Bolshevism Part 20

As I copy these words from Lenine's book my memory recalls the days, more than twenty years ago, when as a workman in England and as shop steward of my union I joined with my comrades in breaking down the very things Lenine here proposes to set up in the name of Socialism. "Absolute submission to the will of one person" is not a state toward which free men will strive.

Not willingly will men who enjoy the degree of personal freedom existing in democratic nations turn to this:

With respect to ... the significance of individual dictatorial power from the standpoint of the specific problems of the present period, we must say that every large machine industry--which is the material productive source and basis of Socialism--requires an absolute and strict unity of the will which directs the joint work of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people. This necessity is obvious from the technical, economical, and historical standpoint, and has always been recognized by all those who had given any thought to Socialism, as its prerequisite. But how can we secure a strict unity of will? _By subjecting the will of thousands_ to the will of one.

This subjection, _if the partic.i.p.ants in the common work are ideally conscious and disciplined_, may resemble the mild leading of an orchestra conductor; but may take the acute form of a dictators.h.i.+p--if there is no ideal discipline and consciousness.

But at any rate, _complete submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of the processes of work which is organized on the type of large machine industry_. This is doubly true of the railways. And just this transition from one political problem to another, which in appearance has no resemblance to the first, const.i.tutes the peculiarity of the present period. The Revolution has just broken the oldest, the strongest, and the heaviest chains to which the ma.s.ses were compelled to submit. So it was yesterday. And to-day, the same Revolution (and indeed in the interest of Socialism) demands the _absolute submission_ of the ma.s.ses to the _single will_ of those who direct the labor process. It is self-evident that it can be realized only after great upheavals, crises, returns to the old; only through the greatest strain of the energy of the proletarian vanguard which is leading the people to the new order....

To the extent to which the princ.i.p.al problem of the Soviet rule changes from military suppression to administration, suppression and compulsion will, _as a rule, be manifested in trials, and not in shooting on the spot_. And in this respect the revolutionary ma.s.ses have taken, after November 7, 1918, the right road and have proved the vitality of the Revolution, when they started to organize their own workmen's and peasants' tribunals, before any decrees were issued dismissing the bourgeois-democratic judicial apparatus. _But our revolutionary and popular tribunals are excessively and incredibly weak. It is apparent that the popular view of the courts--which was inherited from the regime of the landowners and the bourgeoisie--as not their own, has not yet been completely destroyed_. It is not sufficiently appreciated that the courts serve to attract all the poor to administration (for judicial activity is one of the functions of state administration); that the court is _an organ of the rule of the proletariat and of the poorest peasantry; that the court is a means of training in discipline_. There is a lack of appreciation of the simple and obvious fact that, if the chief misfortunes of Russia are famine and unemployment, these misfortunes cannot be overcome by any outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and universal organization and discipline, in order to increase the production of bread for men and fuel for industry, to transport it in time, and to distribute it in the right way. That therefore _responsibility_ for the pangs of famine and unemployment falls on _every one who violates the labor discipline in any enterprise and in any business_. That those who are responsible should be discovered, tried, and _punished without mercy_. The petty bourgeois environment, which we will have to combat persistently now, shows particularly in the lack of comprehension of the economic and political connection between famine and unemployment and the _prevailing dissoluteness in organization and discipline_--in the firm hold of the view of the small proprietor that "nothing matters, if only I gain as much as possible."

A characteristic struggle occurred on this basis in connection with the last decree on railway management, the decree which granted dictatorial (or "unlimited") power to individual directors. The conscious (and mostly, probably, unconscious) representatives of petty bourgeois dissoluteness contended that the granting of "unlimited" (_i.e._, dictatorial) power to individuals was a defection from the principle of board administration, from the democratic and other principles of the Soviet rule. Some of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the left wing carried on a plainly demagogic agitation against the decree on dictators.h.i.+p, appealing to the evil instincts and to the petty bourgeois desire for personal gain. The question thus presented is of really great significance; firstly, the question of principle is, in general, the appointment of individuals endowed with unlimited power, the appointment of dictators, in accord with the fundamental principles of the Soviet rule; secondly, in what relation is this case--this precedent, if you wish--to the special problems of the Soviet rule during the present concrete period?

