not only would this be impossible at present from
the point of view of Russian interests, but that it would be
impossible also from the point of view of real Chinese interests,
rightly understood, let alone those of the good people of Mongolia.
No Czarist minister at his prime, no present-day Curzon or Poincaré
could have done better!
When the Bolshevists announced in the early part of 1918 their
intention of withdrawing from countries where Russia had no business
to be, Persia was the nation to whom an _amende honorable_ was most
due. Against no people had Czarist Russia sinned more than against
the Persians. In 1907 Petrograd had virtually partitioned Persia with
London, and by the secret treaty of 1915, in return for Constantinople,
the Czarist ministers agreed to let Great Britain have the middle zone,
which was to be maintained as neutral when the Russians occupied the
north and the British the south.
But Lenin and his associates soon discovered that their renunciation
of a sphere of influence in Persia, just as their recognizing the
independence of the Caucasus states, did not mean freedom for the
natives. The Germans, and then the British, occupied the Caucasus.
When the Russians withdrew from northern Persia, the British accepted
this as a sign of weakness and not as the initiation of a new policy.
British troops overran northern Persia, attempted to invade the
Transcaspian province and used the Persian port of Enzeli on the
Caspian Sea as a base of naval and military operations against Moscow.
Then, after having prevented the Persian delegation at the Peace
Conference from getting a hearing, the British intimidated the Teheran
Government into signing an agreement on August 9, 1919, placing Persia
completely in the power of Great Britain.
As soon as they had defeated the counter-revolutionary movements, the
Bolshevists forced the British to evacuate the Caucasus and aided the
Persians to expel the British from northern Persia. The treaty with the
British had not been ratified by the Persian Parliament. A new treaty
was concluded in 1921, this time with Moscow, which reëstablished
Persia as an independent nation, master of its own destinies.
British military weakness also enabled the Soviet leaders to encourage
Afghanistan to throw off the veiled British protectorate that had
existed for several decades. The Russo-Afghan treaty signed at Moscow
on October 16, 1920, was a success the Czarist Government had never
been able to attain. After the collapse of the Kolchak insurrection
and the restoration of Russian authority in Siberia the British
Government was compelled to recognize the independence of both Persia
and Afghanistan and to conclude treaties with these two countries on
terms as liberal as those granted by Russia. Consequently the Persians
were able to turn again to the United States in 1922 for a financial
commission, and the Afghans established legations at European capitals
and Washington.
Russia was freed of the constant menace of counter-revolutionary
movements originating in Persia and Afghanistan. On the other hand, her
new diplomatic position at Teheran and Kabul enabled her to bargain
with Great Britain. In return for the renewal of economic intercourse,
the Moscow Soviet promised the British to refrain from nationalist
propaganda against them in India and Mesopotamia.
This Anglo-Russian bargain shows how far from their original ideals the
Soviet leaders had traveled. The rights of peoples to determine their
own destinies had been the slogan of Bolshevist propaganda abroad.
It was to be the irresistible weapon to strike down capitalistic
imperialism in Asia. But Lenin, when he found that Russia simply had
to trade with England, played the game of world politics in the old
way. When the British lifted the embargo against trade with Russia, the
Russians were ready to stop the preaching, to the detriment of the
British Government, of their doctrines that were to emancipate a world
in slavery to capitalism!
The most signal--and cynical--success of the Bolshevists in forsaking
internationalism for nationalism has been the triumphant reëntry of
Russia as a factor in Near Eastern affairs. We have seen elsewhere how
the Entente Powers, after ignoring Russia in drawing up the treaties
that were to make the new map of Europe, believed that it was in their
power to settle the devolution of the Ottoman Empire. Rid, as they
thought, of the embarrassment of Russian claims to Constantinople and
to a sphere of influence in Asia Minor, they acted on the assumption
that the interests of three powers alone needed to be considered when,
at San Remo, they decided upon the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. Even
if they had preserved a united front, it would have been difficult to
ignore Russia. With the divergence of interests among them, the San
Remo compromise, leaving out Russia, was as absurd as it was futile.
This was soon discovered. The Turkish Nationalists at Angora naturally
appealed to Moscow for aid to prevent the dismemberment of their
country. A Russo-Turkish treaty was concluded in the autumn of 1920,
which was revised and strengthened in 1921 and 1922. Artillery,
airplanes, motor-lorries, gasoline, timber, and ammunition were given
to the Angora Government, which enabled Mustafa Kemal Pasha to drive
the French out of Cilicia and to check the advance of the Greeks in
Asia Minor. The Nationalists were thus enabled to become much stronger
than the intrigues of France and Italy had planned that they should
become. Owing to Russian support, the Turks at the Lausanne Conference
at the end of 1922 were defiant and refused to accept a modification of
the Treaty of Sèvres which would safeguard Entente economic interests
in the Ottoman Empire.
