LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 

 
 RUSSIA 
 
 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NKW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAM FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO.. LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 
 MELBOURNE 
 
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 TORONTO
 
 NOVOROSS1YSK 
 
 Official Soviet Map on Famine in Russia.
 
 RUSSIA | 
 
 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL N. MILIUKOV 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1922
 
 PBLNTED IN THfl UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and printed. Published May, 1923. 
 
 Press of 
 
 .7. J. Little & Ives Company 
 New York, U. S. A.
 
 To 
 MY AMERICAN AUDIENCES
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This book has its origin in my intercourse with 
 American audiences during the past three months. 
 Hence its dedication. It could not have been written 
 before the end of 1921, nor could it have taken its pres- 
 ent form in surroundings less sympathetic or more in- 
 clined to take sides in the events here described. It 
 was necessary for the cycle of events in Russia to come 
 to a close, before its meaning could become patent and 
 a criterium be found by which these events could be 
 judged in their unity and completion. I think this is 
 now the case with both the "White" and the "Red" 
 movements in Russia. The former ran its course with 
 the loss of the last patch of anti-Bolshevist territory in 
 the Crimea ; the latter with the Great Russian famine. 
 General Wrangel's defeat manifested the degeneration 
 of the "White" movement. The famine of 1921 dem- 
 onstrated Russia's exhaustion under the Bolshevist 
 rule. Whatever happens in the tune to come, these 
 two phenomena will mark the turning point in the 
 Russian Revolution. 
 
 I gladly accepted the invitation to deliver a course of 
 eight lectures on Russia at the Lowell Institute, Boston, 
 Mass., in October and November, 1921, because by this 
 time I had come to a definite conclusion as to the mean- 
 ing and the place of the Russian events of the past four 
 years in the history of our Revolution. The reader will 
 see that I draw a distinction between the Revolution as
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 a great historical process which transforms human psy- 
 chology and institutions, and its passing stages and 
 varying moods. In 1903-1905 I had occasion to explain 
 to Chicago and Boston audiences the origin of our 
 revolutionary process; now I was tempted to analyze 
 its present significant phase. 
 
 It is important for the reader to discriminate between 
 the passing form and the lasting substance of the Rus- 
 sian Revolution, as well as between its negative and 
 positive aspects. While the destructive aspect of the 
 Revolution is of necessity presented in detail in this 
 book, I wish that the constructive processes of the 
 Revolution should not be overlooked. We are witness- 
 ing the birth of the Russian democracy, in the midst 
 of the ruins of the past, which will never return. One 
 must not be impatient with the great and complicated 
 revolutionary process which in other countries took de- 
 cades, if not centuries, for its completion. 
 
 The double title of this book, "Russia To-day and 
 To-morrow," is intended to keep before the mind of the 
 reader that basic idea of the Russian Revolution. One 
 chapter is devoted to an attempt to foretell the out- 
 lines of the coming Russia, as a result of the Revolu- 
 tion. The reader will observe, however, that the con- 
 ception of that Russia of to-morrow is present through- 
 out the book and forms the thread which permits me 
 to find myself and to lead the reader through the laby- 
 rinth of events. 
 
 I think that there are two requisites necessary for a 
 successful presentation of my country's case before the 
 American public opinion: the presentation must be 
 sincere and truly democratic in spirit. Were I not cer- 
 tain of my ability to meet these conditions, I would not
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 have come to America. I found my audiences here ex- 
 tremely interested in the subject, I saw what they 
 wanted of me, and I finally decided to present in book 
 form the contents of m ylectures and addresses. Of 
 course, I had to write this book afresh from my notes, 
 and this gave me the opportunity to expand most of 
 the chapters far beyond the space of an hour's lecture. 
 
 The first eight chapters of the book correspond with 
 my lectures at the Lowell Institute (October 25-No- 
 vember 18, and November 1-November 22, 1921) and 
 I have preserved their titles. The ninth and the tenth 
 chapters, in their initial form, formed the contents of 
 my address before the Civic Forum in New York, de- 
 livered, under the title "Russia To-day and To-mor- 
 row," at the Town Hall, on November 11, 1921. The 
 ninth chapter ("Russia To-morrow") is closely con- 
 nected with the lectures delivered in Boston, and pre- 
 sents their natural conclusion. 
 
 The last two chapters deal with the relations, diplo- 
 matic and intellectual, between Russia and the outside 
 world. I did not intend to exhaust the question, but 
 only to concentrate attention on the two aspects which 
 are of special interest to America. The Russian, and 
 especially the Siberian question, as it might have been 
 put before the Washington Conference, could not be 
 omitted at the moment when the Conference was in 
 the center of the world's attention. That is why I 
 have treated that problem in greater detail than in my 
 lecture before the Civic Forum. The Siberian-Jap- 
 anese problem formed the subject of my lectures at 
 the Cleveland Reserve University (at the McBride 
 Foundation) and at the Chicago University, on De- 
 cember 13 and 14. Of course, in its final form the sub-
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 ject has been brought up to the present moment, and 
 the chapter includes an analysis of the stand taken by 
 the Washington Conference; the readers will also find 
 in this chapter new material brought to Washington 
 by the Vladivostok delegation. The eleventh chapter 
 ("Russia's Contribution to the World Civilization") 
 reproduces a lecture delivered at Columbia University, 
 on November 28, 1921. Its content is not closely con- 
 nected with the other parts of the book, but I followed 
 the advice of some of my hearers, who found that in 
 "Russia of To-morrow" the noblest side of the Rus- 
 sian life of yesterday and to-day, its great- culture, 
 could not be omitted. 
 
 I cannot mention here all the opportunities afforded 
 me to address numerous American audiences on the 
 various phases of the Russian problem. The text of 
 some of those addresses is preserved in the publication 
 of the respective institutions.* I can only say that 
 it was the free exchange of opinions, of questions and 
 answers, which particularly stimulated me to fix my 
 views in this book and which drew my attention to 
 special points needing and deserving elucidation. 
 
 I hope that this book will meet with the same atten- 
 tion which was accorded its author by his American 
 audiences. 
 
 PAUL N. MILIUKOV. 
 New York, February 7, 1922. 
 
 *See "The Consensus," published by the National Economic 
 League of Boston, Vol. 7, No. 1, January, 1922; also the "Annals 
 of the American Academy of Political and Social Science." Phila- 
 delphia, March, 1922.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. WHY THE REVOLUTION COULD Nor BE 
 
 AVERTED 1 
 
 II. WHY THE BOLSHEVIKS GOT THE UPPER HAND 23 
 
 III. THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 45 
 
 IV. THE REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 71 
 V. THE FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS . . .96 
 
 VI. ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 121 
 
 VII. THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 188 
 
 VIII. THE FAMINE . 231 
 
 IX. RUSSIA TO-MORROW 262 
 
 X. RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON . . 297 
 
 XI. RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD'S 
 
 CIVILIZATION 355 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 389
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW
 
 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND 
 TO-MORROW 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHY THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE 
 AVERTED. 
 
 Seventeen years ago, in 1904, I addressed an Ameri- 
 can audience on the subject of the Russian Crisis. 
 Some of my present readers may recall, in substance, 
 what I then said. I am now going to speak on the 
 Russian Catastrophe. In this catastrophe, we witness 
 the end, or, at any rate, the continuation of the same 
 process which then began. This change from "Crisis" 
 to "Catastrophe" may convey to you the tragic mean- 
 ing of the revolutionary process which has developed 
 in Russia during these seventeen years. 
 
 In 1904 the first Russian Revolution was approach- 
 ing. It took place in the year following my first com- 
 ing here. The symptoms of the Revolution were so 
 clear and obvious to everybody, except the Tsar and 
 his Government, that it was not very difficult to play 
 the prophet. The reasons why the first Russian Revo- 
 lution, in 1905, became unavoidable were discussed in 
 my previous lectures. 1 
 
 I am going to tell you now what has happened since 
 
 '"Russia and its Crisis," 1905, Chicago University Press. 
 
 1
 
 2 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 and just what made necessary and unavoidable the 
 second Russian Revolution in 1917. 
 
 The chief reason was that the first Revolution 
 proved abortive. In a moment of panic the Tsar 
 signed the renowned October (30) Manifesto of 1905. 
 Had this promise been seriously meant and had it re- 
 sulted hi a real constitution and a sound beginning 
 of political freedom been made at that tune, the second 
 Revolution might not have happened at all. But, as 
 a matter of fact, the Tsar never wished to curtail his 
 prerogatives. His view, and especially the view of the 
 Tsarina, was that it was his moral duty, to pass unim- 
 paired the whole inheritance that he had received from 
 God and from his ancestors to his heir and successor. 
 This uncompromising view, common to all autocrats, 
 made tragic the Tsar's destiny. But it also caused the 
 Russian revolutionary process- to continue and at the 
 same time it extremely complicated its issues. 
 
 The Tsar soon repented having yielded even so 
 little as he really had given to the Russian people. He 
 was always on the alert for a favorable moment to 
 come, to recover his complete autocratic power. The 
 young popular representative, the "Duma," on the 
 other hand, wished to extend its power over the ex- 
 tremely narrow limits of the sham constitution of 
 1906. The Duma insisted on being a reed represen- 
 tation of the nation and a real legislative organ of 
 power. Nicholas II remained hostile to his creation. 
 He preserved his right to nominate his ministers and 
 half of the members of the Upper House, and he made 
 unlimited use of that right in order to do what he liked 
 and to paralyze every action of the Duma which was
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 3 
 
 not to his taste. That is why the decade of years which 
 passed between the two Revolutions (1906-1917) was 
 filled with relentless struggle between the Duma and 
 the|'Tsar's ministers, which made peaceful progress im- 
 possible for Russia. 
 
 This struggle passed through two stages, which cor- 
 respond to the periods of the sessions of the two first 
 and two last Dumas. The first stage, which includes 
 the activity of the first two Dumas, was short and 
 violent (1906-7). The second stage, that of the last 
 two Dumas (1907-1917), was comparatively long and 
 outwardly quiet. But there was no quiet in the coun- 
 try. A second conflict, much more serious than the 
 first, was ripening, and everybody knew it. 
 
 The political party I belong to (the Constitutional- 
 Democratic, founded in 1905, the first of the Russian 
 constitutional parties) through all four Dumas never 
 ceased to be in opposition to the Tsar's Government. 
 In fact, all the parties that claimed to represent de- 
 mocracy, either bourgeois or socialistic, were on the 
 same side. We, I mean my party, the "Cadets" (the 
 Constitutional-Democratic) had been in the majority 
 in the first Duma, An attempt was made by the Tsar, 
 through his ministers, to approach me on the subject 
 of building a majority Cabinet. But the mediators 
 were not in earnest. They were anxious to have some 
 popular names in the Cabinet, but they were not pre- 
 pared to make any substantial concessions to our politi- 
 cal program. Of course, under such conditions, we 
 were unable to take the power and the responsibility 
 before the nation. The negotiations came to nothing, 
 and the chance for a peaceful evolution was lost. The
 
 4 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 alternative, proposed to the Tsar by his bureaucratic 
 minister, Mr. Stolypin, was, to dissolve the first Duma, 
 "the Duma of popular hopes," as it was called. Un- 
 fortunately, the Tsar decided to take that advice. The 
 Duma was dissolved after 70 days of existence. An 
 appeal for passive resistance, issued by the opposition 
 from Viborg, fell flat. However, the nation's answer 
 to the dissolution of the Duma was given on the oc- 
 casion of new elections. The electors, in spite of all 
 exertions of the Government (not yet quite experi- 
 enced in the art of electioneering), sent to the second 
 Duma the Duma of the "popular wrath" a socialist 
 majority, instead of the former bourgeois radical one. 
 Thenceforth, the fate of the popular representation was 
 sealed. A compromise had been possible with the con- 
 stitutionalist majority, but, as has been shown, it did 
 not materialize. No compromise whatever was possible 
 with the socialist parties, who were then extremist and 
 revolutionary. After 100 days of existence, in spite 
 of its very cautious tactics, the second Duma was also 
 dissolved. The motive this time it was a very serious 
 one was found in the attempt of an extreme socialist 
 faction to make use of their parliamentary seats to pre- 
 pare for a revolution in Russia. 
 
 The second stage began with an open breach of the 
 Constitution. Mr. Stolypin, under the influence of the 
 nobility and reactionary parties, persuaded the Tsar, 
 before summoning the third Duma, to change the 
 electoral law. According to the Fundamental Law of 
 1905, granted by the Tsar himself, this change could 
 not have been introduced without the consent of the 
 Duma. But the Constitution was violated. A new 
 electoral statute was promulgated by the Tsar's order 
 on June 16, 1907, which artificially transferred the ma-
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 5 
 
 jority from the democratic parties to the privileged 
 class of the nobility and the gentry. 1 
 
 From that moment the Duma lost all its influence on 
 the nation. Political parties, representing the masses, 
 were declared "illegal" and officially prosecuted. To 
 take their place in the Duma, new parties were built 
 under the auspices of the Government, and these repre- 
 sented the privileged classes or reactionary political 
 groups. It was this fictitious representation, ready to 
 follow every hint of the Government, which functioned 
 as a legislative organ during the decade of 1907-17. 
 Only such laws had a chance to pass as were desired 
 or introduced by the Government. All exertions of the 
 opposition to give the form of laws to the general prin- 
 ciples proclaimed by the October manifesto of 1905, 
 such as liberty of speech, liberty of conscience, of meet- 
 ings, locomotion, inviolability of person, were-regularly 
 defeated by the governmental majority or were post- 
 poned ad Kalendas Gmcas. On the other hand, im- 
 portant legislation was passed securing the landed 
 
 1 This important fact can be illustrated by the change in social 
 composition of the Duma before and after the breach of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Before 1907 After 1907 
 (per cent.) (per cent.) 
 