Both questions deserve serious consideration.[74]

With characteristic ingenuity Lenine attempts to provide this dictators.h.i.+p with a theoretical basis which will pa.s.s muster as Marxian Socialism. He uses the term "Soviet democracy" as a synonym for democratic Socialism and says there is "absolutely no contradiction in principle" between it and "the use of dictatorial power of individuals." By what violence to reason and to language is the word _democracy_ applied to the system described by Lenine? To use words with such scant respect to their meanings, established by etymology, history, and universal agreement in usage, is to invite and indeed compel the contempt of minds disciplined by reason's practices. As for the claim that there is no contradiction in principle between democratic Socialism and the exercise of dictatorial power by individuals, before it can be accepted every Socialist teacher and leader of any standing anywhere, the programs of all the Socialist parties, and their practice, must be denied and set aside. Whether democratic Socialism be wise or unwise, a practical possibility or an unrealizable idea, at least it has nothing in common with such reactionary views as are expressed in the following:

That the dictators.h.i.+p of individuals has very frequently in the history of revolutionary movements served as an expression and means of realization of the dictators.h.i.+p of the revolutionary cla.s.ses is confirmed by the undisputed experience of history. With bourgeois democratic principles, the dictators.h.i.+p of individuals has undoubtedly been compatible. But this point is always treated adroitly by the bourgeois critics of the Soviet rule and by their petty bourgeois aides. On one hand, they declared the Soviet rule simply something absurd and anarchically wild, carefully avoiding all our historical comparisons and theoretical proofs that the Soviets are a higher form of democracy; nay, more, the beginning of a _Socialist_ form of democracy. On the other hand, they demand of us a higher democracy than the bourgeois and argue: with your Bolshevist (_i.e._, Socialist, not bourgeois) democratic principles, with the Soviet democratic principles, individual dictators.h.i.+p is absolutely incompatible.

Extremely poor arguments, these. If we are not Anarchists, we must admit the necessity of a state--that is, of _compulsion_, for the transition from capitalism to Socialism. The form of compulsion is determined by the degree of development of the particular revolutionary cla.s.s, then by such special circ.u.mstances as, for instance, the heritage of a long and reactionary war, and then by the forms of resistance of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. _There is therefore absolutely no contradiction in principle between the Soviet (Socialist) democracy and the use of dictatorial power of individuals_. The distinction between a proletarian and a bourgeois dictators.h.i.+p consists in this: that the first directs its attacks against the exploiting minority in the interests of the exploited majority; and, further, in this, that the first is accomplished (also through individuals) not only by the ma.s.ses of the exploited toilers, but also by the organizations which are so constructed that they arouse these ma.s.ses to historical creative work (the Soviets belong to this kind of organization).[75]

This, then, is Bolshevism, not as it is seen and described by unfriendly "bourgeois" writers, but as it is seen and described by the acknowledged intellectual and political leader of the Bolsheviki, Nikolai Lenine. I have not taken any non-Bolshevist authority; I have not even restated his views in a summary of my own, lest into the summary might be injected some reflexes of my own critical thought. Bolshevism is revealed in all its reactionary repulsiveness as something between which and absolute, individual dictatorial power there is "absolutely no contradiction in principle." It will not avail for our American followers and admirers of the Bolsheviki to plead that these things are temporary, compromises with the ideal due to the extraordinary circ.u.mstances prevailing in Russia, and to beg a mitigation of the severity of our judgment on that account.

The answer to the plea is twofold: in the first place, they who offer it must, if they are sincere, abandon the savagely critical att.i.tude they have seen fit to adopt toward our own government and nation because with "extraordinary conditions prevailing" we have had introduced conscription, unusual restrictions of movement and of utterance, and so forth. How else, indeed, can their sincerity be demonstrated? If the fact that extraordinary conditions justified Lenine and his a.s.sociates in inst.i.tuting a regime so tyrannical, what rule of reason or of morals must be invoked to refuse to count the extraordinary conditions produced in our own nation by the war as justification for the special measures of military service and discipline here introduced?

