RUSSIA AND ITS BORDERS
Another group of wars and threats of war has its centre in Moscow. All
the States on the borders of Russia--Finland, Lithuania, Poland, the
Ukraine, Hungary, Rumania, the new republics of Georgia, Armenia, and
Azerbaijan, and the kingdom of Persia--are either at war or in fear of
war or just recovering from war with Russia, or from civil war fomented
by Russian agents and propagandists. Inside Russia itself, civil war has
never ceased since the first outbreak of the Revolution in 1917. It is
true that the civil war has been largely helped by foreign munitions and
stirred up by foreign intrigues. But that only shows that--as the world
is now organized--there is something in the present Russian Government
which makes foreigners as well as Russians wish to take up arms against
it. It may have been--I think strongly that it was--exceedingly unwise
for the foreign Governments to intervene in the domestic troubles of
Russia, but no one can pretend that the civil war was entirely created
by foreigners. The rebellions were there before the foreigners joined
in, and it is even thought by good judges that the opposition to the
Bolsheviks might by this time have been successful if it had not been
damned in Russian eyes by its foreign alliances.
For us the question is how the Russian Revolution has become such a
plenteous and intense cause of strife. It is, of course, impossible to
pass judgment on the whole of a vast movement with the very inadequate
information that is now accessible to an average Englishman about
Russia. Even the French Revolution, which has been studied by thousands
of observers and historians, is not yet judged. The sum of infamies and
high achievements is too complicated to add up. And the Russian
Revolution is probably even harder to value than the French.
I. THE CIVIL WAR
It would be a mistake to forget the elements of simple early-Christian
brotherhood which seem to characterize the Russian peasant. It was well
known before the war how the members of a workmen's _artel_, or trade
community, when trade was bad, would divide their earnings equally and
all starve, if need be, together, without any attempt by the luckier
workmen to save themselves at the expense of the others. The glowing
descriptions of Mr. Stephen Graham cannot be entirely without any basis
in fact. And the people of Tolstoy and Dostoievsky have evidently a most
rare capacity for sainthood and martyrdom, as well as for aberration of
mind. Present-day Russia has been described by an eminent Socialist as
"a nation of artists governed by brutes," and the phrase is probably
true of the old Russia also, and the Russia of centuries back. Communism
comes easily in Russia, and so does submission to tyranny.
It must also be remembered that the Great War, among its many aspects,
involved the most frightful and bewildering oppression of the poor and
weak. As was said quite truly: "Millions of poor men in divers regions
of the world have been dragged suddenly and without any previous action
of their own into a quarrel which they neither made nor desired nor
understood, and in the course of that quarrel have been subjected again
and again to the very extremity of possible human suffering." The war
naturally and inevitably created in Europe a passionate wish for some
revolutionary transformation of a world in which rich and clever people
in parliaments and governments had the power of inflicting such pains
upon the poor. The peculiarity of the Bolshevik movement was, as one of
its rare English admirers puts it, not so much that it wanted a
particular kind of Socialism or Communism, but that it wanted it _now_.
The world has seen many revolutions and many Socialist governments; but
they have never really established that paradise of the poor which was
advertised in their prospectuses and doubtless nursed in their hopes.
Most failed altogether. And those which succeeded went wrong. They
coöperated with "bourgeois Liberals." They extended the franchise, they
improved the condition of the working classes, they established
well-to-do workmen and peasants with a stake in the country and a
conservative bias; but they never really did what was wanted. They
always stopped short. They developed the middle-class virtues. They left
still in existence a capitalist class which preached the merits of
thrift and hard work and was interested in trade; and of course they
left always somewhere an oppressed class. The under dog was still under.
The Bolshevik remedy was very direct and simple. It was to disarm
everybody who had any share in prosperity, and distribute firearms to
those who had nothing else. Only when he was armed and the rest of the
people unarmed could the real proletarian--the man who had no savings,
no talent, no education, no notable good qualities, nothing that makes
for success in life--hope to beat the men who always outstripped him. It
is strange that even in a moment of extreme misery such a theory could
have established itself in any country as a principle of government. But
the military collapse of Russia gave it a unique chance. The common
soldiers, anxious to fight no more, already possessed arms. They had
merely to murder their officers and the thing was done. The rest of the
population was unarmed and helpless. And meantime the peasants, though
almost untouched by revolutionary ideas, were amenable to one particular
bribe. The revolutionaries offered all the peasants of Russia their
masters' land without any payment. They could simply take the land, and
kill or not kill the owner as they pleased. There was no punishment for
such killing. According to strict Communist principles, the land was not
to remain in the peasants' possession. It was to be the property of the
State. But this principle had to be dropped in order to induce the
peasants to coöperate with the revolutionary town workmen. Whatever may
be said in favour of this revolution, there can at least be no surprise
at what Lenin calls "the frantic resistance" of the upper and middle
classes of Russia. The policy of the Government was announced on January
23, 1919: "The present is the period of destruction and crushing of the
capitalist system of the whole world. . . . In order to establish the
dictatorship of the proletariate it is necessary to disarm the
bourgeoisie and its agents and to arm the proletariate." It is to be
dictatorship in the strict sense: the power of a man with a gun to do
what he likes with those who have no guns. There is to be no democracy
or representation of the dispossessed classes. If they were represented
they might recover power. Only those known to be faithful to the new
Government are to vote. All persons of property must be dispossessed,
from landlords to small shop-keepers. Rich peasants must go; even
"middle peasants" at one time had to go; only the poorest peasants and
the poorest town workmen should rule, assisted, of course, by those
educated people who would accept the new régime and establish by deeds
beyond doubt their hatred of the bourgeoisie.