 Landed gentry 34 61 
 
 Peasants 43 22.4 
 
 Burgesses 23 24.2 
 
 Workingmen 3.4 2.3 
 
 It must be added that under the electoral regulation of June 16, 
 1907, peasants' and workmen's deputies were elected from a number 
 of candidates not by themselyes but by a group of biggest landowners 
 and richest burgesses, at their choice, in electoral assemblies of the 
 Provinces. This explains why the peasants' representatives, who 
 filled up the ranks of the opposition in the first two Dumas, now 
 almost exclusively sat on the backs of the Government parties, 
 thus enforcing the absolute majority of the landed gentry. See my 
 article on "The Representative System in Russia," in "Russian Re- 
 alities and Problems," Cambridge, Great Britain, 1917.
 
 6 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 property of the nobles or curtailing the rights of na- 
 tionalities (Finland, Poland). 
 
 However, there was another side to that domination 
 of the Duma by the Government, and it must not be 
 overlooked. In such questions as budget, education, 
 national defense, the governmental majority, from 
 patriotic considerations or under the influence of public 
 opinion, was often moved to vote with the opposition 
 against the Government. Such votes, of course, had 
 no practical consequences. They did not overthrow 
 the Cabinets. The vote of mistrust in no way deprived 
 the ministers of the Tsar's confidence. On the con- 
 trary: it almost seemed that the more a minister suc- 
 ceeded in antagonizing the Duma, the more reliable 
 he was considered to be in that contest between the old 
 regime and the Russian democracy. 
 
 As a result, the activity of the Duma even in its 
 chastened form far from removing the danger of a 
 new revolution, rather contributed to increase this dan- 
 ger. Any constructive work which might satisfy public 
 needs and thus help to mitigate popular disaffection, 
 was made impossible by the governmental majority 
 and by the Upper House of a unique structure: "a 
 cemetery of the Duma's good intentions," as witty 
 people called it. On the other hand, open criticism of 
 the Government's policy could not be forbidden to the 
 opposition. The Duma's sittings, which were public, 
 soon became the only place where free speech was 
 heard, and no censure was able to stifle severe exposure 
 of the Government's secret designs. The names of 
 the opposition speakers in the Duma became widely 
 known all over the country. This explains why, under 
 the second Revolution, the opposition leaders of the 
 Duma automatically became leaders of the popular
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 7 
 
 movement, in which the Duma itself was unable to 
 play any part. 
 
 At the same time, public debates on questions of 
 budget, legislation, foreign politics, military and naval 
 defense contributed to lift the veil which until then had 
 kept back the unqualified laymen from the sanctuary 
 of governmental practice. Due to the Duma, political 
 discussion was becoming common property. 
 
 In the general opinion, even of the moderate circles, 
 the second Revolution was bound to come. Moreover, 
 everybody was sure that this revolution was bound to 
 be a greater success than the first one, as a result of 
 the better political education of the masses. 
 
 This is a very brief and rapid outline of the political 
 events which contributed to prepare the second Rus- 
 sian Revolution, in 1917. But you could never realize 
 just why an uprising against such a tremendous power 
 as that of the old autocracy seemed to be proved so 
 easy, and why the whole fabric of the bureaucracy 
 went to pieces at once and was so thoroughly destroyed 
 to its very foundations, should I confine myself to that 
 outward description of the general trend of the latest 
 events, since I last was in America. A deeper insight 
 into the Russian past is necessary in order to explain 
 certain special features of the Russian Revolution. My 
 explanation remains substantially the same as that 
 which I gave to my American readers before the Revo- 
 lution. 
 
 Speaking generally, one may say that at a certain 
 period of national development a violent overthrow of 
 obsolete political and social institutions is very likely 
 to come in every civilized community capable of 
 evolving from medievalism to modern democracy. The 
 Russian Revolution is no exception to that general
 
 8 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 rule. It is in many aspects similar to other revolu- 
 tions, e.g., the English Revolution of the XVII Cen- 
 tury and especially the great French Revolution of 
 1789-95. In my capacity of historian I have studied 
 both. But after having passed through that living ex- 
 perience of our own Revolution, I read again, in 1917, 
 Mr. Taine's volumes on the "Ancient Regime and the 
 Revolution" and I was amazed at many similarities 
 in the smallest details which never before had arrested 
 my attention. I now realize better than at any time 
 of my former studies, just how much similar is the 
 psychology of all revolutions. 
 
 But, at the same time, one must not forget that every 
 nation has its peculiarities, in its revolutionary, as well 
 as in its normal stage of development. To make you 
 understand that special character of the Russian Revo- 
 lution, I must draw your attention to these peculiar 
 features, made our own by the whole process of Rus- 
 sia's history. To my mind, all these features converge 
 into one. The fundamental difference which distin- 
 guishes Russia's social structure from that of other 
 civilized countries, can be characterized as a certain 
 weakness or lack of a strong cohesion or cementation of 
 elements which form a social compound. You can ob- 
 serve that lack of consolidation in the Russian social 
 aggregate in every aspect of civilized life: political, 
 social, mental and national. 
 
 From the political point of view, the Russian State 
 institutions lacked cohesion and amalgamation with 
 the popular masses over which they ruled. This pe- 
 culiarity can be explained by the origin of the Russian 
 State and by the process of its historical growth. Orig- 
 inated on the confines of Europe and Asia, the Russian 
 State was late to appear. You can observe a certain
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 9 
 
 regularity in the order of development of States as 
 you go from the West to the East of Europe. The 
 same process of evolution of State institutions which 
 took place on the banks of the Seine and Loire as early 
 as V-VII Century A.D., developed itself one or two 
 centuries later (VII-VIII) in the countries eastwards 
 from the Rhine, and four or five centuries later on the 
 Eastern Mark of Germany (IX-XI). On the bound- 
 less plains of the future Russian Empire, State institu- 
 tions developed five to nine centuries later than in 
 France: the earliest date being that of Southern Rus- 
 sia (Kieff on the Dnieper River, IX-XII Century), 
 and the latest that of the Muscovite center (XIV 
 Century). 
 
 Now, as a consequence of their later appearance, the 
 State institutions in Eastern Europe necessarily as- 
 sumed certain forms which were different from those in 
 the West. The State in the East had no time to orig- 
 inate from within, in a process of organic evolution. 
 It was brought to the East from outside. In the West, 
 the State gradually evolved from the initial stage of 
 tribal existence, through the intermediary stage of 
 tribal aristocracy (the heads of the clans). In the 
 East, the internal differentiation within the tribes had 
 not yet made sufficient progress when the necessity of a 
 State organization was felt. In the absence of internal 
 elements of national statehood, the State institutions 
 were then simply superposed over the tribal institu- 
 tions. We have a very telling legend which symbolizes 
 this kind of origin of the Russian State. The emis- 
 saries of the Russian Slavic tribes, the legend runs, 
 went to the Northern viking Hrorekr, to invite him to 
 come to Russia and to take up the kingly power. 
 "Our land," it is related they said, "is a very large and
 
 10 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 rich one. But order is lacking. Come to rule and to 
 reign over us." You will often hear now that expres- 
 sion "calling for Northmen," used to suggest that Rus- 
 sia wants again its "order" to be brought from out- 
 side. The same legend was used by the first and the 
 only doctrine of Russian nationalism we have ever had, 
 by the so-called Slavophil doctrine. The Slavophils 
 wished to prove by it that Russian State institutions, 
 being of foreign origin, remained foreign to the Rus- 
 sian soul and to the Russian country. The "land" did 
 not wish to share in the sin of the "State." The "land" 
 would rather have chosen the way of "internal truth" 
 the path of Mary and have left the path of Martha 
 that of "external truth," of "order" preserved by 
 force to foreign hirelings. 
 
 The point is, indeed, that for centuries the State 
 power has remained in Russia what it was when the 
 Northern vikings first came: an outsider to whom 
 allegiance was won only in the measure of his utility. 
 The people were not willing to assimilate themselves to 
 the State, to feel a part of it, responsible for the whole. 
 The country continued to feel and to live independent 
 from the State authorities. This was not only possible: 
 it was practically unavoidable as a natural result of an 
 extremely primitive and undeveloped system of admin- 
 istration. Under that system, which was characterized 
 by an extreme scarcity of the executive organs of ad- 
 ministration in the country, the central Government 
 was simply unable to get at every single citizen. 
 Whether it had to collect taxes and duties, or to prose- 
 cute criminal offenders, its only means for a very long 
 tune was to address itself to the whole community to 
 which this particular taxpayer or criminal offender be- 
 longed. The community was made responsible for its
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 11 
 
 single member. When Peter the Great decided to 
 change that state of things and to introduce a better 
 order into that primitive anarchy, by following the 
 example of the Swedish system of administration 
 which was then held in high repute his foreign ad- 
 visers informed him that it was impossible to apply 
 that system to Russia. The simple reason was that it 
 was too expensive. They told Peter that the cost of 
 administering one small Province, like Liefland, on the 
 Swedish pattern, was more than the current expenses 
 for the whole of Russia, when kept in order by tradi- 
 tional means. 
 
 The population was too poor to bear the expenses of 
 the perfected provincial institutions of more advanced 
 countries. Nay, it was even too poor to bear the ex- 
 penses of the central administration with its rapidly 
 growing needs. Political development and the process 
 of expansion of the Russian State was always in ad- 
 vance of Russia's economic development. That is why 
 the State was forced to extract from its poor subjects 
 more than they could possibly give. Hence the objec- 
 tive necessity to resort to force. The burden of sus- 
 taining the expanding State's institutions was becom- 
 ing extremely heavy, and, of course, this growing 
 charge was unable to contribute to transform traditional 
 passive submission into a voluntary habit to obey. 
 
 You now can see why in Russia (1), the rural popu- 
 lation up to the last remained, in a sense, natural an- 
 archists; (2), why all important changes were bound to 
 come from above, from the State authorities, and (3), 
 why each new power, which did not get too much 
 "under the skin" of the plain people, was sure of being 
 passively obeyed. This explains to a great extent the 
 events of the Russian Revolution.
 
 12 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 We now pass to another aspect of the same basic 
 feature: the lack of cohesion among the social ele- 
 ments in Russia. We do not find in the social history 
 of Russia any groups of population strong enough to 
 limit the power of the State. We know that the case 
 was different in Western Europe under medieval feud- 
 alism or under more modern growth of urban liberties. 
 In the European East there was no landed aristocracy 
 and no "bourgeoisie" strong and united enough to be 
 able to dictate conditions to the growing power of the 
 Tsar. In Russia, as well as under the Byzantine or 
 the Moslem rule, all land was supposed to belong origi- 
 nally to the Chief of the State, whether his name was 
 Emperor, Tsar or Khalif. The landed aristocracy, far 
 from limiting the power of their sovereign, was in Rus- 
 sia created by that same autocratic power as a class of 
 the Tsar's military "servants." The Tsar allotted to 
 them their landed estates, on the condition of actual 
 military service. 
 
 It is very characteristic that in Russia, since the XVI 
 Century, the words "courtiers" and "men of service" 
 were used to designate the class of nobility and gentry. 
 It is true that in the XVIII Century the Tsar's dona- 
 tions of military lots of land definitely evolved into 
 unlimited and unconditioned private landed property. 
 But the Russian peasants did not forget that origi- 
 nally their landlord's estates belonged to the Tsar. And 
 from that very moment when military lots became the 
 private property of the nobles, the peasants persist- 
 ently waited for the time when the Tsar would be kind 
 enough to learn about their needs and to give them back 
 the "land." They were sure that he would do that, 
 while remunerating his old "servants" with money. 
 
 On their part the landed nobility were doing exactly
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 13 
 
 the opposite to what was necessary to undermine that 
 popular opinion. In the first place, there was no law 
 of primogeniture in Russia. Landed estates were di- 
 vided and subdivided, until in the third or fourth gen- 
 eration they formed a number of small lots which did 
 not much differ from the peasants' holdings. Few 
 ancient families of nobles remained alive : most of them 
 died out. Admission to the gentry being free to every- 
 body, the emptied ranks were gradually filled with new- 
 comers. Especially, from Peter the Great's time it was 
 sufficient to have reached a certain rank hi the bureau- 
 cratic or military service, or (at a later date) to have 
 been decorated with St. Vladimir's order, to enter the 
 ranks of the nobility. As time went on, that new 
 aristocracy of "rank" lost in its turn a great part of its 
 possessions, together with the former aristocracy of 
 "provenience." A good deal was purchased by the 
 peasants as a result of the Emancipation Act of 1861. 
 But the nobles still preserved about 105 million des- 
 siatines. They went on losing them during the last 
 half century. Only a third of the number just men- 
 tioned (35 million) remained in their possession at the 
 moment of the Revolution of 1917. The peasants in- 
 sisted on this remaining third being given over to 
 them with the rest. It was, practically, this claim of 
 the peasants that lay at the basis of all political strug- 
 gle of the last decades. It was this social question 
 which complicated so much the just and timely solu- 
 tion of the problem of political freedom. The agrarian 
 question had become the chief point of contention and 
 competition in all party platforms. The socialist 
 groups accepted the peasants' standpoint concerning 
 the transfer of lands from the nobles, but they wanted 
 these lands to be given to the State, not to private
 
 14 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 peasants. My party, the "bourgeois" democracy, tried 
 to reconcile the popular claims with the point of view 
 of law on private property and with sound economic 
 principles. It was chiefly with the aim to make such 
 solutions impossible that the Government dispersed 
 the first two Dumas, and changed the Electoral Law 
 to the benefit of the nobles. Under the third, the Duma 
 of the Government's own choice, the State authori- 
 ties took the side of the big landowners. The new 
 Premier, Mr. Stolypin, tried by special legislation to 
 divert the peasants' attention from the lands of the 
 nobility, and to remunerate the rich peasants at the 
 expense of the poorest. This experiment of reactionary 
 social legislation was among the causes which con- 
 tributed to the success of the extreme elements under 
 the second Revolution. The very first result of that 
 Revolution was to deprive the new privileged group of 
 the well-to-do peasant landowners of their possessions 
 acquired under Mr. Stolypin's agrarian legislation. But 
 then, the revolutionary process went farther. The 
 peasants' solution of the agrarian tangle prevailed 
 amidst the general crisis. The same revolutionary out- 
 break which destroyed the autocracy, also completely 
 swept away its ally, the landed aristocracy and the gen- 
 try. You now can see to what a large extent this issue 
 was favored and prepared by the social history of Rus- 
 sia. 
 