But there is a second answer to the claim which is more direct and conclusive. It is not open to argument at all. It is found in the words of Lenine himself, in his claim that there is absolutely no contradiction between the principle of individual dictators.h.i.+p, ruling with iron hand, and the principle upon which Soviet government rests. There has been no compromise here, for if there is no contradiction in principle no compromise could have been required. Lenine is not afraid to make or to admit making compromises; he admits that compromises have been made. It was a compromise to employ highly salaried specialists from the bourgeoisie, "a defection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule," as he says. It was a compromise, another "defection from the only Socialist principle," to admit the right of the co-operatives to determine their own conditions of members.h.i.+p. Having made these declarations quite candidly, he takes pains to a.s.sure us that there was no such defection from principle in establis.h.i.+ng the absolute rule of an individual dictator, that there was absolutely no contradiction in principle in this.[76]

Moreover, there is no reason for regarding this dictators.h.i.+p as a temporary thing, if Lenine himself is to be accepted as an authoritative spokesman.

Obviously, if there is nothing in the principle of an absolute individual dictators.h.i.+p which is in contradiction to the Bolshevik ideal, there can be no Bolshevik principle which necessarily requires for its realization the ending of such dictators.h.i.+p. Why, therefore, may it not be continued indefinitely? Certainly, if the dictators.h.i.+p is abolished it will not be--if Lenine is to be seriously considered--on account of its incompatibility with Bolshevik principles.

VI

The Bolshevik government of Russia is credited by many of its admirers in this country with having solved the great land problem and with having satisfied the land-hunger of the peasants. It is charged, moreover, that the bitter opposition to the Bolsheviki is mainly due to agitation by the bourgeoisie, led by the expropriated landowners, who want to defeat the Revolution and to have their former t.i.tles to the land restored. Of course, it is true that, so far as they dare to do so, the former landowners actively oppose the Bolsheviki. No expropriated cla.s.s ever acted otherwise, and it would be foolish to expect anything else. But any person who believes that the opposition of the great peasant Socialist organizations, and especially of the Socialist-Revolutionists, is due to the confiscation of the land, either consciously or unconsciously, is capable of believing anything and quite immune from rationality.

The facts in the case are, briefly, as follows: First, as Professor Ross has pointed out,[77] the land policy of the Bolshevik government was a compromise of the principles long advocated by its leaders, a compromise made for political reasons only. Second, as Marie Spiridonova abundantly demonstrated at an All-Russian Soviet Conference in July, 1918, the Bolshevik government did not honorably live up to its agreement with the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left. Third, so far as the land problem was concerned there was not the slightest need or justification for the Bolshevik _coup d'etat_, for the reason that the problem had already been solved on the precise lines afterward followed in the Soviet decree and the leaders of the peasants were satisfied. We have the authority of no less competent a witness than Litvinov, Bolshevist Minister to England, that "the land measure had been 'lifted' bodily from the program of the Socialist-Revolutionists."[78] Each of these statements is amply sustained by evidence which cannot be disputed or overcome.

That the "land decree" which the Bolshevik government promulgated was a compromise with their long-cherished principles admits of no doubt whatever. Every one who has kept informed concerning Russian revolutionary movements during the past twenty or twenty-five years knows that during all that time one of the princ.i.p.al subjects of controversy among Socialists was the land question and the proper method of solving it. The "Narodniki," or peasant Socialists, later organized into the Socialist-Revolutionary party, wanted distribution of the land belonging to the big estates among the peasant communes, to be co-operatively owned and managed. They did not want land nationalization, which was the program of the Marxists--the Social Democrats. This latter program meant that, instead of the land being divided among the peasants' communal organizations, it should be owned, used, and managed by the state, the principles of large-scale production and wage labor being applied to agriculture in the same manner as to industry.

