_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
I left Moscow on Saturday, the 10th of October, by the courier’s train
which was carrying despatches for Joffe, the head of the Soviet Peace
Mission, and arrived in Riga on the morning of Tuesday, the 13th.
There travelled with me an English officer, Capt. J. S. Campbell, late
of the Gunners, who had been captured by the Reds in January when on the
Pechora River, East of Archangel, on a timber survey, and who had spent
a considerable time in prison both in Archangel and in Petrograd. My
other travelling companions were Mr. Hopwood, the assistant manager of
Kodak, who had been in Moscow for eighteen years, and his two daughters.
Both Campbell and myself will always affectionately remember the
charming reception given us by Col. Tallents, the British Commissioner
to the Baltic states, and the assistance which was rendered us by Mr.
Louden the British Consul. While in Riga we also saw Mr. Young, the
American Commissioner, to whom we gave all the latest information
respecting Americans held prisoners in Moscow.
In Riga we found it difficult to realize that we had finally escaped
from the Bolsheviks, and it was only when we arrived in London, on Oct.
19, having travelled via Berlin, that we really felt that at last we had
reached safety and civilization.
‘_Gang of Marauders._’
In London I found people who were interested in Russia actively
discussing the proposed trading agreement with the Bolsheviks, but
nobody who had had any experience of them supported the scheme or were
other than strongly opposed to it. I have spent the best part of the
last three years in Russia, partly with the Reds and partly with the
Whites, and during the whole of that time I occupied myself as a
business man.
All my personal business interests are centred in Russia, and I have
everything to gain by resumption of trade with that country, but
notwithstanding, I am absolutely and uncompromisingly opposed to any
trade relations whatsoever with the Soviet power. I shall have nothing
whatever to do with Russia in so far as trading is concerned while the
Bolsheviks remain in power. I regard trading with the gang of marauders
who now wield power in that country as unsound in theory and in
practice.
The basis of all business is credit, and the basis of credit is
reputation. The Bolsheviks are thieves. Their word is worthless and
their stock in trade is principally stolen gold, and I decline to become
a receiver of stolen property even at the instigation of the British
Government.
Mr. W. B. Vanderlip told me in Moscow that as soon as Mr. Harding took
office the United States would recognize the Soviet Government and
trading between the States and Russia, would be in full swing this
coming year.
With all due respect to Mr. Vanderlip and his fantastic contract (which
is not worth the paper it is written on) I do not believe that the
United States of America will have anything whatever to do with the
Soviet Government or that the United States Government will follow the
lead of the British Government by entering into an ignoble contract with
the biggest bunch of murderers and scoundrels the world has ever seen,
or do any act which will tend to increase the power of a gang of
marauders whose aim is to smother the truly democratic form of
government which obtains in the States, and in the building up and
protection of which the sons of America have so gallantly shed their
blood in the past.
I should like the people of America to know that, apart from Mr. H. G.
Wells and certain misguided members of the British Government, there are
only two classes of people in England who desire that England should
trade with the Bolsheviks, viz: those manufacturers and merchants who
have large stocks of goods on hand which they are unable to dispose of,
and the Direct Action people and their associates. Outside these two
classes the people of England are opposed to any dealings with Lenine &
Co.
“_The Enemies of Mankind._”
For those manufacturers and merchants, whether they be English or
American, who wish to trade with the Bolsheviks, I have nothing but
contempt. They are the sort of people who fleeced their respective
countries during the war, who lost no opportunity of taking advantage of
their country’s plight, and to-day they are willing to deal with the
enemies of mankind, if by so doing they can fill their own pockets.
There are not more than one per cent. of real Bolsheviks in the whole of
Russia. The anti-Bolshevik elements in that country are unitedly opposed
to the lifting of the blockade. Whilst they appreciate that to a certain
extent their present deplorable conditions of existence would be
somewhat improved by the importation of goods of first necessity, they
prefer to undergo still greater hardships if by so doing they can bring
about the overthrow and final destruction of Bolshevism.
Mr. Wells has stated that the Russian population is roughly content with
the Bolshevist rule. I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Wells gained
the impression of “roughly content.” Had Mr. Wells spent a year in
Russia, as a free agent, unhampered by Bolshevik guides, and then made
the statement that the population was “roughly content,” I should have
characterized it as a cold, calculated lie, but inasmuch as he only
spent two weeks in Petrograd and thirty hours in Moscow (I was there at
the same time), we can attribute the statement to ignorance; in fact,
Mr. Wells has shown himself as remarkably ignorant in relation to many
of the vital factors of the Russian situation.
I do not believe that the honest trades unionist in any country is in
favor of that form of government which the Bolshevists have instituted
in Russia. I cannot but feel that if the genuine trades unionist in
England and America possessed the same first hand knowledge that I do of
Bolshevist rule he would be willing that the Government of his country
should trade with the Soviet Power and thereby strengthen it.
Nowhere in the world to-day is the genuine workingman so badly treated
as he is in Russia. Labor is conscripted and trades unions have been
abolished. The workingman has apparently no rights and no voice in the
government of his country. He is denied the right to strike or to
protest against his grossly inadequate wages.
The Bolshevist government is the government of the militant minority.
That minority comprises principally the criminal elements of the
country. Lenine time and again stated that the people, taken as a whole,
are too ignorant to be allowed to have a voice in the government of
their country. He maintains that the country should be governed by the
dictatorship of strong men who should decide what is good for the
people, and, having decided, should enforce their will upon the people
by means of military power.