 Let us now pass to the third aspect of the funda- 
 mental feature mentioned above: to the weakness of 
 mental cohesion between the different social groups 
 of the nation. Of course, it would be strange to deny 
 that a certain national way of feeling and thinking is 
 common to all social groups. A Russian intellectual 
 is no foreigner to his people. But history, here too
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 15 
 
 for a long time, prevented both groups, the intellect- 
 uals and the people, from being welded together. In 
 the first place, up to the last half century, the only 
 educated class in Russia was the nobility and gentry. 
 The fate of this class was partly shared by the intellect- 
 uals. Under Peter the Great, (1689-1725) to serve the 
 State in its process of reform, they hurriedly picked 
 up some superficial knowledge of applied science 
 abroad. Under the Empress Elizabeth (1741-1761), 
 to please her, tney imitated French fashions and 
 learned to dress, to speak, and to dance, as it behooved 
 accomplished courtiers. Under Catherine II (1762- 
 1796), to follow her example, they read Montesquieu 
 and Voltaire, and made progress in advanced politics. 
 Under Alexander I (1801-1825), they definitely be- 
 came revolutionaries. For the first time, they decided 
 to serve not the "State," but the country, and they 
 did it in their own manner, in the way of Riego's and 
 Pepe's. But, by their social extraction, as well as by 
 the Government's policy, they still were prevented 
 from actual intercourse with the people. The conse- 
 quence of their estrangement from active politics and 
 from contact with the plain people was an abstract way 
 of thinking. Again, their abstract way of thinking 
 drove them to a sort of intellectual extremism. The 
 February Revolution in France (1848) made them 
 socialists. They thenceforth obediently followed the 
 metamorphoses of European socialism, passing from 
 Fourier to Proudhon, from Proudhon to Karl Marx, 
 and from Marx to revolutionary syndicalism. At the 
 same time, beginning with the middle of the XIX Cen- 
 tury, their ranks began to fill up from the lower social 
 layers, and they definitely forsook civil and military 
 service for journalism, for the academic career, science,
 
 16 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 art and other liberal vocations. They studied pretty 
 thoroughly the political life of the advanced democra- 
 cies. But they had no access to their own. That is 
 why they remained extremists, with very little, if any, 
 political experience. The extremism of that part of the 
 Russian intellectuals is to be greatly responsible for 
 the failure of the first Revolution. It also proved 
 detrimental to the success of our second Revolution, 
 when a chance was given them for realizing their doc- 
 trines. 
 
 The fourth symptom of the lack of amalgamation is 
 manifested by the divergent tendencies of the nationali- 
 ties incorporated into the Russian State. I am far 
 from asserting that no common interests united them 
 with the whole of the Empire. On the contrary, there 
 were a great many ties between them and Russia, and 
 their severance is particularly keenly felt now that some 
 of these nationalities are detached from the whole. 
 But, there too, the aggregate was kept together by 
 passive rather by conscious desire to make one. The 
 system of centralization and oppression used by the 
 autocracy revolted the national feeling. Disaffection 
 grew particularly strong during the last three decades 
 of years, since the last attempts made by the reaction- 
 ary Government of Alexander III to "Russianize" these 
 nationalities. At the end of the XIX Century it had 
 already become quite clear, that at the first opportunity 
 the leaders of the groups just then awakened to their 
 national consciousness would search for support out- 
 side of Russia against that policy of bureaucratic cen- 
 tralization. 
 
 Such are the chief factors, deeply rooted in history, 
 which were bound to come to the fore in any serious 
 outbreak. A kind of spontaneous anarchy amongst
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 17 
 
 the masses kept in a state of passive submission by a 
 regime of force; the decaying power of a privileged 
 class doomed to perdition and depending, for its salva- 
 tion, on the equally decaying power of the autocracy; 
 the theoretical maximalism of the revolutionary intel- 
 lectuals, inclined to Utopian solutions, with no politi- 
 cal experience to back them ; and, finally, the separatist 
 strivings of intellectual leaders of national minorities: 
 those are special features of any Russian revolution. 
 
 We now know why a Revolution was likely to come 
 and what its character was bound to be in Russia. But 
 the question remains to be answered, just why and when 
 had it become unavoidable? 
 
 A revolution always becomes unavoidable when im- 
 portant and vital reforms are impeded by an authority 
 which has lost its moral prestige and has become power- 
 less to suppress a growing and universal disaffection 
 among the masses. 
 
 We know what were the important and vital re- 
 forms impeded by the Government. Two of them had 
 become especially urgent: the substitution of a popu- 
 lar constitutional regime for the patriarchal one and 
 the transfer of the land from the decaying privileged 
 class to the rural democracy. 
 
 It was also universally known what was the chief 
 obstacle in the path of these reforms. They were op- 
 posed by a political alliance of the two forces whose 
 interests were equally menaced by both reforms. Au- 
 tocracy was menaced by the former; landed aristoc- 
 racy was menaced by the latter. We know what were 
 the poisonous fruits of this fatal alliance. It was the 
 sham constitution of 1906 and the antiquated electoral 
 system of 1907. 
 
 As to the moral prestige of the dynasty, it was defi-
 
 18 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 nitely undermined by the court life and the court 
 scandals. The Tsarina, the "German," was positively 
 disliked by the masses, and she was generally consid- 
 ered to be the evil genius of the Tsar. The comparison 
 with Marie Antoinette was on everybody's lips. 
 
 There remained physical force, for the regime to live 
 upon. That force seemed to be overwhelmingly strong 
 and invincible, no match for the weak forces of politi- 
 cal opposition. The only thing that could disarm the 
 autocracy was an unsuccessful war. That war came. 
 
 In 1905 the autocracy received a first warning. 
 After the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the situa- 
 tion was favorable for a revolution. And Russia actu- 
 ally passed through the initial stages of a Revolution. 
 That first Revolution failed for many reasons. The 
 opposition forces were scattered. They had just be- 
 gun to organize, but as soon as they got their first vic- 
 tory, the October Manifesto, they turned to fight each 
 other. The dynasty was saved by the skillful maneu- 
 vering of a self-made politician, Count Witte. Count 
 Witte knew how to divide the forces of the opposition, 
 and played them against each other, thus protracting 
 the struggle until the Russian Army came back from 
 the Far East and a loan was given to the Tsar by 
 France. Autocracy had money and armed force. The 
 Government then felt free to deal a decisive blow to the 
 first Russian representative Chamber. 
 
 In 1917 circumstances were much more favorable 
 for a revolutionary outbreak to prove successful. There 
 was no Witte, to save the Tsar. The moral and physi- 
 cal exhaustion and destruction, brought about by an 
 unprecedented World War, was by far deeper than in 
 1904-5. The revolutionary forces were much better 
 prepared and united, as a result of the first decade of
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 19 
 
 the working of political representation. What did the 
 autocracy have to oppose to all this? Nothing besides 
 a stubborn and blind resistance to the slightest conces- 
 sion, on the part of the Tsar's misguided and foolish 
 advisers. 
 
 Revolution had become unavoidable as early as the 
 Autumn of 1915. Already at the beginning of that 
 year the military unpreparedness of Russia had be- 
 come so manifest and the Army had had to suffer such 
 serious defeats, for no fault of its own, that public 
 opinion was roused against the Government. The pub- 
 lic asked for prompt measures to follow the lead of 
 Lloyd George and Albert Thomas. The Duma made 
 itself the mouthpiece of public opinion. For the last 
 time the opposition tried to give the Tsar a chance 
 and to extend to him a plank of salvation. I was my- 
 self responsible for building an emergency majority 
 in the Duma, which we called the "progressive bloc," 
 although it was more than moderate in its platform. 
 We wanted the Tsar to form a Cabinet which would 
 "enjoy the confidence of the country." The Tsar would 
 not listen to any hint at concessions. Moreover, he 
 removed from office, one by one, all his Ministers who, 
 without being liberal, felt the necessity of concessions 
 and were favorable to the compromise proposed by the 
 "progressive bloc." 
 
 The chasm was now (in August, 1915) wide open 
 and was no more to be bridged. Under the growing 
 pressure of more radical political groups, the moderate 
 proposals made by- the "bloc" had to be withdrawn. 
 Public opinion asked now for a parliamentary system 
 based on the principle of responsibility of the Cabinet 
 before the House. For the Tsar this demand was 
 equivalent to asking for a Republic.
 
 20 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Weak and indecisive by nature, Nicholas II fell com- 
 pletely under the influence of his hysterical wife. The 
 Tsarina insisted that no concessions should be granted. 
 In her own way, she came to the conclusion that Louis 
 XVI and Marie Antoinette had perished just for hav- 
 ing yielded too much to the popular wishes. Her un- 
 yielding temper was still more stiffened by a mystical 
 idea that she was following God's orders. The Tsar 
 and the Tsarina both listened to the voice from above, 
 borne to them by the notorious Rasputin. This illiter- 
 ate peasant profited by their superstition, to threaten 
 them with the Almighty's wrath should they not follow 
 his advice. 
 
 His advice was that the Tsar should go to the Army 
 and invest himself with the power and the dignity of 
 Commander-in-Chief. Everybody thought it ex- 
 tremely dangerous for the Tsar to make himself per- 
 sonally responsible for the coming defeats, which grew 
 more than probable. But the Tsar followed the voice 
 from above, and he played a pitiful figure at the head- 
 quarters of General Alexeiev. In the meanwhile, the 
 Tsarina, who remained at her Petrograd residence, re- 
 ceived the reports of the Ministers, retained in office 
 such as pleased her, replaced others with her favorites, 
 all of them quite insignificant personalities who came 
 and passed like shadows. Rasputin's protection could 
 be bought by any one who wished it, for money, and a 
 gang of courtiers formed itself in order to exploit Ras- 
 putin's influence for getting pecuniary benefits. In 
 addition to being hated, the Government was now de- 
 spised by everybody. It no longer inspired any fear. 
 
 The Tsar's family, the Grand Dukes, who saw the 
 approaching downfall of their dynasty, tried to draw 
 the attention of the Tsar to the risk he and they were
 
 REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE AVERTED 21 
 
 running. It was of no avail. To receive a hearing 
 from the Tsar was difficult, but to have a talk with 
 him on such unpleasant matters as called for decisive 
 action on his part, was fully impossible. He would not 
 listen to the advice, or, in case the informant should 
 insist too much on his point, he would turn his back 
 on him and which was his favorite gesture on such 
 occasions would impatiently drum his fingers against 
 the glass of a window. 
 
 It looked as if, in his innermost recesses, he knew 
 what was coming, but felt unable to grapple with the 
 danger, and as if in advance he had decided to submit 
 to his fate. In the face of the obviously approaching 
 catastrophe, he preserved a passive attitude. This, of 
 course, helped to increase the danger. The most faith- 
 ful servants of the Tsar, noting his passiveness, lost 
 courage and let things take their course. The heads of 
 the Army were quite prepared to back the coming 
 overthrow. General Alexeiev had even decided to ar- 
 rest the Tsarina at the time of her visit to his head- 
 quarters. His sudden illness alone prevented him from 
 trying in this way to escape from an extremely strained 
 situation. At any rate, in this way or another, every- 
 body felt that some change had to come. In mid-De- 
 cember, 1916, a group of the Tsar's relatives, with the 
 aid of the most reactionary of the Duma deputies, 
 killed Rasputin. But as the Tsar remained inactive, 
 everybody felt that this was not at all a solution. Then, 
 a group of prominent personalities, including General 
 Krimov and an influential member of the Duma, de- 
 cided to resort to a military conspiracy of the guards, 
 in order to imprison the Tsar. The conspirators pre- 
 pared to act at the beginning of March, 1917. But, a 
 few days before that time, the stroke came from below,
 
 22 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 in the form of an uprising of workmen and of some regi- 
 ments of the Petrograd Garrison. It was neither a 
 court conspiracy nor a military pronunciamento 
 which deprived the Tsar of his throne. It happened 
 to be a popular upheaval. The Revolution hoped for 
 by some, feared by many, foreseen by all had finally 
 become an actuality.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHY THE BOLSHEVIKS GOT THE 
 UPPER HAND. 
 
 In 1917, we had two revolutions: that of March, and 
 that of November. We may call the first a national 
 revolution. The second was international. 
 
 In March all parts of the nation and all political 
 groups even the conservative ones united in one 
 common effort to defeat their common enemy the 
 autocracy. Just why were the conservative groups 
 against the autocratic regime? This is explained by 
 the exceptional conditions of war time. The ancient 
 regime once more (after the Crimean and the Japanese 
 defeat) proved unable to provide for the national de- 
 fense. Both the conservative and the liberal groups 
 of public opinion were unanimous in concluding that 
 no victory in war was possible for Russia as long as 
 the methods of autocracy were applied to the struggle. 
 This was the motive which led both moderate and con- 
 servative groups to endorse the revolutionary move- 
 ment. 
 
 This was also the reason why the Duma conserva- 
 tive as it was in its majority was ready and willing to 
 cover with its authority the military insurrection of 
 March 11 in Petrograd. The consent of the Duma at 
 that moment was essential for the initial success of 
 the Revolution. If there had been no Duma to lead 
 
 23
 
 24 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the movement, the responsible leaders of the army, 
 such as General Alexeiev or Russki, would never have 
 taken sides with the revolutionaries. The Tsar would 
 not have been induced to abdicate so soon and so 
 easily. A struggle would have begun on the very next 
 day, in which the extreme elements alone and, per- 
 haps, some parts of the Petrograd garrison would have 
 fought on the side of the Revolution. They probably 
 would soon have been isolated and defeated. 
 