The att.i.tude of the Social Democratic party toward the peasant Socialists and their program was characterized by that same certainty that small agricultural holdings were to pa.s.s away, and by the same contemptuous att.i.tude toward the peasant life and peasant aspirations that we find in the writings of Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, and many other Marxists.[79]

Lenine himself had always adopted this att.i.tude. He never trusted the peasants and was opposed to any program which would give the land to them as they desired. Mr. Walling, who spent nearly three years in Russia, including the whole period of the Revolution of 1905-06, writes of Lenine's position at that time:

Like Alexinsky, Lenine awaits the agrarian movement ... and hopes that a railway strike with the destruction of the lines of communication and _the support of the peasantry_ may some day put the government of Russia into the people's hands. However, I was shocked to find that this important leader also, though he expects a full co-operation with the peasants on equal terms, _during the Revolution_, feels toward them a very _deep distrust_, thinking them to a large extent bigoted and blindly patriotic, and fearing that they may some day shoot down the working-men as the French peasants did during the Paris Commune.

The chief basis for this distrust is, of course, the prejudiced feeling that the peasants are not likely to become good Socialists. _It is on this account that Lenine and all the Social Democratic leaders place their hopes on a future development of large agricultural estates in Russia and the increase of the landless agricultural working cla.s.s, which alone they believe would prove truly Socialist_.[80]

The Russian Social Democratic Labor party, to which Lenine belonged, and of which he was an influential leader, adopted in 1906 the following program with regard to land owners.h.i.+p:

1. Confiscation of Church, Monastery, Appanage, Cabinet,[81] and private estate lands, _except small holdings_, and turning them over, together with the state lands, to the great organs of local administration, which have been democratically elected. Land, however, which is necessary as a basis for future colonization, together with the forests and bodies of water, which are of national importance, are to pa.s.s into the control of the democratic state.

2. Wherever conditions are unfavorable for this transformation, the party declares itself in favor of a division among the peasants of such of the private estates as already have the petty farming conditions, or which may be necessary to round out a reasonable holding.

This program was at the time regarded as a compromise. It did not wholly suit anybody. The peasant leaders feared the amount of state owners.h.i.+p and management involved. On the other hand, the extreme left wing of the Social Democrats--Lenine and his friends--wanted the party to proclaim itself in favor of _the complete nationalization of all privately owned land, even that of the small peasant owners_, but were willing, provided the principle were this stated, to accept, as a temporary expedient, division of the land in certain exceptional instances. On the other hand, the Socialist-Revolutionists wanted, not the distribution of lands among a mult.i.tude of private owners, as is very generally supposed, but its socialization. Their program provided for "the socialization of all privately owned lands--that is, the taking of them out of the private owners.h.i.+p of persons into the public owners.h.i.+p and _their management by democratically organized leagues of communities with the purpose of an equitable utilization_." They wanted to avoid the creation of a great army of what they described as "wage-slaves of the state" and, on the other hand, they wanted to build upon the basis of Russian communism and, as far as possible, prevent the extension of capitalist methods--and therefore of the cla.s.s struggle--into the agrarian life of Russia.

When the Bolsheviki came into power they sought first of all to split the peasant Socialist movement and gain the support of its extreme left wing.

For this reason they agreed to adopt the program of the Revolutionary Socialist party. It was Marie Spiridonova who made that arrangement possible. It was, in fact, a political deal. Lenine and Trotzky, on behalf of the Bolshevik government, agreed to accept the land policy of the Socialist-Revolutionists, and in return Spiridonova and her friends agreed to support the Bolsheviki. There is abundant evidence of the truth of the following account of Professor Ross:

