guaranteed the retrocession. Baron Makino declared it at the Conference.
Cf. _The_ (London) _Times_, February 13, 1919; also on May 5, 1919; and
Viscount Uchida confirmed it on May 17, 1919. It had also been stated in
the Japanese ultimatum to Germany, August 15, 1914, and repeated by
Viscount Uchida at the beginning of August, 1919.
[258] Mr. Thomas Millard, some of whose letters were published by _The
New York Times_. Cf. _Le Temps_, July 29, 1919.
[259] _The Chicago Tribune_ (Paris edition), August 20, 1919.
X
ATTITUDE TOWARD RUSSIA
In their dealings with Russia the principal plenipotentiaries
consistently displayed the qualities and employed the standards, maxims,
and methods which had stood them in good stead as parliamentary
politicians. The betterment of the world was an idea which took a
separate position in their minds, quite apart from the other political
ideas with which they usually operated. Overflowing with verbal
altruism, they first made sure of the political and economic interests
of their own countries, safeguarding or extending these sources of
power, after which they proceeded to try their novel experiment on
communities which they could coerce into obedience. Hence the aversion
and opposition which they encountered among all the nations which had to
submit to the yoke, and more especially among the Russians.
Russia's opposition, widespread and deep-rooted, is natural, and history
will probably add that it was justified. It starts from the assumption,
which there is no gainsaying, that the Conference was convoked to make
peace between the belligerents and that whatever territorial changes it
might introduce must be restricted to the countries of the defeated
peoples. From all "disannexations" not only the Allies' territories, but
those of neutrals, were to be exempted. Repudiate this principle and the
demands of Ireland, Egypt, India to the benefits of self-determination
became unanswerable. Belgium's claim to Dutch Limburg and other
territorial oddments must likewise be allowed. Indeed, the plea actually
put forward against these was that the Conference was incompetent to
touch any territory actually possessed by either neutral or Allied
states. Ireland, Egypt, and Dutch Limburg Were all domestic matters with
which the Conference had no concern.
Despite this fundamental principle Russia, the whilom Ally, without
whose superhuman efforts and heroic sacrifices her partners would have
been pulverized, was tacitly relegated to the category of hostile and
defeated peoples, and many of her provinces lopped off arbitrarily and
without appeal. None of her representatives was convoked or consulted on
the subject, although all of them, Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist, were
at one in their resistance to foreign dictation.
The Conference repeatedly disclaimed any intention of meddling in the
internal affairs of any other state, and the Irish, the Egyptian, and
several other analogous problems were for the purposes of the Conference
included in this category. On what intelligible grounds, then, were the
Finnish, the Lettish, the Esthonian, the Georgian, the Ukrainian
problems excluded from it? One cannot conceive a more flagrant violation
of the sovereignty of a state than the severance and disposal of its
territorial possessions against its will. It is a frankly hostile act,
and as such was rightly limited by the Conference to enemy countries.
Why, then, was it extended to the ex-Ally? Is it not clear that if
reconstituted Russia should regard the Allied states as enemies and
choose the potential enemies of these as its friends, it will be
legitimately applying the principles laid down by the Allies themselves?
No expert in international law and no person of average common sense
will seriously maintain that any of the decisions reached in Paris are
binding on the Russia of the future. No problem which concerns two
equal parties can be rightfully decided by only one of them. The
Conference which declared itself incompetent to impose on Holland the
cession to Belgium even of a small strip of territory on one of the
banks of the Belgian river Scheldt cannot be deemed authorized to sign
away vast provinces that belonged to Russia. Here the plea of the
self-determination of peoples possesses just as much or as little
cogency as in the case of Ireland and Egypt.
President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George had inaugurated their East
European policy by publicly proclaiming that Russia was the key to the
world situation, and that the peace would be no peace so long as her
hundred and fifty million inhabitants were left floundering in chaotic
confusion, under the upas shade of Bolshevism. They had also held out
hopes to their great ex-ally of efficient help and practical counsel.
And there ended what may be termed the constructive side of their
conceptions.