 That is why the Russian reactionary groups are per- 
 fectly right to hold the Duma leaders responsible for 
 the success of the Revolution. It would be wrong and 
 not honorable for the moderate elements of the Duma 
 to deny their share of responsibility now that the revo- 
 lutionary movement has taken to the path which they 
 could not foresee and were unable to approve and to 
 follow. On the other hand, it is also not right on the 
 part of the extremists to minimize or to deny at all 
 the role of the Duma in what they consider to be their 
 Revolution. 
 
 After the glorious days of the "bloodless" Revolution 
 of March, there followed another Revolution which 
 cannot be called national. For all purposes, this sec- 
 ond stage of the Revolution, the Bolshevist revolution 
 of November 7, 1917, was opposed to the former one. 
 It claimed to be international, as its basic principle was 
 a universal uprising of one single class, the working 
 men, the "proletarians," against all governments and 
 all other social classes, all over the world. Russia was 
 to be used only as a stepping stone for that universal 
 conflagration. The "communist" doctrine of the Bol- 
 shevist revolution was a combined product of Marx' 
 theory, Mr. Lenin's comment on it and the latest syn- 
 dicalist teachings: i.e., it was also preeminently inter-
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 25 
 
 national. Moreover, the chief leaders of the Bolshev- 
 ist revolution had just come back to Russia from 
 abroad, from Geneva, Paris, London, New York, and 
 they knew much more about the international socialist 
 movement than about Russian realities. 
 
 On the face of it, the Bolshevist revolution of No- 
 vember 7 seemed to be too much Utopian, to be able 
 to succeed. How could Russia, an economically back- 
 ward country, which only a few decades before had en- 
 tered its industrial stage, and which still remained 
 essentially agricultural, how could such a country be 
 converted to socialism? Should it really happen, 
 would it not be equivalent to a refutation of Marx' 
 doctrine? According to Marx, only such countries 
 which have passed through the stage of capitalism, in 
 its most developed form, can be lifted to a "commun- 
 ist" stage. 
 
 We shall see later on, that the Bolsheviks knew all 
 these arguments perfectly well. But we shall also see 
 that they never intended to introduce communism in 
 Russia. The November revolution was to be a revolu- 
 tion not for Russia's sake, but for the sake of the world 
 revolution. Russia was a means, not an aim in itself. 
 Accordingly, the Bolsheviks only wished to make use 
 of Russia for the period necessary to start revolution- 
 ary outbreaks in real capitalistic countries. They did 
 not think that period would last long, and their only 
 ambition, in the beginning, was to beat the record of 
 the Paris Commune of 1871. However, the reality de- 
 feated all forecasts. The "communist" revolution of 
 November, 1917, proved a much greater success than 
 the national revolution of March. The last of the 
 four governments of the national Revolution was over- 
 thrown after eight months' duration. The Bolshevist
 
 26 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 government has now lasted for more than four years. 
 How is it possible that the revolution which seemed by 
 everybody failed so soon while the extremist, the Uto- 
 pian, the class revolution appears to be so lasting? 
 
 A complete answer will be given in the course of 
 these chapters. But I must warn the reader right now 
 not to be misled by their Bolshevik slogans. The 
 "communist" revolution of November, 1917, is only 
 a part of a long and complicated process. No "com- 
 munism" was inaugurated by it in Russia, and the Bol- 
 sheviks themselves had to adapt themselves to Russian 
 realities in order to be able to exist. It was the con- 
 tinuation of the general process of revolution which 
 was secured by the Bolshevist victory: it was only a 
 new stage which was thus opened. Accordingly, it is 
 not the surface change of Governments, and not even 
 the change in their tactics, but the continuity of that 
 great principal stream of revolutionary transformation 
 of Russia which is really important and which must 
 draw our particular attention. 
 
 It is not only a struggle between leaders of political 
 parties, between their programs and methods, that we 
 are now passing through in Russia. It is a real revo- 
 lution. 
 
 The psychology of all real revolutions is the same. 
 They develop from comparatively moderate to more 
 advanced and extreme tendencies, as soon as the move- 
 ment passes from the leading groups to unorganized 
 masses. A revolution is not only a dramatic overthrow 
 of a central Government. It is a process, a changing 
 state of mind in large social layers, and it takes time 
 for this process to take root and to pass through all its 
 stages. As long as that internal process in the social
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 27 
 
 organism has not run its inevitable course, the revolu- 
 tion is bound to last and to develop. The natural end 
 of the process is the realization of the claims and de- 
 sires put forward by the masses and left without satis- 
 faction by the social and political forces which are 
 destroyed in the process of revolutionary struggle. 
 
 There exists a sort of instinctive fear on the part of 
 the masses, lest a revolution finish too early. They 
 feel it may prove abortive if the victory is won by 
 the moderate elements alone. Whatever be the names 
 or the programs of the political parties, the masses in 
 the state of revolution always choose for their mouth- 
 piece those who propose the most extreme solutions. 
 On the contrary, such groups as intend to stop the 
 revolution short of this mark, and thus seem to pre- 
 clude the prospects of its possible achievements, soon 
 become suspected of "counter-revolutionary"- feelings 
 and are thrown aside by a revolutionary movement in 
 progress. 
 
 However, certain incentives are necessary to bring 
 that revolutionary psychology in motion. The first 
 impression concerning the Russian Revolution is that 
 there were in Russia no such motives for the revolu- 
 tionary movement to evolve, as we find them in the 
 great French Revolution. To begin with, there was no 
 struggle for or against the royal power. The Tsar 
 abdicated at once, and his successor refused to ascend 
 the throne pending the decision of the Constituent 
 Assembly. There was thus no actual struggle for or 
 against the prerogative, as was the case under the Con- 
 stituent Assembly of the French Revolution. Such 
 political groups as remained monarchists kept silent 
 and did not take part in the movement. All parties
 
 28 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 even conservative ones which were working in the 
 limelight of politics, became formally Republican. 
 Again, there was no fear of foreign invasion, no fear of 
 outsiders who might come and join hands with the 
 hidden monarchist groups, as was the case under the 
 National Assembly and the Convention. There were 
 no emigrants to insist on foreign intervention. All this 
 appeared after November, under the class Revolution, 
 and it explains the continuation of the process during 
 the past four years. But in its first stage the "blood- 
 less" Russian Revolution had no visible enemy, either 
 "internal" or "external." 
 
 And yet, in spite of all that, there were certain 
 groups to which the term "counter-revolutionary" was 
 already applied. The danger of a "counter-revolution" 
 in Russia was used as a pretext for pushing to the front 
 the so-called "revolutionary democracy." Was it a 
 fictitious enemy, an imaginary danger? Was it a mere 
 invention of the demagogues, in order to frighten the 
 masses? Or was the danger real? 
 
 In order to answer these questions, let us analyze the 
 situation as it was between the two Revolutions of 
 March and of November. There were three groups 
 particularly active on the revolutionary stage: 
 
 1. The "bourgeois' parties, represented chiefly by the ad- 
 vanced groups of the I3uma, by the more conservative com- 
 mercial and industrial group, and, at the background, by 
 some military organizations with a tendency to reaction. 
 
 2. The moderate socialists, divided in two currents: the 
 agrarian socialists (Social-Revolutionaries) and the prole- 
 tarian socialists (Social-Democrats of the Marxist type), 
 the so-called "Mensheviks." 
 
 3. The international extremists, working for the world 
 revolution, the so-called "Bolsheviks"; and some few So- 
 cial-Revolutionaries of the extreme left wing.
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 29 
 
 The first two groups, in the process of the struggle 
 which was now going on, fell victims of their modera- 
 tion and also of their internal contradictions. The 
 third group the Bolshevist was much more consist- 
 ent with itself, and much more accessible for the popu- 
 lar understanding, and it finally won the game. 
 
 What were the contradictions under which the Duma 
 groups labored? In the first place, there was the con- 
 tradiction between the great reputation the Duma en- 
 joyed in the country, and which made it play a prom- 
 inent part at the beginning of the Revolution, and 
 its real political insignificance. The fourth Duma 
 was elected in 1912 under a very strong electoral 
 pressure of the Government, whose aim was to form 
 a majority ready to restore autocracy. This aim was 
 not attained, and the Duma had no governmental 
 majority. But at the same it did not have 
 any other majority. The reputation for liberalism was 
 won by the opposition minority alone and it did not 
 correspond to the general spirit of the House. The 
 Duma as a whole was thus unable to lead the Revolu- 
 tion. At the moment of the revolutionary outbreak, 
 on that very day of March 11, and without any con- 
 nection whatever with the Revolution, the Duma was 
 prorogued by order of the Tsar. Contrary to the ac- 
 cepted legend, the Duma never ^tended to stay. It 
 obeyed the order. The Duma's Committee, which had 
 been selected on that day and which a couple of days 
 later nominated the first Provisional Government, had 
 not been chosen at a formal meeting of the Duma, act- 
 ing as an institution. The election took place at an 
 informal meeting which met privately in a room con- 
 tiguous to the "White Hall" of regular sessions. Thus, 
 the Provisional Government took its sanction not from
 
 30 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 any legal authority of pre-Revolutionary times, but 
 from Revolution. In a certain sense, this strengthened 
 its power while it was functioning. But it also made it 
 dependent on other manifestations, however irregular, 
 of the "popular will." The Duma itself ceased to exist, 
 as a political agent, from the moment of its proroga- 
 tion. Its members did not resign their mandates, 
 which expired in due time, in the autumn of 1917; 
 but they only held a few private meetings, and their 
 written declaration had no influence on the events. 
 
 After the disappearance of the Duma, the only 
 "bourgeois" party which continued to exist was the 
 Party of the People's Freedom (Constitutional-Demo- 
 crats or Cadets). The Party was democratic and had 
 its following among the burgesses and the peasants in 
 Northeastern Russia (free from the institution of serf- 
 dom, which in other parts of Russia was abolished 
 only in 1861). But, as a matter of fact, no real demo- 
 cratic party could possibly exist in Russia under the 
 sham constitutional regime of 1907-1917. All requi- 
 sites for organizing the masses were lacking. Autocracy 
 is thus greatly responsible for the absence of good 
 political guidance, and, as a result, for the chaotic and 
 elemental development of the revolutionary process. 
 All political parties, either bourgeois or socialistic were 
 equally handicapped in their attempts to reach and to 
 instruct the popular masses. The Constitutional- 
 Democratic Party (which declared itself Republican in 
 May, 1917) was chiefly composed of intellectuals and 
 enjoyed great moral authority. Most of the "bour- 
 geois" ministers of the four provisional Governments 
 between March and November belonged to that Party. 
 They worked in a coalition with moderate socialists 
 especially, the agrarian socialists (Social-Revolution-
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 31 
 
 aries). Of course, there was nothing "counter-revolu- 
 tionary" about them. But the masses which now were 
 coming to the forefront did not know them. They con- 
 founded them with other "bourgeois" groups of the 
 Duma and were quite prepared to believe extremist 
 demagogues who called them "capitalists" and "im- 
 perialists." The very fact of their participation in the 
 revolutionary Cabinets was sufficient to discredit the 
 Government in the eyes of the masses. 
 
 But there were other reasons which made the task 
 of the demagogues still easier. The "Cadets" wanted 
 the great changes in the social and political life of Rus- 
 sia which were looked for by the masses to be enacted 
 in a legal way, by regular legislation passed by a 
 legally summoned Constituent Assembly. It was, 
 however, not easy to prepare for elections on the new 
 basis of universal suffrage in such a country as Russia. 
 The "Cadets" found it necessary, for technical as well 
 as for political reasons, to postpone general elections 
 until local elections for new democratic organs of pro- 
 vincial self-government (the renewed "Zemstvos") 
 had taken place on the same principle of universal suf- 
 frage. This was the only way to secure the controlling 
 machine for really free and democratic elections. But 
 under the conditions of growing mistrust and excite- 
 ment, on the basis of social hatred fomented by the 
 demagogues, it was really dangerous thus to postpone 
 the session of the Constituent Assembly. The masses 
 were unwilling to wait for its decisions on such capital 
 questions as agrarian reform, or workingmen's control 
 of factories. The revolutionary groups did not want to 
 wait for the Constituent Assembly to decide upon the 
 form of Government. It was easy to declare "counter- 
 revolutionary" every one who was suspected of desiring
 
 32 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the postponement of such decisions. And it was a mis- 
 take on the part of the moderate groups not to pay 
 enough attention to the consequences of their con- 
 scientious but dilatory methods. 
 
 I do not know whether I must call a "mistake" an- 
 other feature of moderate tactics, which proved still 
 more dangerous. I mean their views on War and For- 
 eign Politics. They wanted the war to be carried to 
 the end in agreement with the Allies. They thought 
 it dishonest and mean to think of separate peace, and 
 they knew that they were unable to persuade the 
 Allies to conclude a "peace without victory." This 
 proved to be the weakest point in the program of the 
 Provisional Governments. Russia was reaching the 
 limit of weariness and exhaustion. Even before the 
 Revolution the Army had become impatient and un- 
 willing to fight any longer. After the Revolution a 
 new incentive was added for the soldiers to go back to 
 their homes as soon as they could. Rumor had it that 
 partition of the land was to be the first result of a 
 democratic and really popular revolution. The soldier 
 who was also a peasant would not wait for the solu- 
 tion of his special problem, not only until theConstitu- 
 tional Assembly met; he would not wait at all, 
 fearing lest his neighbor in the village return first 
 and profit by his absence in order to take the best- lots 
 and more than his share. At any cost, he had to be 
 back for the moment of partition a moment longed 
 for by so many generations of his ancestors. 
 
 To be sure, it meant expecting too much from the 
 degree of civic education of the Russian peasant to 
 ask him first to fight on to the bitter end, with the risk 
 of being killed, and then to await the decision of a 
 Constituent Assembly on that momentous question of
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 33 
 
 land. He readily believed his "true" friends who told 
 him to stop fighting, because it was the French and 
 British "capitalists" and "imperialists" who wanted 
 him to shed Russian blood for their colonies. From the 
 other side of the front he heard the same thing re- 
 peated by Russian newspapers printed in Berlin and 
 smuggled into the Russian trenches. German soldiers 
 in front of him treated him to Russian "vodka," and 
 German "schnaps," and they invited him to fraternize 
 and to make peace directly, at that very point of the 
 front, and then go home instead of allowing himself 
 to be shot at the very moment when the long expected 
 lot of land was waiting for him in his village. 
 