Among the first acts of the Bolsheviki in power was to square their debt to the left wing of the Social Revolutionists, their ally in the _coup d'etat_. The latter would accept only one kind of currency--the expropriation of the private landowners without compensation and the transfer of all land into the hands of the peasant communes. The Bolsheviki themselves, as good Marxists, took no stock in the peasants' commune. As such, pending the introduction of Socialism, they should, perhaps, have nationalized the land and rented it to the highest bidder, regardless of whether it was to be tilled in small parcels without hired labor or in large blocks on the capitalistic plan. The land edict of November does, indeed, decree land nationalism; however, the vital proviso is added that "the use of the land must be equalized--that is, according to local conditions and according to the ability to work and the needs of each individual," and further that "the hiring of labor is not permitted." The administrative machinery is thus described: "All the confiscated land becomes the land capital of the nation. Its distribution among the working-people is to be in charge of the local and central authorities, beginning with the organized rural and urban communities and ending with the provincial central organs." Such is the irony of fate. _Those who had charged the rural land commune with being the most serious brake upon Russia's progress, and who had stigmatized the People-ists as reactionaries and Utopians, now came to enact into law most of their tenets--the equalization of the use of land, the prohibition of the hiring of labor, and everything else!_[82]

The much-praised land policy of the Bolsheviki is, in fact, not a Bolshevik policy at all, but one which they have accepted as a compromise for temporary political advantage. "Claim everything in sight," said a noted American politician on one occasion to his followers. Our followers of the Bolsheviki, taught by a very clever propaganda, seem to be acting upon that maxim. They claim for the Bolsheviki everything which can in the slightest manner win favor with the American public, notwithstanding that it involves claiming for the Bolsheviki credit to which they are not ent.i.tled. As early as May 18, 1917, it was announced by the Provisional Government that the "question of the transfer of the land to the toilers" was to be left to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and there was never a doubt in the mind of any Russian Socialist how that body would settle it; never a moment when it was doubted that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would be controlled by the Socialist-Revolutionary party. When Kerensky became Prime Minister one of the first acts of his Cabinet was to create a special committee for the purpose of preparing the law for the socialization of the land and the necessary machinery for carrying the law into effect. The All-Russian Peasants' Congress had, as early as May, five months before the Bolshevik counter-revolution, adopted the land policy for which the Bolsheviki now are being praised by their admirers in this country. That policy had been crystallized into a carefully prepared law which had been approved by the Council of Ministers. The Bolsheviki did no more than to issue a crudely conceived "decree" which they have never at any time had the power to enforce in more than about a fourth of Russia--in place of a law which would have embraced all Russia and have been secure and permanent.

On July 16, 1918, Marie Spiridonova, in an address delivered in Petrograd, protested vehemently against the manner in which the Bolshevik government was departing from the policy it had agreed to maintain with regard to the land, and going back to the old Social Democratic ideas. She declared that she had been responsible for the decree of February, which provided for the socialization of the land. That measure provided for the abolition of private property in land, and placed all land in the hands of and under the direction of the peasant communes. It was the old Socialist-Revolutionist program. But the Bolshevik government had not carried out the law of February. Instead, it had resorted to the Social Democratic method of nationalization. In the western governments, she said, "great estates were being taken over by government departments and were being managed by officials, on the ground that state control would yield better results than communal owners.h.i.+p. Under this system the peasants were being reduced to the state of slaves paid wages by the state. Yet the law provided that these estates should be divided among the peasant communes to be tilled by the peasants on a co-operative system."[83] Spiridonova protested against the att.i.tude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, against dividing them into cla.s.ses and placing the greater part of them with the bourgeoisie. She insisted that the peasants be regarded as a single cla.s.s, co-operating with the industrial proletariat, yet distinct from it and from the bourgeoisie.

For our present purpose, it does not matter whether the leaders of the Bolsheviki were right or wrong in their decision that state operation was better than operation by village co-operatives. Our sole concern here and now is the fact that they did not keep faith with the section of the peasants they had won over to their side, and the fact that, as this incident shows, we cannot regard the formal decrees of the Soviet Republic as descriptions of realities.

The Bolsheviki remain to-day, as at the beginning, a counter-revolutionary power imposing its rule upon the great ma.s.s of the Russian people by armed force. There can be little doubt that if a free election could be had immediately upon the same basis as that on which the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was elected--namely, universal, secret, equal, direct suffrage, the Bolsheviki would be overwhelmingly beaten. There can be little doubt that the great ma.s.s of the peasantry would support, as before, the candidates of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. It is quite true that some of the leaders of that party have consented to work with the Bolshevik government.