Foreign Minister Tchitcherin, who represented Russia at Lausanne, was
denied a seat at the peace table. The Entente Powers went to the point
of declaring that the future of the Straits was not Russia’s business.
This policy had unexpected results. Tchitcherin retaliated against
the attempt to exclude Russia by encouraging the Turks to refuse the
modified terms and the successive concessions of the Entente delegates.
Then he informed the Entente Powers that Russia’s consent was essential
if the new treaty was to be any more successful than the Treaty of
Sèvres had been.
Russian influence over the Turks was maintained, however, at the price
of giving up the one idealistic phase, the one redeeming feature,
in Russia’s traditional policy in the Near Eastern question. In the
nineteenth century Russia had defended the Christians of Turkey and the
Balkans, most of them of her own faith, against Mohammedan oppression,
and had been instrumental in securing the liberation, against the
wishes of the other Powers, of millions of Christians from the Ottoman
yoke. This glorious tradition was sacrificed in the alliance of the
Moscow Soviet with the Angora Nationalists. Talking recently with a
high-minded Russian, I deplored this. His answer was instructive.
“Your reproach amazes me,” said my Russian friend. “In the face of
what has happened since the World War, I do not see how you have the
audacity to make it. The Moscow Government does not pretend to have
any interest in Christianity. You other nations not only profess to
be Christian, but you reproach us for the anti-religious character of
the Bolshevist movement. But our relations with Angora are inspired by
the justifiable instinct of national self-preservation, and we do not
pretend to be Christians any longer. You have tumbled over yourselves
to placate the Turks, to make concessions to them of every kind, and
to get into their good graces. You have condoned the Armenian and
Greek massacres, and you have abandoned to the mercy of the Turks your
fellow-Christians, who are also your allies, and whom you encouraged
to provoke the Turks. You began by promising Christians emancipation,
and you have ended by inviting the Turks to join your League of
Nations. Your motive for all this--what is it? Simply to fill your
pocketbooks.”
With European countries and the United States, Soviet Russia has not
been so successful as with Asiatic countries. It is true that in the
Paris treaties we struck at the principle of the inviolability of
private property, and that by our consent to the actions of the French
in the Ruhr we have seemingly approved the Communist theory that the
property of individuals belongs to the state. It is true that in the
past we have repudiated national obligations and that at the present
time there are international debts unpaid and unfunded greater than
those that Russia owes abroad. Therefore, we might have forgiven Russia
for doing as we have done. But we cannot forgive her for preaching
subversive doctrines. A government can practise whatever it pleases.
But it must not preach that what it practises is right! This is the
fundamental principle of international relations that ostracizes Soviet
Russia. Other nations cannot be blamed for taking this attitude. Good
manners are the _sine qua non_ of harmonious intercourse. We are right
in insisting upon a radical change in Russia’s manners before we take
her back into our good society. How the philosophy of form does rule
and regulate us!
The Bolshevists made no progress during six years with the United
States. The Wilson administration declared that the Moscow Soviet did
not represent Russia and could not be recognized in any way because
its doctrines and practices were incompatible with those of civilized
nations. Bolshevist emissaries were deported. The matter ended there.
It has been easy for the United States under the Harding administration
to maintain the same policy. We have taken a generous humanitarian
interest in feeding the Russian people, but we do not feel impelled to
have anything to do with Lenin and his associates. We can wait years
longer, maintaining rigidly the policy of non-intercourse, because we
do not have important economic and political interests at stake.
With the Entente Powers the situation is different. They have been
called upon, separately and collectively, to decide their attitude
toward the Moscow Soviet. France, Italy, and Great Britain, being in
Europe and a part of Europe, and Japan, being in Asia and a part of
Asia, have not been able to maintain the fiction that the Moscow Soviet
is not the Russian Government. They know it is. Ostracizing Russia cuts
off their goods from vast markets. Ignoring Russia, as we have seen
above, makes uncertain of fulfilment, if not invalid, the results of
all diplomatic negotiations among themselves and with the neighbors of
Russia.