 On the contrary, the "capitalist" and "bourgeois" 
 ministers declared themselves faithful to the Allied 
 agreements and forced him to fight on. He now knew 
 who were his friends and his enemies, how to choose 
 between them and whom to follow. 
 
 Before I speak of the attitude of the second group of 
 moderate socialists, let us look at the other pole of 
 Russian political life: that third group of Russian ex- 
 tremists who were ready to make use of this state of 
 mind of the Russian soldier, which they had long be- 
 fore foreseen. Since 1905 and 1906 the years of the 
 first Russian Revolution they were always on the 
 alert for some new war to come, in order to repeat their 
 experiment that had failed. International socialism 
 was then planning a universal international strike in 
 the event of a declaration of war. Such also were the 
 decisions of the international congresses at Stuttgart, 
 in 1907, and at Basel, in 1912. But there was a small 
 group of revolutionary internationalists which decided 
 to go further than this. This group included Russian 
 revolutionaries who had fled from Russia after the
 
 34 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 failure of their first attempt to revolutionize Russia: 
 both Lenin and Trotsky. Lenin's personal view was 
 that the "revolutionary vanguard" which was generally 
 expected to abolish the State in order to promote com- 
 munism, had rather preserve State institutions and use 
 them as a ready weapon of violence and repression. 
 Instead of resorting to problematic strikes, Lenin's 
 scheme was to immediately take the State power in 
 the hands of the proletariat and to hasten the advent 
 of socialism by means of the State machinery. 
 
 War was included in that scheme, not as an inci- 
 dental agent, but as its necessary component part. Ac- 
 cording to the doctrine, war was sure to come, as a 
 consequence of the normal working of the capitalist 
 system. War had to create what they called a "revo- 
 lutionary situation." It remained for the socialists to 
 make use of that revolutionary situation in order to 
 transform war in the trenches, between the states, into 
 international civil war between the classes. 
 
 At the very beginning of the World War, hi 1914, this 
 scheme was formally discussed in Lenin's Swiss organ, 
 The Social-Democrat. At the same time Trotsky 
 and Martov, in Paris, took part in similar discussions 
 of a small circle which met every evening at a small 
 shop called "Librairie du Travail." All the future 
 leaders of French extremism were there: Monette, 
 Guilbeaux, Rosmer, the poet Martinet, Merrheim. The 
 group felt rather isolated amidst the first outbreaks of 
 national feeling, which found its political expression in 
 the "Sacred Union" of the socialists with the bourgeois 
 parties. But they were very proud of having remained 
 faithful to the pure doctrine in the midst of the col- 
 lapse of the "Second International." "A kind of grim 
 satisfaction remained to us," one of them said, "to be
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 35 
 
 the first men in Paris who belonged to a future Inter- 
 national ... At this small hearth the spark of Zim- 
 merwald was kindled." 
 
 And, indeed, this was the modest beginning of the 
 Third International of Moscow. Not only such "so- 
 cial patriots" as voted military credits and entered 
 war cabinets were severely denounced by the new cur- 
 rent, even people like Kautsky the so-called "cen- 
 ter" were branded as traitors to the cause of social- 
 ism. A new International was to be formed only of 
 such groups however small as would follow the lead 
 of Lenin and obey his orders. 
 
 Thus, Lenin knew perfectly well what he was out 
 for when he first came to Russia through Germany in 
 April, 1917. He was probably one of the few to know 
 it and to have in his mind a cut and dried scheme of 
 what was to be accomplished with the aid of the Rus- 
 sian Revolution. 
 
 Let us now come back to the second, the intermediate 
 group between the "bourgeois" and the extremist. 
 Clearness of view was not exactly its distinctive fea- 
 ture. This intermediate current was composed of two 
 moderate socialist groups: chiefly of the Social-Revo- 
 lutionaries, whose spokesman was Kerensky, and$of the 
 Social-Democrats (Mensheviks), led by the Georgian 
 Deputy Tsereteli. They knew and openly admitted 
 that a socialist society could not evolve from the revo- 
 lutionary movement. They agreed that the only aim 
 realizable for the moment, was a stabilized democracy 
 in the form of a bourgeois Republic. On this funda- 
 mental point they shared the opinion -of the bourgeois 
 parties. That is why up to the end they wished and 
 they succeeded to retain the power in the hands of a 
 coalition of moderate socialist and advanced bourgeois
 
 36 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 parties. But, on the other hand, they were unable to 
 break definitely with their extremist fellow-socialists, 
 and at all crucial moments they felt themselves closer 
 to them than to their "Cadet" colleagues. From the 
 very beginning of the Revolution they fell under the 
 influence of the extremist slogans sometimes even 
 without knowing their real purport. For example, they 
 called themselves Zimmerwaldians. But they by no 
 means were willing to join in the aim of transforming 
 the war in the trenches into a civil war. They wanted 
 an immediate peace to come, and they severely criti- 
 cized the "imperialist" aims of the "capitalist'' Allied 
 Governments. At the same time they ranged them- 
 selves with the "socialist patriotic" ministers of the 
 Allied cabinets, like Albert Thomas, and they even were 
 induced by the latter to "persuade" the demoralized 
 Russian army to start on an offensive. 
 
 Again, they did not wish to give "all power to the 
 Soviets," which was then the Bolshevist slogan. But, 
 on the other hand, they had to recognize themselves 
 responsible before the Soviets, as revolutionary organs, 
 where their parties were represented. They thus con- 
 tributed to the weakening of the Provisional Govern- 
 ments of which they were members. They claimed to 
 belong to the "revolutionary democracy" a vague 
 term which embraced such groups as were considered 
 true to the Revolution. At the same time, they were 
 brought to search for allies in the "bourgeois" ranks, 
 which were considered by that same "revolutionary de- 
 mocracy" as being hopelessly "counter-revolutionary." 
 They relied upon the Constituent Assembly to decide 
 all fundamental questions put forward by the process 
 of Revolution. On the other hand, they obediently 
 followed in the trail of events which anticipated these
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 37 
 
 decisions. They thus officially proclaimed Russia a 
 Republic, and they largely contributed in a semi- 
 official way to the passage of the landed estates from 
 the nobles to the peasants by encouraging a matter-of- 
 fact expropriation which was covered by the euphemis- 
 tic term "creating new revolutionary law by the peo- 
 ple." 
 
 The extremists made ample use of all these inconsist- 
 encies and contradictions. The moderate socialists pre- 
 tended to speak and to act in the name of the people. 
 Their extremist opponents appealed directly to the 
 masses. They accused the moderate socialists of mak- 
 ing common cause with the "bourgeoisie" and the 
 "capitalists." It was enough for a socialist minister 
 to talk reason and common sense, to be accused of trea- 
 son towards the people. Irresponsible critics were free 
 to make unrealizable promises and thus to outbid their 
 ministerial colleagues. Very soon the moderate social- 
 ists began to realize the success of the Bolshevist dem- 
 agogy by increasing defections from their own ranks. 
 Gradually they lost ground in the Soviets and the Com- 
 mittees of the Petrograd workingmen and soldiers. 
 They had to retreat, and they transferred their head- 
 quarters to the Executive Committee of the All-Rus- 
 sian Conference of the Soviets, where provincial groups 
 which had remained more moderate than the popula- 
 tion of the capital city were represented. But the 
 enemy found his way even there, and, as a last refuge, 
 the moderate socialists resorted to a selection of pro- 
 vincial deputies from the newly created democratic 
 Zemstvos and Municipalities. This was the so-called 
 "Democratic Conference," which also proved vacillat- 
 ing and uncertain. 
 
 The socialist retreat was keenly observed by the ex-
 
 38 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tremists, who were soon encouraged to try decisive 
 blows. As early as mid- July, 1917, they made their 
 first attempt at an uprising in Petrograd. It failed 
 owing to the help which the moderate socialists re- 
 ceived from the army detachments, speedily sent from 
 the front. But then it became clear that the final de- 
 cision lay with the army, and not with representative 
 assemblies which served as a substitute for the Con- 
 stituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks paid special at- 
 tention to and made efforts to win, the Petrograd gar- 
 rison, while at the same time the moderate socialists 
 quarrelled with the army. Thenceforth their fate and 
 the fate of moderate revolution was sealed. 
 
 For the soldiers Kerensky, the War Minister, was an 
 "imperialist" who forced them to shed then- blood for 
 the Allies. And they answered his attempts to lead 
 them against the enemy with a disgraceful retreat. On 
 the other hand, for the officers Kerensky was a weak- 
 ling and a Utopian who precluded the possibility of 
 creating a strong revolutionary power and thus im- 
 periled the further existence of the Russian State. 
 They wanted a dictator, and they found their dictator 
 in the person of General Kornilov. Non-socialist 
 groups, which saw the approaching danger of a final 
 blow by the extremists, also wished to prevent it with 
 the aid of the sound elements of the army. They un- 
 derstood only too well that the danger was not to be 
 conjured away by mere speeches and resolutions. 
 Under certain conditions the first and the most im- 
 portant was to make common front against the ex- 
 tremists the Revolution might still have been saved 
 from its own excesses. The choice was free for a time 
 between Kornilov and Lenin. Unfortunately, no com- 
 mon front proved to be possible from Kerensky to
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 39 
 
 Kornilov, and by a sort of subconscious instinct the 
 masses because it was the? masses that decided 
 chose Lenin. 
 
 The Kornilov movement, which wound up in an in- 
 surrection against the Government, for the first time 
 revealed the existence of the real counter-revolutionary 
 groups. A movement which could only win as a na- 
 tional movement, took the shape of a secret conspir- 
 acy led by adventurous personalities and backed by 
 certain reactionary organizations. As a result, the 
 story of Lafayette and Dumouriez repeated itself in 
 Russia. Kornilov's attempt was finally repudiated 
 even by his adherents and sympathizers. Instead of 
 strengthening the Revolutionary power, it weakened 
 the central non-socialist groups, isolated the Govern- 
 ment and paved the way for the Bolshevist coup 
 d'etat. 
 
 The Bolsheviks now prepared quite openly for a 
 new stroke, in the face of a passive Government. At 
 the decisive moment, there were found only some hun- 
 dreds of young men from military schools and women 
 of the patriotic "shock" battalion, to defend the min- 
 isters in the Winter Palace. Then generals at the 
 front refused their help to Kerensky and 500 Cossacks 
 of General Krasnov tried in vain to bring him back 
 to Petrograd. Everybody else kept quiet and the Bol- 
 sheviks won an easy victory. 
 
 However, a victory in Petrograd did not yet mean 
 the victory in Russia. The real sanction of the Bol- 
 shevist coup lay in the fact that Bolshevism at the 
 moment of its victory practically met with no resist- 
 ance, with the exception of a few days' fighting in 
 Moscow and the opposition it met with in the land of 
 the Don Cossacks, in Southeastern Russia. The
 
 40 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 leaders of the army, partly the same men who readily 
 acknowledged the March Revolution, after a few mo- 
 ments of hesitation declared themselves on the side of 
 the Bolsheviks. Of course, they were forced to do so 
 through fear of being killed by their soldiers. But, at 
 the same time, they somehow felt satisfied to see 
 Kornilov's defeat avenged. Many of them thought 
 that the Bolshevist regime would not last long and the 
 time would soon come to settle their accounts with the 
 Russian Revolution in general. The real counter- 
 revolutionary elements thus detached themselves from 
 the "bourgeois" democracy at the very moment when 
 this democracy was forced to yield to the tyranny of 
 a few. It was not the first time that the two ex- 
 tremes, the Red and the Black, came together and 
 seemed better to understand each other than their op- 
 ponents from the moderate center. Mr. Lenin is said 
 to have often repeated, that in the event of being forced 
 to go, he would rather surrender to restored autocracy 
 than to a bourgeois republic, i.e., to stabilized democ- 
 racy. 
 
 Our explanation of such conditions in Russia as made 
 the Bolshevist victory unavoidable would not be com- 
 plete should we fail to mention the internal situation 
 in Russia, created by war and revolution. Russia was 
 made ripe for the Bolshevist domination by its process 
 of internal dissolution, which preceded the Bolshevist 
 coup. I shall not dwell on the state of general exhaus- 
 tion and slackening of moral and civil discipline, which 
 is an outstanding feature of the post-war situation in 
 all the belligerent countries. Let us rather have a look 
 at the specifically Russian phenomena created by the 
 Revolution. 
 
 This internal dissolution reflected itself first in the
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 41 
 
 complete destruction of all pre-revolutionary authori- 
 ties. From the very first days of the March Revolu- 
 tion all functionaries of the former Tsarist administra- 
 tion simply disappeared, beginning with the upper 
 ranks and down to the lowest. An attempt was made 
 by Prince Lvov, the Premier and Minister of the In- 
 terior, to let the men from the Zemstvos take the 
 places of these functionaries. But during the last pe- 
 riod of the self-defense of the autocracy, the composi- 
 tion of these organs of Russian self-government had 
 very much deteriorated, especially after the reaction- 
 ary electoral reform of 1890, which gave all power to 
 the local squires. From then on, the masses had not 
 made much distinction between the Zemstvo men and 
 the Tsar's officials: to them they were equally bad, and 
 sometimes even worse than bureaucrats. That is why, 
 this new personnel of the local administrations had 
 very soon to yield to the "Soviets" or other self-ap- 
 pointed organs of the "revolutionary democracy," 
 whose composition and functions were matters of their 
 own choice. 
 
 They were like as many small republics, each acting 
 at their own will. Unity of direction was completely 
 lacking. The direct result was that the whole machin- 
 ery of communications broke down at once, and it im- 
 mediately reflected itself in the regularity of supplying 
 the army at the front, which even before that time had 
 been far from being in good order. Very soon the 
 cities and towns also began to suffer from a shortage of 
 food. Cases of real famine began to appear. The only 
 resource left was to send special committees to the 
 grain- and cattle-exporting provinces of Russia, in 
 order to buy food at the source. Private persons fol- 
 lowed the lead of public institutions, and soon all
 
 42 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 trains were packed beyond their utmost capacity with 
 a new type of passengers, nicknamed "sack-bearers" and 
 "speculators." 
 