Compromises have been effected; the Bolsheviki have conciliated the peasants somewhat, and the latter have, in many cases, sought to make the best of a bad situation. Many have adopted a pa.s.sive att.i.tude. But there can be no greater mistake than to believe that the Bolsheviki have solved the land question to the satisfaction of the peasants and so won their allegiance.

VII

This survey of the theories and practices of the Bolsheviki would invite criticism and distrust if the peace program which culminated in the shameful surrender to Germany, the "indecent peace" as the Russians call it, were pa.s.sed over without mention. And yet there is no need to tell here a story with which every one is familiar. By that humiliating peace Russia lost 780,000 square kilometers of territory, occupied by 56,000,000 inhabitants. She lost one-third of her total mileage of railways, amounting to more than 13,000 miles. She lost, also, 73 per cent. of her iron production; 89 per cent. of her coal production, and many thousands of factories of various kinds. These latter included 268 sugar-refineries, 918 textile-factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco-factories, 1,685 distilleries, 244 chemical-factories, 615 paper-mills, and 1,073 machine-factories.[84] Moreover, it was not an enduring peace and war against Germany had to be resumed.

In judging the manner in which the Bolsheviki concluded peace with Germany, it is necessary to be on guard against prejudice engendered by the war and its pa.s.sions. The tragi-comedy of Brest-Litovsk, and the pitiable role of Trotzky, have naturally been linked together with the manner in which Lenine and his companions reached Russia with the aid of the German Government, the way in which all the well-known leaders of the Bolsheviki had deliberately weakened the morale of the troops at the front, and their persistent opposition to all the efforts of Kerensky to restore the fighting spirit of the army--all these things combined have convinced many thoughtful and close observers that the Bolsheviki were in league with the Germans against the Allies. Perhaps the time is not yet ripe for pa.s.sing final judgment upon this matter. Certainly there were ugly-looking incidents which appeared to indicate a close co-operation with the Germans.

There was, for example, the acknowledged fact that the Bolsheviki on seizing the power of government immediately entered into negotiations with the notorious "Parvus," whose role as an agent of the German Government is now thoroughly established. "Parvus" is the pseudonym of one of the most sinister figures in the history of the Socialist movement, Dr. Alexander Helfandt. Born at Odessa, of German-Jewish descent, he studied in Germany and in the early eighteen-nineties attained prominence as a prolific and brilliant contributor to the German Socialist review, _Die Neue Zeit_. He was early "exiled" from Russia, but it was suspected by a great many Socialists that in reality his "exile" was simply a device to cover employment in the Russian Secret Service as a spy and informer, for which the prestige he had gained in Socialist circles was a valuable aid. When the Revolution of 1905 broke out Helfandt returned to Russia under the terms of the amnesty declared at that time. He at once joined the Leninist section of the Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviki. A scandal occurred some time later, when the connection of "Parvus" with the Russian Government was freely charged against him. Among those who attacked him and accused him of being an agent-provocateur were Tseretelli, the Socialist-Revolutionist, and Miliukov, the leader of the Cadets.

Some years later, at the time of the uprisings in connection with the Young Turk movement, "Parvus" turned up in Constantinople, where he was presumably engaged in work for the German Government. This was commonly believed in European political circles, though denied at the time by "Parvus" himself. One thing is certain, namely, that although he was notoriously poor when he went there--his financial condition was well known to his Socialist a.s.sociates--he returned at the beginning of 1915 a very rich man. He explained his riches by saying that he had, while at Constantinople, Bucharest, and Sofia, successfully speculated in war wheat.

He wrote this explanation in the German Socialist paper, _Die Glocke_, and drew from Hugo Ha.s.se the following observation: "I blame n.o.body for being wealthy; I only ask if it is the role of a Social Democrat to become a profiteer of the war."[85] Very soon we find this precious gentleman settled in Copenhagen, where he established a "Society for Studying the Social Consequences of the War," which was, of course, entirely pro-German.