It was followed by no coherent action. Discourses, promises, maneuvers,
and counter-maneuvers were continuous and bewildering, but of systematic
policy there was none. Statesmanship in the higher sense of the word was
absent from every decision the delegates took and from every suggestion
they proffered. Nor was it only by omission that they sinned. Their
invincible turn for circuitous methods, to which severer critics give a
less sonorous name, was manifested _ad nauseam_. They worked out cunning
little schemes which it was hard to distinguish from intrigues, and
which, if they had not been foiled in time, would have made matters even
worse than they are. From the outset the British government was for
summoning Bolshevist delegates to the Conference. A note to this effect
was sent by the London Foreign Office to the Allied governments about a
fortnight before the delegates began their work of making peace. But
the suggestion was withdrawn at the instance of the French, who doubted
whether the services of systematic lawbreakers would materially conduce
to the establishment of a new society of law-abiding states. Soon
afterward another scheme cropped up, this time for the appointment of an
Inter-Allied committee to watch over Russia's destinies and serve as a
sort of board of Providence. The representatives of the anti-Bolshevist
governments resented this notion bitterly. They remarked that they could
not be fairly asked to respect decisions imposed on them exactly as
though they were vanquished enemies like the Germans. The British and
American delegates were swayed in their views mainly by the assumptions
that all central Russia was in the power of Lenin; that his army was
well disciplined and powerful; that he might contrive to hold the reins
of government and maintain anarchism indefinitely, and that the
so-called constructive elements were inclined toward reaction.
In other words, the delegates accepted two sets of premises, from which
they drew two wholly different sets of conclusions. Now they felt
impelled to act on the one, now on the other, but they could never make
up their minds to carry out either. They agreed that Bolshevism is a
potent solvent of society, fraught with peril to all organized
communities, yet they could not resolve to use joint action to extirpate
it.[260] They recognized that so long as it lasted there was no hope of
establishing a community of nations, but they discarded military
intervention on grounds of their own internal policy, and because it ran
counter to the principle of self-determination. Over against that
principle, however, one had to set the circumstance that they were
already intermeddling in Russian affairs in Archangel, Murmansk,
Odessa, and elsewhere, and that they ended by creating a new state and
government in northwestern Russia, against which Kolchak and Denikin
vehemently protested.
In mitigation of judgment it is only fair to take into account the
tremendous difficulties that faced them; their unfamiliarity with the
Russian problem; the want of a touchstone by which to test the
overwhelming mass of conflicting information which poured in upon them;
their constitutional lack of moral courage, and the circumstance that
they were striving to reconcile contradictories. Without chart or
compass they drifted into strange and sterile courses, beginning with
the Prinkipo incident and ending with the written examination to which
they naïvely subjected Kolchak in order to legalize international
relations, which could not truly be described as either war or peace.
Neither the causes of Bolshevism in its morbid manifestations nor the
unformulated ideas underlying whatever positive aspect it may be
supposed to possess, nor the conditions governing its slow but
perceptible evolution, were so much as glanced at, much less studied, by
the statesmen who blithely set about dealing with it now by military
force, now by economic pressure, and fitfully by tentative forbearance
and hints to its leaders of forthcoming recognition.
One cannot thus play fast and loose with the destinies of a community
composed of one hundred and fifty million people whose members are but
slackly linked together by a few tenuous social bonds, without
forfeiting the right to offer them real guidance. And a blind man is a
poor guide to those who can see. Alone the Americans were equipped with
carefully tabulated statistics and huge masses of facts which they
poured out as lavishly as coal-heavers hurl the contents of their sacks
into the cellar. But they put them to no practical use. Losing
themselves in a labyrinth of details, they failed to get a
comprehensive view of the whole. The other delegations lacked both data
and general ideas. And all the Allies were destitute of a powerful army
in the East, and therefore of the means of asserting the authority which
they assumed.
They one and all dealt in vague theories and deceptive analogies, paying
little heed to the ever-shifting necessities of time, place, and
peoples, and indeed to the only conditions under which any new maxims
could be fruitfully applied. And even such rules as they laid down were
restricted and modified in accordance with their own countries'
interests or their unavowed aims, without specific warrant or
explanation. No account was taken of the historical needs or aspirations
of the people for whom they were legislating, as though all nations were
of the same age, capable of the same degree of culture, and impressible
to identical motives. It never seemed to have crossed their minds that
races and peoples, like individuals, have a soul, or that what is meat
to one may be poison to another.
One of the most Ententophil and moderate press organs in France put the
matter forcibly and plainly as follows: "The governments of Washington
and of London are aware that we are immutably attached to the alliance
with them. But we owe them the truth. Far too often they make a bad
choice of the agents whose business it is to keep them informed, and
they affect too much disdain for friendly suggestions which emanate from
any other source. American agents, in particular, civil as well as
military, explore Europe much as their forebears 'prospected' the Far
West, and they look upon the most ancient nations of Europe as Iroquois,
Comanches, or Aztecs. They are astounded at not finding everything on
the old Continent as in New York or Chicago, and they set to work to
reform Europe according to the rules in force in Oklahoma or Colorado.