 But this was only a prelude. The real disaster broke 
 out when soldiers began to desert from the front. It 
 had always been a puzzle to the military authorities 
 how to demobilize these millions of peasants without 
 destroying communications and endangering the peace 
 and order of the local population. Now a matter-of- 
 fact demobilization began without any general scheme 
 or measures of precaution. The deserters went in 
 crowds. They took possession of trains, evicted regu- 
 lar passengers, traveled on roofs and platforms, 
 forced railway officials under menace of death to break 
 all traffic regulations, with the greatest danger for 
 themselves. Or they went on foot in bands, ravaging 
 and destroying everything on their way. Very often 
 they chose for the objects of their raids stores of al- 
 cohol, preserved from the pre-war State monoply. They 
 then joined hands with the peasants, and helped them 
 to burn their landowners' country houses and farms, to 
 ransack their property, to partition their land. In 
 the towns they helped the throng to break shops and 
 seize stores of food, to search houses of well-to-do peo- 
 ple or of some suspected "bourgeois." Now and then 
 such incursions took the form of anti-Semitic pogroms. 
 
 The workingmen, the "proletarians," did not stay 
 hi the background. They claimed their share of profit 
 from the democratic revolution. As a result of the 
 "military socialism" created by the War in Russia, as 
 elsewhere, the workingmen were accustomed to high 
 wages based on Government orders for munitions and 
 other products of new or increased war industry. They 
 claimed in wages more than they produced in manu-
 
 WHY BOLSHEVIKS GOT UPPER HAND 43 
 
 factured goods. The State had to pay for everything. 
 The proprietors of concerns were remunerated with 
 new orders paid in advance in increased prices. The 
 village also grew rich with paper money, printed and 
 paid in abundance for agricultural products. 
 
 All this apparent prosperity was based on an emer- 
 gency budget. Extraordinary income (from loans and 
 other operations of credit) surpassed by far ordinary 
 receipts from taxes, which were paid most irregu- 
 larly. The population thus grew accustomed to living 
 at the expense of the State. That kind of "State So- 
 cialism" served as a suitable introduction to the Bol- 
 shevist fantastic finance. Along with the Allied loans, 
 the printing press was already being used in steadily 
 increasing figures. The inflated currency reflected itself 
 immediately in the rise of prices, which in its turn was 
 responsible for new claims for increased wages and new 
 subsidies. 
 
 In a word, at the moment when the Bolshevist coup 
 d'etat took place, in November, 1921, Russia was ready 
 for Bolshevism. The situation was so bad that, in 
 everybody's opinion, it could not be made worse by 
 any new change. On the contrary, a change was looked 
 for by the population as a chance for improvement. 
 
 We now can understand why a sort of sanction was 
 given to the Bolshevist coup d'etat in Petrograd by the 
 passive attitude of a suffering population. A young 
 shepherd found using his landlord's field as a pasture 
 for the village cattle, summed up the state of affairs in 
 a brief saying. He was asked by his landlord's man- 
 ager, why he permitted himself to trespass on other peo- 
 ple's property. "Well," he answered, "we now have 
 equal rights" ("teper ravnopraviye"). He evidently 
 understood it in the sense of J. J. Rousseau's primitive
 
 44 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 state of nature. Ancient law was abolished by the new 
 right of Revolution. No new law was there to take 
 its place, and no legal authority was present to enact 
 that new law. "Equal rights" were to last until a new 
 social compact was entered into by the community and 
 a new social will was created. 
 
 Let us now see what was that new social compact, 
 proposed by the Communist Party as the last word 
 of Social Science.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME. 
 
 I have come to a subject which is much more in dis- 
 pute than anything I spoke of in my first two chapters. 
 The Bolshevist regime has been so often described by 
 eye-witnesses from different and even opposite view- 
 points, that the general public has gone astray and does 
 not know whom and what to believe. People have had 
 to choose between severe exposures of Bolshevism by 
 observers who were by some suspected of "counter- 
 revolutionary" and reactionary tendencies, and glowing 
 pictures of a new life for a regenerated humanity, 
 largely spread by the Bolshevist propagandists. 
 
 However, as time went on, the real facts in the situa- 
 tion had to take the place of gloomy forebodings or 
 brilliant prospectives. During its four years of exist- 
 ence, the Bolshevist regime has had every chance to 
 assert itself and to carry the social experiment, unique 
 in the history of mankind, up to its last consequences. 
 We now have that chapter of the story almost complete. 
 We can trace Bolshevism from its origin, through its 
 development, to its decline, which is now recognized 
 by the Bolsheviks themselves. They would tell you, 
 of course, that this is not yet the end, but only a re- 
 spite, after which the experiment shall be renewed 
 under better conditions. You may agree or disagree 
 with this new prediction. But there can be no more 
 doubt as to the past. 
 
 45
 
 46 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Let us now study Bolshevism in its past, as a living 
 reality, not as a "promised land." I purposely use 
 the word "Bolshevism" .and not "communism," 
 which is what Mr. Lenin wished his experiment 
 to be called. "Communism" is an international doc- 
 trine; "Bolshevism" is a Russian achievement. The 
 Russian peasants noted that distinction very well, 
 as shown by their war cry: "Long live Bolshe- 
 vism, but down with communism." They knew 
 that "Bolshevism" was giving them the land, while 
 "communism" wished to take that land back for col- 
 lective use. They were for a time satisfied with the 
 Bolsheviks' policy, but they loathed their Utopian doc- 
 trine. 
 
 The Bolshevist leaders also realized that difference 
 perfectly well. As I have said before, they never ex- 
 pected to make Russia "communist." They were too 
 clever for that and they knew their country too well. 
 "Communism" was reserved for the next stage that of 
 world revolution, and for more advanced industrial 
 countries. In Russia they were satisfied to remain Bol- 
 shevist, in order to keep in power until that second 
 stage should come, and to use Russia's enormous re- 
 sources and state machinery in order to hasten the ad- 
 vent of that World Revolution. This also explains why 
 these uncompromising fanatics of doctrine were always 
 ready not only now for any compromise necessary 
 to keep them in power in Russia. "Communism" was 
 for the World. For Russia a "preparatory stage" was 
 quite sufficient. 
 
 You will never understand Bolshevism unless you 
 look at it- in the light of this commentary. But I must 
 show you that this commentary is not my own. This 
 is practically the main point of Lenin's special teaching.
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 47 
 
 This is where he goes further in his tactics than his 
 predecessors, the revolutionary syndicalists and the 
 revolutionary socialists of the second decade of the 
 XX Century. 
 
 It was also always the main point of difference be- 
 tween Lenin and his Russian fellow-socialists. They 
 taught that socialism was to come automatically, by 
 itself, as a result of the gradual economic growth of 
 capitalism. Lenin opposed to these "economist" fol- 
 lowers of Marx the political and the revolutionary side 
 of Marx's and Engels' doctrine. According to him, po- 
 litical revolution alone was able to accelerate the ad- 
 vent of socialism. To the usual arguments that the 
 working masses were not prepared to make use of a 
 political revolution for introducing socialism, Lenin 
 found a ready answer in George Sorel's new doctrine 
 of "violence." You need not wait long enough to get 
 the masses quite prepared for socialism. Just take 
 the lead now, directly, and start the attack with a few 
 people who are already conscious of their class interests 
 and who are prepared to act. There is nothing like ac- 
 tion; action for the action's sake; "violence" practiced 
 by a small vanguard of daring adventurers, in order to 
 keep alive the revolutionary spirit in the masses left 
 behind. Let us go out for direct action, whatever be 
 the momentary practical result of it. This was the so- 
 called "catastrophic conception" of the advent of so- 
 cialism. Lenin accepted it but he proved much more 
 consistent than the originators of that doctrine. Sorel 
 and his friends thought it would be an international 
 and general political strike which would bring about 
 the dawn of socialism. But the political strike was 
 long in coming, and Sorel himself called a "social 
 myth," an object of faith rather than a practical scheme
 
 48 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 to be realized at once. Lenin was too impatient to be 
 satisfied with that indefinite upkeep of revolutionary 
 spirit. He wanted his action now, to attain a definite 
 purpose. Of course, he was also forced to adapt his 
 program to the vicissitudes of the "revolutionary situa- 
 tion." In 1901 and even in 1905 he did not expect his 
 political revolution to realize any other immediate re- 
 sult aside from building in Russia a bourgeois demo- 
 cratic republic. He declared himself, accordingly, ready 
 to fight at the side of the bourgeois politicians and 
 to enter a coalition government formed after the revolu- 
 tionary success. It was at that stage that I personally 
 came to know Lenin a stubborn debater and a slow- 
 thinking scholar as I found him to be. In 1917 his 
 ambitions had grown immensely. He still thought that 
 nothing beyond a preliminary stage to a socialist mil- 
 lennium could be achieved by a revolutionary over- 
 throw. He knew and he often repeated that a revolu- 
 tion hi Russia would stand and fall with a revolution 
 in Europe, as no "communist" State could exist in the 
 midst of a capitalistic world. But he seemed to earn- 
 estly believe that the more advanced capitalistic States 
 of Western Europe were now ripe for a social revolution 
 and that if only Russia would take the lead, a world 
 revolution would follow directly. The Red Press in 
 Bolshevist Russia had for years been spreading news 
 about some revolutionary" outbreak in Berlin, or in 
 London, or in Paris. I think the first psychological 
 shock which Lenin received on the subject came when 
 half-confidently, half-mockingly, he asked Mr. H. G. 
 Wells, while the latter was in Petrograd. just why the 
 revolution in England was so slow in coming, and the 
 skeptical Epicurean laughed in his face, telling him 
 how things really stood. But even then he was not
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 49 
 
 quite disillusioned, as shown by his famous twenty- 
 one points or rather orders to his fellow-communists 
 all over the world, to stand aloof from all traitors to the 
 cause of the socialist world-revolution and to keep their 
 powder dry. Whatever be the case with Lenin's ideal- 
 ism, so far as other countries are concerned, his realistic 
 view of the situation in Russia is very well proven by 
 his tactics. He might well build his castles in the air 
 elsewhere, but in Russia he wanted them to be built on 
 the solid rock of old, good autocratic tradition. This 
 was another, the "Bolshevist" side of Lenin's "com- 
 munism," and these are the moorings on which the Bol- 
 shevist regime was to be fastened. 
 
 It would be a mistake to think that Lenin's conces- 
 sions to reality are due to his recent disappointments. 
 They lie at the very root of his tactics. Just before 
 his triumph in Russia, in August and September, 1917, 
 Lenin wrote a book, "The State and Revolution," 
 wherein his political realism is shown at its best. Let 
 us stop a moment at that other side of the picture. 
 
 Says Lenin: "The State, according to Marx" (he 
 will always tell you that he is the only true interpreter 
 of Marx's doctrine), "is the organ of class domination, 
 the organ of oppression of one class by another." Well, 
 then, why not use that 'organ of oppression' for the 
 benefit of another class, against the 'oppressors'? 
 "The advance-guard of the proletariat, capable of as- 
 suming the power and leading the whole community to 
 socialism needs the State, the centralized organization 
 of force and violence, both for the purpose of crushing 
 the resistance of the exploiters and for the purpose of 
 guiding the great mass of the population." To be sure, 
 this view of the State precludes any "sentimental" ap- 
 plication to political life of the ideas of democracy and
 
 50 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 freedom. This is just not political life, but political 
 struggle, and the State is only needed as a temporary 
 instrument of struggle. "We are not Utopians," Mr. 
 Lenin proudly asserts. "We want the Socialist Revolu- 
 tion with human nature as it is now. Human nature 
 itself cannot do without subordination. . . . There 
 must be submission to the armed (the 'conscious' van- 
 guard is bound to be 'armed') vanguard" . . . until 
 the "people will grow accustomed to observing the ele- 
 mentary conditions of social existence without force 
 and without subjection." This period will be very long 
 indeed, as you see, as long as human nature will not 
 change from what "it is now." In the meanwhile, the 
 consequence is quite clear. "As the State is only a 
 transitional institution which we are obliged to use 
 in the revolutionary struggle in order to forcibly crush 
 our opponents, it is a pure absurdity to speak of a Free 
 People's State. During the period when the proletariat 
 still needs the State, it does not require it in the in- 
 terests of freedom, but in the interests of crushing its 
 antagonists." To "crush the antagonists," this is the 
 principal aim of the "proletarian dictatorship," an aim 
 to be attained at any cost. The program of using up 
 the State machinery in the first line is not constructive, 
 but merely destructive. 
 
 However, before crushing antagonists, you must win 
 followers and adherents. What cannot be done by fear 
 and terrorism must be attained by promises and con- 
 cessions. And, again, promises and concessions have 
 nothing to do with the realization of the "communist" 
 doctrine. But they have very much to do with coming 
 into power and keeping themselves in power. 
 
 We know that the Bolsheviks owe their initial suc- 
 cess to their wanton demagogy. Once in power, they
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 51 
 
 had to fulfil their promises. They had to immediately 
 grant every social group whose support they wanted 
 everything that group wished, and to give it in the 
 most palpable form. They did it very adroitly, and 
 they did not stop to think whether it was "commun- 
 ist" or not. 
 
 Peace to the Army, land to the peasants, control of 
 the factories to the workmen. Peace, land and control 
 were also promised by their antagonists. But the army 
 had to wait for the Allies' decision to make peace. The 
 peasant had to wait for the decision of the Constituent 
 Assembly, to take the land. The workmen had to share 
 their control with the State authorities. Then came 
 the Bolsheviks who said, in the crudest form possible: 
 "Take it now." To the soldiers they said, in substance, 
 in their Decree of November 10, 1917: "Just meet the 
 Germans at any place on the front and conclude the 
 armistice on your own account." To the peasants they 
 said, in their Decree of November 7: "Do not wait 
 for the Constituent Assembly to decide; realize im- 
 mediately what you had decided at the Peasants' Con- 
 gress in June." To the workingmen they said, in their 
 Decree of November 14: "Just go to the owners and 
 to the managers of this, your factory and tell them that 
 you are given the right to run the concern." The im- 
 mediate result was that the soldiers, peasants and work- 
 men were introduced to Bolshevism under its most 
 agreeable form and recognized the Bolshevist govern- 
 ment as representing their own interests. 
 