This society is said to have exercised considerable influence among the Russians in Copenhagen and to have greatly influenced many Danish Socialists to take Germany's side. According to _Pravda_, the Bolshevik organ, the German Government, through the intermediary of German Social Democrats, established a working relation with Danish trade-unions and the Danish Social Democratic party, whereby the Danish unions got the coal needed in Copenhagen at a figure below the market price. Then the Danish party sent its leader, Borgdjerg, to Petrograd as an emissary to place before the Petrograd Soviet the terms of peace of the German Majority Socialists, which were, of course, the terms of the German Government. We find "Parvus" at the same time, as he is engaged in this sort of intrigue, a.s.sociated with one Furstenberg in s.h.i.+pping drugs into Russia and food from Russia into Germany.[86] According to Grumbach,[87] he sought to induce prominent Norwegian Socialists to act as intermediaries to inform certain Norwegian syndicates that Germany would grant them a monopoly of coal consignments if the Norwegian Social Democratic press would adopt a more friendly att.i.tude toward Germany and the Social Democratic members in the Norwegian parliament would urge the stoppage or the limitation of fish exports to England.

During this period "Parvus" was bitterly denounced by Plechanov, by Alexinsky and other Russian Socialists as an agent of the Central Powers.

He was denounced also by Lenine and Trotzky and by _Pravda_. Lenine described him as "the vilest of bandits and betrayers." It was therefore somewhat astonis.h.i.+ng for those familiar with these facts to read the following communication, which appeared in the German Socialist press on November 30, 1917, and, later, in the British Socialist organ, _Justice_:

STOCKHOLM, November 20.--The Foreign Relations Committee of the Bolsheviki makes the following communication: "The German comrade, 'Parvus,' has brought to the Bolshevik Committee at Stockholm the congratulations of the _Parteivorstand_ of the Majority Social Democrats, who declare their solidarity with the struggles of the Russian proletariat and with its request to begin pourparlers immediately on the basis of a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities. The Foreign Relations Committee of the Bolsheviki has transmitted these declarations to the Central Committee at Petrograd, as well as to the Soviets."

When Hugo Ha.s.se questioned Philipp Scheidemann about the negotiations which were going on through "Parvus," Scheidemann replied that it was the Bolsheviki themselves who had invited "Parvus" to come to Stockholm for the purpose of opening up negotiations. This statement was denounced as a lie by Karl Radek in _Pravda_. Some day, doubtless, the truth will be known; for the present it is enough to note the fact that as early as November the Bolsheviki were negotiating through such a discredited agent of the Central Powers as Dr. Alexander Helfandt, otherwise "Parvus," the well-known Marxist! Such facts as this, added to those previously noticed, tended inevitably to strengthen the conviction that Lenine and Trotsky were the pliant and conscious tools of Germany all the time, and that the protests of Trotzky at Brest-Litovsk were simply stage-play.

But for all that, unless and until official, doc.u.mentary evidence is forthcoming which proves them to have been in such relations with the German Government and military authorities, they ought not to be condemned upon the chain of suspicious circ.u.mstances, strong as that chain apparently is. The fact is that they had to make peace, and make it quickly. Kerensky, had he been permitted to hold on, would equally have had to make a separate peace, and make it quickly. Only one thing could have delayed that for long--namely, the arrival of an adequate force of Allied troops on the Russian front to stiffen the morale and to take the burden of fighting off from the Russians. Of that there was no sign and no promise or likelihood.

Kerensky knew that he would have had to make peace, at almost any cost and on almost any terms, if he remained in power. If the Bolsheviki appear in the light of traitors to the Allies, it should be remembered that pressure of circ.u.mstances would have forced even such a loyal friend of the Allies as Kerensky certainly proved himself to be to make a separate peace, practically on Germany's terms, in a very little while. It was not a matter of months, but of weeks at most, probably of days.