The control of a country by a small minority is always difficult. It
needs methods of "terror." But this minority had first to acquire the
control and then to maintain it. Its task was more difficult and its
methods had to be more violent than those of its predecessors. The
"terror" of the old Czarist Government or of the French Revolution must
be superseded by the more drastic method of what was called "mass
terror." The secret police, whose activities had made hideous the record
of the Czarist Government, and who had fled for their lives at the first
outbreak of the Lvof and Kerensky Revolution, returned from their
lurking-places to put themselves at the disposal of the Bolsheviks. This
legion of devils had something to sell which the new Government badly
needed. On the analogy of the _Comité de Salut Public_ there was
established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for stamping out
all trace of resistance to the new order. Spies were placed everywhere
(Proclamation, October 17, 1918). No distinction was to be made between
Czarist reactionaries and unorthodox Socialists, such as the Mensheviks
and Social Revolutionaries (_Russkaya Zhizn_, May 10, 1919). Enormous
numbers of "hostages" were arrested. At any sign of conspiracy outside,
large numbers of these were shot. The assassination of the Bolshevik
Uritzky was repaid by the execution of five hundred citizens. Yet, just
as in the most furious days of the French Revolution, the terrorists
were always complaining that there was not enough terror. "The continual
discovery of conspiracies in our rear . . . the insignificant extent of
serious repressions and mass shootings of White Guards and bourgeoisie
on the part of the Soviets, show that notwithstanding frequent
pronouncements urging mass terror against the Social Revolutionaries,
White Guards, and bourgeoisie, no real terror exists" (Official Weekly
of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, No. 1, Moscow, September
21, 1918).
Trotzky in comforting language explained that the object of the mass
terror was not really the extermination of all non-communists, or all
Russians who did not attain the full standard of poverty and orthodoxy.
"The proletariate says: 'I shall break your will because my will is
stronger than yours, and I shall force you to serve me.' . . . Terror as
the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class is
historically justified" (Trotzky in _Izvestia_, January 10, 1919).
Eventually, of course, when all Russia was submissive and all Europe
Communist, there would be a gentler régime, and the proletariate would
show their true beauty of character. And it would be a mistake to ignore
the real reforms which seem to have been carried through in certain
social services, notably in the care of children, the attempt to develop
popular education and the putting down of drink. But in the meantime
terror was reënforced by ingenious petty persecutions and indignities,
reënforced by starvation. Those who joined the Red Army had three times
the ration of food allowed to several categories of the civil
population. No one can wonder that suicide--that last irrefutable
evidence of unbearable oppression--became extraordinarily common,
especially among the educated classes,[4] and that "frantic resistance"
broke out where it had any prospect of success.
[Footnote 4: The remnants of the more distinguished "intellectuals" are
now gathered into two or three "salvage houses" and looked after by
Maxim Gorky. [He has now fled.]]
II. RUSSIA'S NEIGHBOURS
But what of the war outside Russia? Why could not the Russians be
allowed to conduct their revolution and settle their form of government
by themselves? It would be very desirable if they could. And doubtless
it is the aim to be striven for. But the trouble is that Bolshevism is
to its adherents a revelation and a new gospel, and they have the same
zeal for converting the rest of the world as had the French
Revolutionaries or the followers of Mohammed. "The program of the
Communist Party is not merely a program of liberating the proletariate
of one country; it is the program of liberating the proletariate of the
world" (authorized pamphlet by N. Bukharin, July 24, 1918). This is to
be achieved by "a bloody torturing and heroic fight." The methods are to
include every known form of intrigue, corruption, forgery, and the
like, and the plan is to be the same in all countries. Revolutionary
workmen are to be armed, including common soldiers, tramps, prisoners,
and all the utterly dispossessed of the earth, except, of course, those
who have Conservative, Liberal, or Labour Party views; and then are to
work their proletarian will on the rest of the community. The "national
will" is to be disregarded: "The interests of Socialism stand far above
the interest of the right of nations to self-determination" (Trotzky,
_Izvestia_, March 8, 1918). "All our hopes for the definitive triumph of
Socialism are based on this conviction and on this scientific prevision,
i.e. that a revolution like the Russian can be produced in all the
nations of Europe" (_ib._). In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the
Bolsheviks were compelled to sign a clause promising not to conduct "any
agitation against the State and military institutions of Germany." "But
both the Russian Government as a whole and its accredited representative
in Berlin never concealed the fact that they were not observing this
article, and did not intend to do so" (Joffe, _Izvestia_, January 1,
1919).