 This result was also foreseen by Lenin. There exists 
 another pamphlet of his, written at the same time as 
 the one quoted, and published under a very character- 
 istic title: "Will the Bolshevist Power (they had not 
 yet taken possession of the power) Be Lasting?" Le-
 
 52 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 nin's point was that the lookecl-for Bolshevist victory 
 could not be otherwise than lasting, because it w&s to 
 be the victory of the rank and file, and everybody had 
 to be made to understand just what his personal share 
 in the victory was. "Well," he said, "under this condi- 
 tion, we shall have at once millions and tens of millions 
 of defenders." Among other methods proposed, he then 
 promised the lower social strata in Petrograd that they 
 would be put in the houses and apartments of the rich 
 bourgeoisie, who were to be directly evicted or confined 
 to single rooms. That also was not new and not at 
 all invented by Lenin himself. It is at the same time 
 interesting to note that such methods of "unlawful di- 
 rect action" met with opposition in advance, on the 
 part of the socialists themselves. I may quote from 
 a letter addressed to America by the German socialist 
 leader and thinker, Kautsky Lenin's worst enemy 
 as early as 1912, in which Kautsky said: "To preach 
 individual struggle against property means to turn the 
 interest of the workers from mass action to individual 
 action," which is contrary "to the moral ideas of the 
 masses" and "will repel them and injure the propa- 
 ganda of socialism seriously." But this was just what 
 Lenin was doing. 
 
 Promises and intimidation, intimidation and prom- 
 ises: we will often have to come back to these alternate 
 tactics of that Janus of Russian Bolshevism. You may 
 also take it as a provisional answer to the question as 
 to why the Bolsheviks have lasted so long in power. 
 The provisional answer is: they came to power by 
 promises; they have kept in power by fear. 
 
 But is that all? Did they not do or try anything in 
 order to introduce some kind of communism in Russia? 
 
 They certainly did. Of course, not at once, because
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 53 
 
 for the first weeks and months after their victory they 
 were busy "crushing their opponents." To remain 
 alone in the field, they had to disperse competing politi- 
 cal parties and dissolve institutions which claimed to 
 represent democracy. On November 17, i. e., ten days 
 after their victory, they dissolved the democratic Muni- 
 cipality of Petrograd. On January 6, 1918, they dis- 
 solved a much more important institution: the first 
 Russian Constituent Assembly, which had been the ob- 
 ject of the struggles and hopes, the symbol of the Peo- 
 ple's sovereignty for so many generations of Russian 
 Revolutionaries. They did not wish to hear about 
 universal suffrage, another object of revolutionary creed 
 of former generations. For a revolutionary ear in Rus- 
 sia it sounded like blasphemy. But the Bolsheviks 
 sneered at intellectual superstitions. They had noth- 
 ing to do with parliamentary institutions and political 
 democracy. 
 
 As soon as they overcame their first difficulties, the 
 Bolsheviks began publishing "communist" decrees. 
 They did not yet know whether they would remain in 
 power. But so much the more important was it for 
 them to leave traces of their communist legislation. 
 However, here they immediately met with a serious ob- 
 stacle. The State they took possession of was, as we 
 have seen, disintegrating. The Russian economy, 
 which was supposed to represent a high stage of capital- 
 ism, to be directly transformed into communism, was 
 thoroughly ruined. Even if the Bolsheviks really 
 wished to introduce communism otherwise than on 
 paper, they were face to face with the necessity of re- 
 constructing the administrative machine and restoring 
 the sources of production. 
 
 But these were contradictory and conflicting designs.
 
 64 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 To strengthen their State power meant to postpone 
 or to renounce communist experiments. To try com- 
 munist experiments in earnest meant to lose their 
 political power. It was quite clear from the beginning 
 that in the event of being obliged to choose between the 
 two, they would sacrifice their idealistic aim to their 
 realistic tactics: communism to Bolshevism. Let us 
 now trace these two lines of their political conduct. 
 You can guess in advance that, while the idealistic line 
 of "communism" was extremely irresolute and un- 
 steady, the realistic line of "Bolshevism" proved quite 
 firm and straightforward. 
 
 Lenin has told us himself what measure of commun- 
 ism he found it possible to introduce at the transitional 
 stage between capitalism and pure communism. This 
 is how this "first or lower stage" of communist society 
 is described in the terms of Marx' doctrine. 
 
 "The means of production are now (i. e., at that 
 stage) no longer the private property of individuals. 
 The means of production belong to the whole of so- 
 ciety. Every member of society that performs a cer- 
 tain part of socially-necessary labor, receives a certifi- 
 cate from society that he has done such and such a 
 quantity of work. According to this certificate, he re- 
 ceives from the public stores of articles of consumption 
 a corresponding quantity of products. After the de- 
 duction of that proportion of labor which goes into 
 the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from 
 society as much as he has given it." " 'He who -does 
 not work, neither shall he eat' this socialist principle 
 is already realized (i. e., at that transitional stage)." 
 ' 'For an equal quantity of labor an equal quantity of 
 products' this socialist principle is also already real- 
 ized. Nevertheless, this is not yet communism, and
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 55 
 
 this does not abolish 'bourgeois law/ which gives to 
 unequal individuals in return for an unequal (in re- 
 ality) amount of work, an unequal quantity of prod- 
 ucts." "The State is withering away in so far as there 
 are no longer any capitalists, any class whatever to sup- 
 press. But the State is not dead altogether, since there 
 still remains the protection of 'bourgeois law,' which 
 sanctifies actual inequality. For the complete extinc- 
 tion of the State complete communism is necessary." 
 
 "Incomplete communism" was thus to be immedi- 
 ately attained. What has been done to introduce the 
 "incomplete communism?" A brief resume of the 
 salient facts will suffice. 
 
 In April, 1918, Lenin was obliged to avow that the 
 process was very slow. He now proposed to take cer- 
 tain preliminary measures to "encircle" capital. Capi- 
 tal in Bolshevist Russia? Yes, that is so, Lenin 
 stated that the organization of the proletariat was far 
 from being accomplished. The methods resorted to 
 "look much more like methods of conquest than like 
 methods of regular administration." Even the books 
 for controlling the obligatory labor had not yet been 
 introduced. One must proceed slowly and gradually, 
 verifying every step tentatively tried by practical re- 
 sults." And indeed, the Bolsheviks proceeded very 
 timidly. They did not at once attack the principle. 
 They preferred to grapple with its consequences and 
 thus to "encircle" the enemy. They recognized at once 
 that to destroy the bourgeois regime was by far more 
 difficult than to overthrow a bourgeois government. 
 
 On the next day after their victory the Bolsheviks 
 published two decrees. One of them disposed of big 
 landed estates, which were to be handed over to local 
 agrarian committees, "pending the decision of the
 
 56 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Constituent Assembly." Another decree ordered the 
 nationalization of banking institutions. The Bolshe- 
 viks thus intended to immediately deal a severe blow to 
 unmovable and to movable big property. But they did 
 not abolish private property at all. On the contrary, 
 they left untouched small landed property and per- 
 mitted the drawing of small sums from current accounts 
 in the banks (1500 rubles monthly). 
 
 They proceeded with the same indecision hi the ques- 
 tion of workmen's control over the factories. They did 
 not wish to nationalize the factories at once. In No- 
 vember, 1918, Lenin said that "socialism cannot be 
 introduced before the working class learns to lead and 
 to assert its authority." He explained by that maxim, 
 why the measures taken in the question just mentioned 
 were "incomplete and contradictory." 
 
 Neither did the Bolsheviks make up their mind to 
 immediately abolish private commerce. When, in 
 March, 1918, they were induced to nationalize com- 
 merce, it was for a special reason. They were forced 
 to organize the exchange between the villages and the 
 cities, in order to secure regular feeding of the urban 
 population. Already at that time the peasants were 
 unwilling to sell their grain for paper money and asked 
 for manufactured goods. The Bolsheviks were forced 
 to make a step in the direction of the "incomplete com- 
 munism." In order to revise and to fix local prices 
 of articles, special committees were formed in every 
 town with at least 10,000 population. The existing 
 stocks of merchandise were registered. Trading in 
 manufactured goods was put under control. Thus, step 
 by step, they came, on October 8, 1918, to the final 
 decision to nationalize all domestic trade. All shops, 
 great and small likewise, were closed, and their contents
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 57 
 
 used for the exchange with the village. However, the 
 cost of the confiscated goods was added to the current 
 account of the owners in the National Bank, and some- 
 times they were themselves permitted to run their en- 
 terprises as officials of the State. 
 
 Foreign trade was nationalized at an earlier date, on 
 April 21, 1918, in connection with the signing of the 
 Brest-Litovsk peace, and the commercial fleet was de- 
 clared national property on February 8, 1918. 
 
 It proved more difficult to nationalize the industries, 
 just because of that system of control by the workmen 
 which was conceded by the Bolsheviks directly after 
 their victory. The control was individual, each fac- 
 tory being run by its separate committee of workmen. 
 The result was complete chaos. In some factories work- 
 men's committees cooperated with the former adminis- 
 tration and very eagerly defended the interests of pri- 
 vate owners. In other cases, they themselves tried to 
 play the part of owners. They everywhere increased 
 their wages enormously, and they worked as long and 
 as much as they pleased. Instead of the eight-hour 
 day, which the Bolsheviks had inherited from the previ- 
 ous revolutionary Governments, the working men re- 
 mained in the factories for five or four hours of unpro- 
 ductive work. 
 
 We shall see in another chapter how the Bolsheviks 
 contrived to enforce the new discipline in the factories. 
 But they were also forced to change entirely the condi- 
 tions of controlling the national production. Their 
 leading idea was that industry was to be centralized 
 in trusts. Each branch of production was to be organ- 
 ized separately, as a preparatory stage for nationaliza- 
 tion. Beginning with February, 1918, they proceeded 
 to create "central" and "principal" boards for every
 
 58 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 branch. The number of "Centres" and "Principals" 
 was 15 in March and 51 at the end of the year. The 
 central boards had to provide the raw materials and 
 fuel, to regulate the demand and the sale of goods, fix 
 prices. The "Centros" gradually took the place of the 
 workmen's committees. Subsequently, the leading role 
 in the "Centros" themselves was transferred from gen- 
 eral assemblies to boards of professionals. Compara- 
 tively few of the workmen were permitted to serve in 
 the boards. Their main personnel was composed of 
 trained professional men or such intellectuals as were 
 amenable to the Bolsheviks. 
 
 The time had now come for complete nationalization 
 of the factories. But the Bolsheviks still hesitated. 
 Up to August 1, 1918, nationalization was used rather 
 as a means to punish the refractory bourgeois owners 
 and managers than to embark upon a serious social 
 change, leading to communism. Only 567 enterprises 
 were nationalized and 271 sequestrated. The decision 
 arrived at on June 28, 1918, to nationalize all factories, 
 is explained by an incidental motive. The commercial 
 treaty with Germany was being negotiated in Berlin, 
 and, according to the provisions of this treaty, State 
 monopolies were to be left free from treaty dispositions. 
 Mr. Larin, who conducted the negotiations, sent word 
 to Petrograd on June 25, and three days later Russian 
 industry in its entirety was declared to be a State mon- 
 opoly. 
 
 The explanation given in the Decree of June 28, to 
 be sure, was a different one. The Bolsheviks wished 
 "to put an end to the economic disorganization, to the 
 disorder in the distribution of supplies, and to simplify 
 the dictatorship of the workers and the paupers." At 
 the end of 1919, 4,000 concerns with all their property
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 59 
 
 were declared to belong to the Communist Republic. 
 The President of the National Economic Soviet, Mr. 
 Rykov, stated that it was "all Russian industry." 
 
 However, according to the best authorities on the 
 communist doctrine, it was not communism. It was 
 "State capitalism." But further steps towards "in- 
 complete" communism were in sight. 
 
 Now that all industry and trade was in the hands of 
 the State, it became not only possible, but even neces- 
 sary at least to work out some general scheme of pro- 
 duction and distribution of commodities, just as had 
 been done in the different capitalistic countries in war 
 time. A would-be communist State had to go just 
 one step farther and abolish the bourgeois means of 
 exchange: money. The Bolsheviks more than once 
 promised to do it, but they never dared. How could 
 they when paper money was their only means of exist- 
 ence? They had to first build a new network of dis- 
 tributive boards all over the country. And, indeed, a 
 gorgeous scheme was prepared for the Commissariat of 
 Supply to control the exchange and the distribution of 
 commodities. At the end of 1919 the Bolsheviks de- 
 cided to make use of the free cooperative societies, and 
 in spite of a very strong opposition on the part of the 
 cooperative societies, they gradually transformed them 
 into State institutions, in order to make of them an 
 integral part of their distribution system. The entire 
 population was forced to enter the cooperatives and as 
 early as 1919 Mr. Larin announced the great change to 
 come soon. "The new organization," he said, "is now 
 reaching the stage when it will be possible to put on 
 the order of the day, as a piece of practical policy, the 
 solution of the problem of 'naturalization' of salaries, 
 i. e., paying working men's wages in commodities."
 