The British, admirable realists in international politics, were first
to grasp the cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the-face danger of keeping
Russia in Coventry. British trade was suffering, and the Russians were
in a position, which was daily growing stronger, to stir things up
unpleasantly against the British in India and Mesopotamia. A Soviet
delegation was received in London, and as soon as the British saw that
Kolchak had followed the fate of Yudenitch and Denikin they signed a
trade agreement and brought into court a test case to convince the
Bolshevists that what they exported would not be confiscated for claims
against the former Government. The British began to trade with Russia,
and British and Russians mutually promised to abstain from propaganda
against one another.
Italy and smaller countries soon followed suit. France made the mistake
of backing Baron Wrangel, still one more will-o’-the-wisp, and the
question of the enormous debt of the Czarist régime, most of it widely
distributed among French peasants, made it impossible for the French
Government to renew relations with Russia. On the other hand, France’s
persistence in backing counter-revolutionary movements, her support of
Poland, her effort to control the Little Entente, her commercial treaty
with Finland, her rôle at the Genoa Conference, and her treatment of
Germany combined to increase the bitterness between the closely allied
nations of pre-war days. In the summer of 1922 France began to make
overtures to Moscow; but these did not go far. The invasion of the
Ruhr, following upon the Lausanne Conference, widened the breach.
The first of the post-war conferences to which Russia was invited was
that of Genoa in the spring of 1922. At the very beginning of the
conference, however, France insisted that Russia, as the price of
political recognition, accept conditions that no delegates, having
the interest either of their country or political party at heart,
could have accepted. The opening sessions of the Genoa Conference were
so arranged as to give the Russian delegates the suspicion that the
conference was intending to discredit them. They resented the effort to
make them appear, as the Germans had been made to appear at Versailles,
as criminals and debtors. The financial proposals of the Entente Powers
they believed would reduce Russia to economic servitude, and they
refused to accept them.
The Russians at Genoa were confronted with the same unilateral
application of a principle as had confronted the Germans at Versailles.
They were told that the return of Russia into the family of nations
was dependent upon the recognition of the pre-war debt of Russia, upon
repayment of the sums borrowed by the Russian Government from the
Allies during the war, and upon the settlement of claims of foreigners
for property nationalized by the Soviet. The Russians answered that
they would be willing to do this if the Entente Powers would recognize
Russia’s equal right to participate in all the pecuniary and other
advantages of their victory, which these sums had been spent to obtain.
As for the claims of foreigners against the Soviet, Russia would
pay these if the Allies would pay for the confiscation of money and
the damages done by the anti-Soviet generals, Kolchak, Denikin, and
Wrangel, who had been armed by the Allies against Russia. The Russian
claims for damages were far greater than those presented by the Entente
Powers.
Soviet counter-claims were indignantly rejected. The Entente Powers had
no idea of admitting reciprocity, and insisted that Russia would have
to pay. Her claims against the Entente Powers were thrown out of court.
For several months Russia had been negotiating a treaty with Germany,
with whom there were claims on both sides to be adjusted. Since
Germany had been compelled by the Treaty of Versailles to renounce the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, there had been no new document to take its
place. Before Russians and Germans arrived at Genoa, the treaty had
not taken final form. But when the representatives of the two nations
saw that the Entente Powers intended to settle their affairs for them
by decisions secretly taken in pre-conference meetings from which they
were excluded, they withdrew to Rapallo, where the treaty was signed.
This disturbing news for the Entente Powers was announced on Easter
Sunday. The Russo-German treaty provided for mutual waiving of war
claims, with the stipulation that Russia should make no agreement with
a third power except on similar terms, and for the resumption of full
diplomatic relations.
The Entente statesmen protested vigorously against the conclusion
of a direct agreement of this character both to Dr. Rathenau and M.
Tchitcherin, asserting that it anticipated and prejudiced the general
principle of settlement with Russia, in which Germany’s interests were
the same as those of the other nations. The Germans were accused of bad
faith and the Russians of duplicity. Loudest in denunciation were Mr.
Lloyd George and M. Barthou. When Germans and Russians both answered
that the negotiations had begun long before the Genoa Conference, but
that anyway, even if they had not, the two delegations, excluded from
the secret conferences of the preceding fortnight, had only followed
the example given them by the British and French delegations, there was
a wrathful outburst.
The assumption was that Great Britain and France had the right to do
what they denied to Germany and Russia. Germany was a defeated nation.