Now we venture respectfully to point out to them that methods differ
with countries. In the United States the Colonists were wont to set fire
to the forests in order to clear and fertilize the land. Certain
American agents recommend the employment in Europe of an analogous
procedure in political matters. They rejoice to behold the Russian and
Hungarian forests burst into flame. In Lenin, Trotzky, Bela Kuhn, they
appreciate useful pioneers of the new civilization. We crave their
permission to view these things from another side. In old Europe one
cannot set fire to the forests without at the same time burning villages
and cities."[261]
Before and during the armistice I was in almost constant touch with all
Russian parties within the country and without, and received detailed
accounts of the changing conditions of the people, which, although
conflicting in many details, enabled me to form a tolerably correct
picture of the trend of things and to forecast what was coming.
Among other communications I received proposals from Moscow with the
request that I should present them to one of the British delegates, who
was supposed to be then taking an active interest, or at any rate
playing a prominent part, in the reconstruction of Russia, less for her
own sake than for that of the general peace. But as it chanced, the
eminent statesman lacked the leisure to take cognizance of the proposal,
the object of which was to hit upon such a _modus vivendi_ with Russia
as would enable her united peoples to enter upon a normal course of
national existence without further delay. Incidentally it would have put
an end to certain conversations then going forward with a view to a
friendly understanding between Russia and Germany. It would also, I had
reason to believe, have divided the speculative Bolshevist group from
the extreme bloodthirsty faction, produced a complete schism in the
party, and secured an armistice which would have prevented the Allies'
subsequent defeats at Murmansk, Archangel, and Odessa. Truth prompts me
to add that these desirable by-results, although held out as inducements
and characterized as readily attainable, were guaranteed only by the
unofficial pledge of men whose good faith was notoriously doubtful.
The document submitted to me is worth summarizing. It contained a lucid,
many-sided, and plausible account of the Russian situation. Among other
things, it was a confession of the enormity of the crimes perpetrated,
on both sides, it said, which it ascribed largely to the brutalizing
effects of the World War, waged under disastrous conditions unknown in
other lands. Myriads of practically unarmed men had been exposed during
the campaign to wholesale slaughter, or left to die in slow agonies
where they fell, or were killed off by famine and disease, for the
triumph of a cause which they never understood, but had recently been
told was that of foreign capitalists. In the demoralization that ensued
all restraints fell away. The entire social fabric, from groundwork to
summit, was rent, and society, convulsed with bestial passions, tore its
own members to pieces. Russia ran amuck among the nations. That was the
height of war frenzy. Since then, the document went on, passion had
abated sensibly and a number of well-intentioned men who had been swept
onward by the current were fast coming to their senses, while others
were already sane, eager to stem it and anxious for moral sympathy from
outside.
From out of the revolutionary welter, the _exposé_ continued, certain
hopeful phenomena had emerged symptomatic of a new spirit. Conditions
conducive to equality existed, although real equality was still a
somewhat remote ideal. But the tendencies over the whole sphere of
Russian social, moral, and political life had undergone remarkable and
invigorating changes in the direction of "reasonable democracy." Many
wholesome reforms had been attempted, and some were partially realized,
especially in elementary instruction, which was being spread clumsily,
no doubt, as yet, but extensively and equally, being absolutely
gratuitous.[262]
Various other so-called ameliorations were enumerated in this obviously
partial _exposé_, which was followed by an apology for certain prominent
individuals, who, having been swept off their feet by the revolutionary
floods, would gladly get back to firm land and help to extricate the
nation from the Serbonian bog in which it was sinking. They admitted a
share of the responsibility for having set in motion a vast juggernaut
chariot, which, however, they had arrested, but hoped to expiate past
errors by future zeal. At the same time they urged that it was not they
who had demoralized the army or abolished the death penalty or thrown
open the sluice-gates to anarchist floods. On the contrary, they claimed
to have reorganized the national forces, reintroduced the severest
discipline ever known, appointed experienced officers, and restored
capital punishment. Nor was it they, but their predecessors, they added,
who had ruined the transport service of the country and caused the food
scarcity.