The belief that by some single violent change in social, political, or
economic conditions human life as a whole can be suddenly transfigured
is one that clings to many minds, and by no means the stupidest minds,
of the present age, in spite of much disillusioning experience. It does
seem to them at moments as if only some one thing was wrong with the
world, and as if that one flaw must surely be definite and remediable:
some one bold step is all that is needed--say, the abolition of the
family, or of property, or of competition, or of wages, or of interest,
or of compulsory law, or some other of the fundamental institutions of
society.
To our ancestors it was the abolition of heresy. To the Turks, the
abolition of all Christians in Turkey. To such people at such times the
normal method of trying to correct the worst abuses by persuading the
majority that they ought to be corrected, and of seeking individually to
live a better life and to help one's neighbours, seems tedious and
ineffective, if not hypocritical. But one thing that is clear is that
revolution means "frantic resistance," and the stronger the faith and
energy behind the revolution the more deep-reaching is the resistance
likely to be.
Russia's neighbours see what seems to them the infinite misery and
impoverishment and retardation inflicted by Bolshevism; and they are
naturally indignant and alarmed at the secret propaganda of Bolshevism
within their own borders. In normal times perhaps they need not have
been afraid. But since the war every state is unstable; every state has
a large discontented class. The small republics in the Caucasus, barely
able to support themselves in freedom, are maddened to find their
constitution threatened by Russian bribes, their malcontents and bad
characters armed with Russian rifles and machine guns, and their public
men assassinated. Georgia and Armenia are probably doomed. Hungary and
Finland have gone Bolshevik and returned, each process being accompanied
by hideous persecutions and murders, the reprisals being naturally the
worst. Germany, in spite of all treaties, has been exposed to constant
propaganda and has had one or two bad outbreaks of violence. Poland has
been and still is--whether through her own bad policy or otherwise--on
the brink of compulsory Bolshevism. Human nature being what it is, and
human politics a little worse than private human nature, it is
inevitable that Russia's neighbours should be constantly afraid of her
and intensely anxious to see her again under some more normal
government; some government which, whatever its political bias, would
leave its neighbours to govern themselves and accept the ordinary
conventions of civilized society.
Nay, one can even understand anti-Russian policies that seem at first
sight intolerably aggressive. The Poles, among other demands, are
anxious for the independence of White Russia, the region north of the
Pripet, of which Minsk is the chief town. They wish it either annexed to
Poland or else made independent, but at any rate cut off from Russia.
The claim seems monstrous. But it has its excuse. The White Russian
peasantry are said to be peculiarly ignorant and devoid of national
feeling; the land-owners and well-to-do classes are mostly Poles. Is it
surprising that the Poles of Poland hate the idea of handing their
countrymen over to a Russia which will, as a matter of course, set the
peasants to burn their houses, destroy their cattle, and hunt them
themselves down like vermin? And when that is done, they reflect,
Bolshevism will only be nearer to Warsaw.
Like the early Moslems, the true Bolsheviks care more for their faith
than for territory. In dealing with Lithuania, which is at present a
comparatively quiet little peasant republic, the Russians offered her a
large slice of territory beyond what she was entitled to or wanted. Why?
Because it was a thoroughly Bolshevized area, and might be expected to
spread the faith--or the poison--into all Lithuania. A nation, or a
government, in that state of mind cannot be surprised if its neighbours
regard it with anxiety.
* * * * *
It is a curious fact that revolutionists so often regard themselves as
pacifists. Many were even conscientious objectors during the war, and
there is no reason to doubt that they were sincere. But they do seem to
be confused thinkers. To hate your neighbours, whom you know, and love
your neighbours' enemies, whom you do not know, is a consistent and not
uncommon frame of mind; though the element of love in it seems less
important and prominent than the hate. But to expect European peace and
good-will by means of a revolution in all countries argues a lack of
understanding not far removed from madness. Every revolutionary outburst
since the war has been marked by ferocious cruelties and followed by
still more ferocious reprisals. Revolution leads not to peace, but to
reciprocal reigns of terror, first Red and then White, till the
exhaustion of suffering produces some sort of equilibrium.
The war, among its many evil lessons, has inculcated the gospel of
impatience and of force. "When you want a thing, take it from some one,
and if he resists, knock him down." It is the doctrine which destroys
human societies as it destroys the peace in men's own hearts. If we
want peace, we must simply unlearn that creed and go back to the old
Liberal doctrine that is at the root of sound politics everywhere: "If
you think something is right, try to persuade your fellow citizens of
it; try your hardest, but remember that you may be wrong, and until you
succeed, have patience."