Russia was an outlaw nation. They should not forget their complete
dependence upon the Entente Powers. There was truth in this contention
in so far as Germany was concerned. Germany was at the mercy of the
Entente Powers for the time being. But Russia was not at their mercy,
and the Russian delegates did not see why any such illusion should be
entertained by the Entente statesmen. When they demanded reciprocity
in adjusting claims for damages and obligations contracted during the
war, it did not occur to them that they were “insolent,” as Mr. Lloyd
George put it, or “impudent,” as M. Barthou said. The only positive
result of the Genoa conference was the Russo-German treaty. Tchitcherin
and his colleagues rejected the conditions of the Entente Powers and
left Genoa, declaring that they would never sign any agreement except
on the basis of reciprocity in the fullest sense of the word. They did
not intend to barter Russia’s economic independence for political
recognition.
The year following the Genoa Conference was one of rebuffs and
disillusion for Russia in her attempt to secure recognition from the
Entente Powers and the United States. Up to the Genoa Conference it
had seemed as if the Moscow Soviet was going to win out in the fight
for re-entrance into the family and councils of the great powers.
Great Britain and Italy had modified their original attitude; and
after the conference France appeared to be considering the negotiation
of a trade agreement. The French were greatly exercised over the
Russo-German treaty, and the French press began to warn the Government
that it would be foolish to allow Germany and Great Britain to secure
a favored commercial position in the country that had been so long
and so intimately connected with France. From the very fact of the
large French investments, was the policy followed at Genoa a wise
one? And could France afford to stand by and make no effort while
Berlin established intimate relations with Moscow? M. Herriot, senator
and former mayor of Lyons, made a visit to Moscow, which was not
unfavorably commented upon in newspapers that had been most bitterly
anti-Bolshevist. Those Frenchmen who were interested in the Near East
kept insisting that France could not afford to let Soviet Russia
become too powerful at Angora any more than at Berlin.
The olive branch was withdrawn, however, soon after the opening of
the Lausanne Conference. French statesmen felt that Tchitcherin
was a potent factor for mischief with the Turkish delegation, and
should at no costs be allowed to have any say in the conference. The
encouragement given by Russia to Germany in the passive resistance in
the Ruhr demonstrated the futility of the hope entertained for a few
months that a rapprochement with Russia might prove politically and
commercially advantageous to France.
Great Britain and France stood together in deciding to exclude
Russia from active participation in the Lausanne Conference with the
approval of the new government in Italy. The Fascisti had always
been anti-Bolshevist, and Mussolini reversed the policy of his
predecessors. Tchitcherin was told that Russia would be allowed to
sign the convention concerning the Straits, to be embodied in the new
treaty with Turkey, but could have no part in drafting the convention
or in discussing other provisions of the treaty. Since Russia was
more interested in the Lausanne decisions than any other great
power, the policy of refusing her active participation in making the
treaty, especially the clauses relating to the Straits, angered the
Russians. They became a powerful factor in encouraging Ismet Pasha.
The conference broke up. The Entente Powers were incensed, and did
not invite Russia to send a delegation when the conference met again
in April, 1923. Notwithstanding this the Soviet minister at Rome was
ordered to Lausanne, where he was assassinated in a restaurant. This
tragedy led to a renewed declaration that whatever agreement was
reached at Lausanne would be considered null and void by Russia.
At the same time public opinion all over the world was aroused because
of the execution of two high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic
Church in Russia, and the persecution of Orthodox clergy, following
demonstrations against religion in Petrograd and Moscow that were
reminiscent of what had happened in Paris during the French Revolution.
Moscow became embroiled also with Great Britain over fishing rights on
the Mourman coast and alleged infractions of the agreement to refrain
from nationalist propaganda in Asia. The British Foreign Office sent
an ultimatum, threatening to break off trade relations. Tchitcherin
answered, requesting a new conference to discuss moot questions.
In the last year of the World War the Bolshevist movement failed to
carry with it Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland, and Bessarabia.
The Ukraine was a battle-field for nearly two years. In this the
largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the republics that proclaimed
their separation from the empire following the 1917 revolution, the
Bolshevists, from the beginning of their rule, managed to keep a close
connection with Moscow. The fiction of separate national existence was
maintained, and Ukrainia had her own delegations at peace conferences
and in whatever dealings Russia had with the outside world. But, as
in the Caucasus, the term “Federated Soviet Republics” did not mean
real independence. Moscow came more and more to dominate as Petrograd
had done in Czarist days. This held true also in Siberia as the
Bolshevists gradually won back for Russia the vast regions from Samara
to Vladivostok.