Russia had to have peace. The nation was war-weary and exhausted. The Allies had not understood the situation--indeed, they never have understood Russia, even to this day--and had bungled right along. What made it possible for the Bolsheviki to a.s.sert their rule so easily was the fact that they promised immediate peace, and the great ma.s.s of the Russian workers wanted immediate peace above everything else. They were so eager for peace that so long as they could get it they cared at the time for nothing. Literally nothing else mattered. As we have seen, the Bolshevik leaders had strenuously denied wanting to make a "separate peace." There is little reason for doubting that they were sincere in this in the sense that what they wanted was a _general_ peace, if that could be possibly obtained.

Peace they had to have, as quickly as possible. If they could not persuade their Allies to join with them in making such a general peace, they were willing to make a _separate_ peace. That is quite different from _wanting_ a separate peace from the first. There was, indeed, in the demand made at the beginning of December upon the Allies to restate their war aims within a period of seven days an arrogant and provocative tone which invited the suspicion that the ultimatum--for such it was--had not been conceived in good faith; that it was deliberately framed in such a manner as to prevent compliance by the Allies. And it may well be the fact that Lenine and Trotzky counted upon the inevitable refusal to convince the Russian people, and especially the Russian army, that the Allied nations were fighting for imperialistic ends, just as the Bolsheviki had always charged. The Machiavellian cunning of such a policy is entirely characteristic of the conspirator type.

On December 14th the armistice was signed at Brest-Litovsk, to last for a period of twenty-eight days. On December 5th, the Bolsheviki had published the terms upon which they desired to effect the armistice. These terms, which the Germans scornfully rejected, provided that the German forces which had been occupied on the Russian front should not be sent to other fronts to fight against the Allies, and that the German troops should retire from the Russian islands held by them. In the armistice as it was finally signed at Brest-Litovsk there was a clause which, upon its face, seemed to prove that Trotzky had kept faith with the Allies. The clause provided that there should be no transfer of troops by either side, for the purpose of military operations, during the armistice, from the front between the Baltic and the Black Sea. This, however, was, from the German point of view, merely a _pro forma_ arrangement, a "sc.r.a.p of paper."

Grumbach wrote to _L'Humanite_ that on December 20th Berlin was full of German soldiers from the Russian front en route to the western front. He said that he had excellent authority for saying that this had been called to the attention of Lenine and Trotzky by the Independent Social Democrats, but that, "nevertheless, they diplomatically shut their eyes."[88] It is more than probable that, in the circ.u.mstances, neither Lenine nor Trotzky cared much if at all for such a breach of the terms of the armistice, but, had their att.i.tude been otherwise, what could they have done? They were as helpless as ever men were in the world, as subsequent events proved.

As one reads the numerous declamatory utterances of Trotzky in those critical days of early December, 1917, the justice of Lenine's scornful description of his a.s.sociate as a "man who blinds himself with revolutionary phrases" becomes manifest. It is easy to understand the strained relations that existed between the two men. His "neither war nor peace" gesture--it was no more!--his dramatic refusal to sign the stiffened peace terms, his desire to call all Russia to arms again to fight the Germans, his determination to create a vast "Red Army" to renew the war against Germany, and his professed willingness to "accept the services of American officers in training that army," all indicated a mind given to illusions and stone blind to realities. Lenine at least knew that the game was up. He knew that the game into which he had so coolly entered when he left Switzerland, and which he had played with all his skill and cunning, was at an end and that the Germans had won. The Germans behaved with a perfidy that is unmatched in modern history, disregarded the armistice they had signed, and savagely hurled their forces against the defenseless, partially demobilized and trusting Russians. There was nothing left for the Bolsheviki to do. They had delivered Russia to the Germans. In March the "indecent peace" was signed, with what result we know. Bolshevism had been the ally of Prussian militarism. Consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, Lenine, Trotzky, and the other Bolshevik leaders had done all that men could do to make the German military lords masters of the world.

Had there been a similar movement in France, England, the United States, or even Italy, to-day the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs would be upon their thrones, realizing the fulfilment of the Pan-German vision.

VIII