These individuals would, it was said, welcome peace and friendship with
the Entente, and give particularly favorable consideration to any
proposal coming from the English-speaking peoples, in whom they were
disposed to place confidence under certain simple conditions. The need
for these conditions would not be gainsaid by the British and American
governments if they recalled to mind the treatment which they had
theretofore meted out to the Russian people. At that moment no Russian
of any party regarded or could regard the Allies without grounded
suspicions, for while repudiating interference in domestic affairs, the
French, Americans, and British were striving hard to influence every
party in Russia, and were even believed to harbor designs on certain
provinces, such as the Caucasus and Siberia. Color was imparted to these
misgivings by the circumstance that the Allied governments were openly
countenancing the dismemberment of the country by detaching non-Russian
and even Russian elements from the main body. It behooved the Allies to
dissipate this mistrust by issuing a statement of their policy in
unmistakable terms, repudiating schemes for territorial gains,
renouncing interference in domestic affairs and complicity in the work
of disintegrating the country. Russia and her affairs must be left to
Russians, who would not grudge economic concessions as a reasonable
_quid pro quo_.
The proposal further insisted that the declaration of policy should be
at once followed by the despatch of two or three well-known persons
acquainted with Russia and Russian affairs, and enjoying the confidence
of European peoples, to inquire into the conditions of the country and
make an exhaustive report. This mission, it was added, need not be
official, it might be intrusted to individuals unattached to any
government.
If a satisfactory answer to this proposal were returned within a
fortnight, an armistice and suspension of the secret _pourparlers_ with
Germany would, I was told, have followed. That this compact would have
led to a settlement of the Russian problems is more than any one,
however well informed, could vouch for, but I had some grounds for
believing the move to be genuine and the promises overdone. No
reasonable motive suggested itself for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the
overture disclosed two important facts, one of which was known at the
time only to the Bolshevist government--namely, that secret
_pourparlers_ were going forward between Berlin and Moscow for the
purpose of arriving at a workable understanding between the two
governments, and that the Allied troops at Odessa, Archangel, and
Murmansk were in a wretched plight and in direr need of an armistice
than the Bolsheviki.[263]
I mentioned the matter summarily to one of the delegates, who evinced a
certain interest in it and promised to discuss it at length later on
with a view to action. Another to whom I unfolded it later thought it
would be well if I myself started, together with two or three others,
for Moscow, Petrograd, Ekaterinodar, and other places, and reported on
the situation. But weeks went by and nothing was done.[264]
I had interesting talks with some influential delegates on the eve of
the invitation issued to all _de facto_ governments of Russia to
forgather at Prinkipo for a symposium. They admitted frankly at the time
that they had no policy and were groping in the dark, and one of them
held to the dogma that no light from outside was to be expected. They
gave me the impression that underlying the impending summons was the
conviction that Bolshevism, divested of its frenzied manifestations, was
a rough and ready government calumniously blackened by unscrupulous
enemies, criminal perhaps in its outbursts, but suited in its feasible
aims to the peculiar needs of a peculiar people, and therefore as worthy
of being recognized as any of the others. It was urged that it had
already lasted a considerable time without provoking a counter-movement
worthy of the name; that the stories circulating about the horrors of
which it was guilty were demonstrably exaggerated; that many of the
bloody atrocities were to be ascribed to crazy individuals on both
sides; that the witnesses against Lenin were partial and untrustworthy;
that something should be done without delay to solve a pressing problem,
and that the Conference could think of nothing better, nor, in fact, of
any alternative.
To me the principal scheme seemed a sinister mistake, both in form and
in substance. In form, because it nullified the motives which determined
the help given to the Greeks, Poles, and Serbs, who were being urged to
crush the Bolshevists, and left the Allies without good grounds for
keeping their own troops in Archangel, Odessa, and northern Russia to
stop the onward march of Bolshevism. Some governments had publicly
stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never
to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a
resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change their tack
as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The scheme was also an error
in substance, because the sole motive that could warrant it was the hope
of reconciling the warring parties. And that hope was doomed to
disappointment from the outset.
According to the Prinkipo project, which was attributed to President
Wilson,[265] an invitation was to be issued to all organized groups
exercising or attempting to exercise political authority or military
control in Siberia and northern Russia, to send representatives to
confer with the delegates of the Allied and Associated Powers on
Prince's Islands. It is difficult to discuss the expedient seriously.
One feels like a member of the little people of yore, who are reported
to have consulted an oracle to ascertain what they must do to keep from
laughing during certain debates on public affairs. It exposed its
ingenuous authors to the ridicule of the world and made it clear to the
dullest apprehension that from that quarter, at any rate, the Russian
people, as a whole, must expect neither light nor leading, nor
intelligent appreciation of their terrible plight. There is a sphere of
influence in the human intellect between the reason and the imagination,
the boundary line of which is shadowy. That sphere would seem to be the
source whence some of the most extraordinary notions creep into the
minds of men who have suddenly come into a position of power which they
are not qualified to wield--the _nouveaux puissants_ of the world of
politics.