Throughout 1919 Soviet Russia was at war with Finns, Esthonians,
Latvians, and Lithuanians. The Finns were in a fortunate geographical
position, and had behind them a separate national existence which
made comparatively easy the formation of their state. The principal
difficulty with the Soviets, once the Bolshevist insurrection had
failed in the interior of Finland, was the fixing of the frontier.
Conditions in the other three Baltic provinces were complicated because
there were no historic frontiers, and Lithuanians and Poles were both
claiming the district of Vilna, the majority of whose inhabitants
were neither Lithuanians nor Poles but White Russians. Also, the
Entente Powers tried to use Esthonia and Latvia as bases for fomenting
and launching counter-revolutionary movements. Russia would probably
have succeeded in Bolshevizing Esthonia and Latvia, and in winning
the support of Lithuania, had it not been for the hostility of these
Baltic races to Bolshevist economic doctrines and for the failure of
the Bolshevist armies to subdue Poland. Moscow concluded treaties with
her four former Baltic provinces, recognizing their independence, and
concentrated her attention upon Poland.
The one great military disaster of Soviet Russia has been the sudden
change from victory to defeat in the drive against Warsaw in the
summer of 1920. Polish delegates had already appeared at Minsk to
conclude peace upon favorable terms when the fortune of arms changed.
The Russian armies were routed, and Moscow changed rôles with Warsaw.
The would-be dictators of peace had to accept harsh terms. The Treaty
of Riga, signed on October 12, 1920, is discussed elsewhere. It
gave Poland a boundary far east of the line proposed at the Paris
Conference, which the friends and allies of Poland had so drawn as to
include all the territory that might be regarded, on the most liberal
calculations, as having “an indisputably Polish ethnic majority.”
Poland exacted of Russia fifty-five thousand square miles, inhabited by
seven million people, of whom only 4 per cent were Poles. In addition
to this loss of territory, the Russians were required to reimburse the
Poles with gold for requisitions made during the war and to return to
Poland historic treasures, archives, pictures, and manuscripts that had
been in Russian state museums since 1772.
There was historic justice in these restitutions, and the Bolshevists
did not resist the demands. But the terms of the Treaty of Riga
incensed the Russian intellectuals, who hate Poles worse than
Bolshevists. The defeat before Warsaw, far from causing the Moscow
Soviet to collapse, resulted in rallying round Lenin, especially
for the army, elements whose support he had not before been able to
command. The territorial greed of Poland, afterward demonstrated to the
disadvantage of the Ukrainians by the incorporation of Eastern Galicia,
increased the hatred of the Russians and contributed in large measure
to the new nationalism which has become so unexpected a development in
the Soviet régime.
Czechoslovakia, created by the Peace Conference without consulting
Russia, has managed to keep on good terms with her big Slav cousin. The
Czechoslovak Legion did great harm to the Bolshevists in Siberia, but,
as it had been launched before the birth of Czechoslovakia, the Prague
Government was not held responsible for it. During the Russian drive on
Poland in 1920 Czechoslovakia, like Germany, declared her neutrality.
The premier, Dr. Benes, like Premier Nitti of Italy, believed that the
Bolshevists could not help being recognized as the party indisputably
in the saddle. Czechoslovak policy, therefore, dictated the wisdom
and prudence of _de facto_ relations with Russia; and after the Genoa
Conference Prague and Moscow exchanged trade missions, with diplomatic
immunity and the right to issue passports.
After the collapse of Germany, Rumania had renounced the Treaty of
Bucharest and received delegates in her Parliament, elected by a
Bessarabian assembly, which had declared the union of this Russian
province with the Rumanian Kingdom. In March, 1920, the union was
recognized by the Entente Powers without consultation with Russia.
This was one of the most important decisions taken by the former
allies of Russia. For it was the first one by which they arrogated
to themselves the right to dispose of a Russian province summarily.
Moscow, of course, declared the decision null and void, and the status
of Bessarabia has yet to be definitely settled.
In this brief survey I have tried to show how the question of Russian
national unity has not been subordinated to the Bolshevist régime but
has rather dominated it. The economic theories of Bolshevism died of
their own inherent impracticability. In view of the policies adopted
by the Entente Powers, the idealistic world policy of the Bolshevists
had to give way to aggressive nationalism. Russia is becoming again
a capitalistic country. She has strong reasons for insisting upon a
revision of the peace settlements, and she is slowly building up her
army and her international affiliations with the intention of demanding
a new deal, in which her interests as a great power will be considered
as equal to those of the other great powers, not as a matter of right
or logic, but because her force will once more match the force of other
great powers.