 60 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 In another chapter I shall tell you what the dismal 
 reality was as compared with these self-confident asser- 
 tions. As a matter of fact, the only measure really 
 applied to regulating distribution was the extension of 
 ration cards (which had been introduced in Russia, as 
 elsewhere, during the war time) to all other commodi- 
 ties. Under the Bolsheviks this system was diverted to 
 serve purely demagogic aims. The urban population 
 who alone profited by the system of rationing was 
 divided into four categories, and the "parasitic" class, 
 i. e., brain workers and "bourgeoisie" were put in the 
 fourth category. They were to receive the minimum 
 of foodstuffs, a real "famine" ration. But gradually 
 that was changed : a new selection was made from pro- 
 fessional men who declared themselves willing to serve 
 the Bolsheviks. The Soviet functionaries a new Red 
 bureaucracy were transferred to a specially privileged 
 category. At any rate, even the first category rations 
 were quite insufficient. The Bolshevist statistics show 
 that, e. g., in the winter season of 1919-1920 only 36% 
 of foodstuffs (flour, bread, grain) was received by the 
 urban population through the intermediary of govern- 
 ment organs, while 64% had to be supplied by a 
 clandestine free trade. It was still worse with the rank 
 and file workmen who had to rely on other sources than 
 their "natural" part of wages, for nine-tenths of their 
 minimum consumption of food. 
 
 However, even in that imperfect form, the Bolshevist 
 system of production, distribution and consumption 
 had to be based on a strongly increased State power. 
 We know that the Bolsheviks inherited the Russian 
 State institutions in an utter state of disintegration. 
 The dissolution had spread as a result of their first 
 concessions and promises. Every province, every dis-
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 61 
 
 trict, and here and there even cantons or villages now 
 acted as independent republics. Local "soviets" took 
 the place of the former also irregular organs of self- 
 government, and of the newly elected democratic Zem- 
 stvos. Here and there they even began to call them- 
 selves separate States, and they introduced their own 
 legislation, taxation, finance, and even their own mili- 
 tary defense, which was especially necessary under the 
 obtaining state of universal chaos. 
 
 Facing such a situation, what ought the Bolshevist 
 government to have done? After a few initial doubts 
 and vacillations, it decided to be as well suited a 
 "revolutionary vanguard of proletarians" a govern- 
 ment by party. But the Communist Party, especially 
 at the beginning, was not at all numerous. Of course, 
 the ranks of the party were soon filled up with new- 
 comers. But these "November Bolsheviks" were not at 
 all reliable. They were as Trotsky nicknamed them 
 "radishes," red outside and white inside. Even if 
 we count the latter, the membership of the Bolshevist 
 Party, for the whole of Russia, according to the Bol- 
 sheviks themselves, did not exceed 600,000, i. e., one 
 man out of every 200 Russians was a member of the 
 Communist Party. Practically it was much less than 
 that, not more than one in 500 (1/5 of one per cent.). 
 Even the Bolshevist officials were not Communists, in 
 the great majority: e. g., in the large provincial town 
 of Vologda, in 1918, we find for every hundred of local 
 officials only 3 Communists, 37 "sympathizers" (who 
 also could buy food at cheap prices from the Govern- 
 ment shop) and 60 "non-party" men. A specially 
 chosen group of representatives from all the chief 
 workmen's unions in Moscow, selected to fetch grain 
 from the villages, consisted of 78 per cent "non-party"
 
 62 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 men, 13 "sympathizers" and only 8 per cent Commun- 
 ists (October, 1918). You can see how weak and 
 isolated the Bolsheviks must have felt themselves in 
 the country, in spite of all their triumphs. In order 
 to assert themselves, they had to resort to very strong 
 centralization. And as soon as their first difficulties 
 were over, they entered upon that path. They acted 
 systematically, with much determination and great te- 
 nacity of purpose. During the first year of their domi- 
 nation they had already achieved important results. 
 Here we come to the second, the realistic, line of 
 Bolshevist tactics. 
 
 To centralize the provincial administration and to 
 bring it into their hands, new administrative local 
 organs were soon created, which gradually took the 
 place of the self-appointed "soviets." These bureau- 
 cratic organs were called "Executive Committees." 
 They had to control the Soviets. But then the Sov- 
 iets themselves must be transformed so as to serve 
 the purposes of the government and the Communist 
 Party. The Soviet Constitution made that quite easy. 
 The famous paragraph 25 of the Constitution gave the 
 right to the administration, in case the activity of some 
 group of working people should be recognized as "dan- 
 gerous for the Revolution," to deprive that group of 
 their electoral right. It goes without saying that all 
 bourgeois groups were disabled by the Constitution. 
 I came across a curious order sent around to the vil- 
 lages in July, 1918, by the Bolshevist Commissary of 
 the Interior. "The petty bourgeoisie in the villages," 
 the order says (and let us not forget that 85% of 
 the population belong to that "petty bourgeoisie"), 
 "have dared to participate in the elections and even to 
 be elected. They must be immediately arrested and
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 63 
 
 tried for having violated the Law of the Soviet Consti- 
 tution." 
 
 These people of the "petty bourgeoisie" are thus 
 neither to be elected, nor to elect. Who then is to be 
 elected? The Bolshevist authorities give a clear an- 
 swer to that question. Here is another order, issued by 
 the local soviet in the Province of Voronezh: "The 
 right to nominate candidates (to the Soviets) belongs 
 exclusively to the groups and parties of electors which 
 will file declarations to the effect that they acknowledge 
 the Soviet authorities." "All trade unions must file 
 not later than 4 P. M. on January 20 (1919) a 
 written declaration to the town soviet stating their 
 relations towards the Soviet authorities." It means 
 that the "non-party" electors who, as we have seen, 
 made up (at that time) not less than three-fifths or 
 even three-fourths of the Bolshevist officials were not 
 considered "politically reliable" enough to run their 
 candidates in the elections. 
 
 On the other hand, such political parties as were con- 
 sidered reliable under the Bolshevik domination were 
 few, and their number gradually decreased. Practi- 
 cally, the Communists alone are considered reliable, 
 and official candidates only are admitted for election. 
 Here is an appeal to the workmen of a porcelain fac- 
 tory, addressed to them by a political representative 
 of the 270th Regiment of the Red Army, on the eve 
 of the elections : "Comrades, workingmen ! You have 
 a difficult task to solve: to elect such comrades to your 
 Committee as are useful, you have to elect people who 
 are for the Soviets. In order not to get into trouble, 
 you must elect only such Communist comrades upon 
 whom we can rely. Comrades! I do not see in the list 
 of candidates any one, besides the following seven
 
 64 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 names, who is worthy of being elected (he gives the 
 names). If the Committee should turn out to be com- 
 posed of other members than these, I will dissolve it 
 immediately, and I shall propose that you proceed 
 to new elections." 
 
 It is not always as definite as that, and rarely put 
 down on paper. But that is the substance of all elec- 
 tions under the Bolshevist rule. It is easy to under- 
 stand why the number of communist delegates, elected 
 to the "soviets" of all degrees, is out of all proportion 
 with their number among the population. It is also 
 quite natural that such kind of elections deprives the 
 Soviets of every significance. The result is that the 
 Soviets meet rarely and only to approve the decisions 
 of the Executive organs. They have to face accom- 
 plished facts. Debates are not formally forbidden, but 
 they take place only on exceptional occasions, and 
 merely the fact of there being a live discussion on a 
 certain subject is already considered a kind of revolt 
 against the Bolshevist authorities. 
 
 "All power to the Soviets!" such was the Bolshevist 
 catchword when they had carried out their struggle 
 against the Provisional Government. They now 
 changed it for another slogan : "All power to the Com- 
 munist Party!" They had been opposing democracy. 
 Now they decided to stifle even socialist parties, with 
 their proletarian following. Mr. Kamenev, a promi- 
 nent Bolshevist leader, tells us very sincerely what the 
 reason for that change was. "The membership of the 
 Communist Party," he states, "is almost imperceptible 
 if compared with the Russian popular masses. On the 
 other hand, every party needs a certain amount of 
 force to rule a country. That is why we, in Russia, 
 deem it sufficient to have 'the majority of action/ to
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 65 
 
 keep in power." The Communist Party thus makes 
 no secret of the fact that everything that is being 
 done in Russia, is being done through and by the initi- 
 ative of the Central Committee of the Party. "All 
 military politics," the Central Committee states in 
 its publication of December 25, 1918, "as well as the 
 politics of all the other ministries and government in- 
 stitutions is being conducted on the basis of orders and 
 precise instructions given by the Communist Party 
 through the channel of its Central Committee and exe- 
 cuted under its direct control." 
 
 However, it was not sufficient for the "majority of 
 action" in the hands of an "imperceptible" minority 
 in the country to rely for their further existence only 
 on the authority they acquired by centralizing their 
 administrative and economic system of government. 
 The only means to keep in power was armed force. 
 The Bolsheviks knew this quite well and their first 
 maxim for the winning of a communist revolution was 
 always this: "Disarm the bourgeois force and arm the 
 proletarians." We know how they disarmed the old, 
 bourgeois army in the trenches, by demoralizing it. 
 There was a moment when, after the dissolution of 
 that army at the front, they had practically no forces 
 left at their disposal. In January, 1918, the Red Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, Krylenko, who took the place of the 
 assassinated General Dukhonin, reported to the Central 
 Executive Committee, that "Committees (revolution- 
 ary nuclei) were the only remnant of the army." There 
 were, of course, a few thousand disciplined soldiers, 
 drawn from alien elements, such as Chinese, Letts, or 
 German and Hungarian prisoners. With their aid the 
 Bolsheviks were able to live through that interval of 
 complete, matter-of-fact disarmament. But they could
 
 66 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 not go on like this. The negotiations with the Ger- 
 mans at Brest-Litovsk proved to the Bolsheviks that 
 the argument of force could not be dispensed with even 
 in their dealings with their secret protectors. Mr. 
 Trotsky simply failed in his attempts to baffle German 
 generals and diplomats by means of rousing Russian 
 patriotism. 
 
 He decided to make use of Russia's humiliation by 
 the Brest-Litovsk treaty to popularize the necessity 
 of returning to a standing army. It was also necessary 
 to defend the new power from "internal foes," which 
 were already fighting against Bolshevism in the South 
 of Russia under Kornilov. As early as January 15, 
 1918, a new "Red Army" was created by a decree of the 
 People's Commissaries, intended not only for support 
 of the Bolshevist power, but also to serve for the "future 
 socialist revolution" in Europe. This army was to be 
 founded on the principle of voluntary service, and a 
 recommendation by at least two members of Bolshevist 
 institutions was required to enable one to enter its 
 ranks. But this attempt was a complete failure. The 
 Bolshevist Government had to flee from Petrograd to 
 Moscow before the menace of German troops advanc- 
 ing to the Northern capital. It was then that the first 
 great concession to reality was made by the anti-mili- 
 tarist leaders. Mr. Trotsky, who from a Foreign Com- 
 missary had now become a new War Lord of Russia, 
 Decided to copy all the Tsarist methods in order to 
 create a real disciplined and strong armed force. He 
 now preached respect for military science, appealed to 
 Tsarist generals and officers to come and serve the Com- 
 munist power, and in May, 1919, he definitely started 
 to raise "a genuine army, properly organized and firmly 
 ruled by a single hand." This army was to be built
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 67 
 
 on the basis of conscription. Former revolutionary 
 slogans of "democratizing the army" by permitting the 
 privates to discuss at their meetings the military orders 
 of their superiors, were now cast aside. Iron discipline 
 was reestablished in pre-revolutionary forms and 
 made even more stringent. Successive mobilizations 
 were started from July, 1918. A year later, in the 
 autumn of 1919, there were l 1 /^ million conscripts, and 
 about a third of them (500,000 to 600,000) formed a 
 real fighting force ("bayonets"). In the summer of 
 1921, the Red Army counted 85 divisions of infantry, 
 31 divisions of cavalry, 31 separate brigades, 9 separate 
 cavalry brigades and 2,800 guns. The number of "bay- 
 onets" was 400,000, and the whole armed force num- 
 bered 600,000. 
 
 The political management of the Red Army has al- 
 ways remained in the hands of the Communist Party. 
 Especially reliable members of the Red Army were 
 nominated "military commissaries," with the right of 
 capital punishment of military commands for "counter- 
 revolutionary" tendencies. Communist "nuclei" were 
 formed in every unit of the army, in order to closely 
 observe and to report about the state of mind of the 
 officers and soldiers. Officers of the old regime with 
 few exceptions, were, of course, not considered reliable, 
 and the tendency was to replace them with young offi- 
 cers graduated from the new military schools created 
 by Trotsky. But not before 1923 do the Bolsheviks 
 themselves expect this change to be completed. 
 
 We shall come back in the following chapters to the 
 question: Just how reliable is the Red Army on the 
 whole? But, from what has just been said, you may 
 conclude that special measures were needed in order to 
 make it reliable. Special measures were also necessary
 
 68 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 in order to control the whole population of Russia. 
 And they were the same as are generally used under all 
 systemsof tyranny by an insignificant minority. Au- 
 tocracy knew them, but the Bolsheviks have been and 
 are using them to an incomparably larger extent. I 
 mean the Bolshevist system of espionage, which is 
 crowned by the Red Terror. 
 
 The system of terrorism in use at the time of au- 
 tocracy met with universal reproof and aroused indigna- 
 tion all over the world. It is strange to say that the 
 Bolshevist terror, which is by far worse than anything 
 known before, was exceedingly leniently treated by the 
 same public opinion, and every attempt to denounce 
 Bolshevist "horrors" and "atrocities" was met with 
 flat denials, as mere "packs of lies." Unfortunately, the 
 facts about Red Terrorism are too numerous. They 
 cannot be here quoted. What I must emphasize here 
 is not isolated facts, but principles. And we know 
 already that "crushing the antagonists" is the chief, 
 basic principle of Bolshevist tactics. "No dictatorship 
 of the proletariat is to be thought of without terror and 
 violence," Lenin formally declared in the summer of 
 1920. "Terror, as the demonstration of the will and 
 strength of the working class, is historically justified," 
 said Trotsky in a signed article in January, 1919. 
 
 This kind of terror is not personal, but collective, and 
 it searches for victims not among the criminals, but 
 among members of a social class supposed to be hos- 
 tile to communism. A pamphlet by the Bolshevist 
 hangman, Mr. Latsis, which was officially published hi 
 Moscow, in 1920, states formally that terrorism is an 
 inherent feature of the civil war preached by the Com- 
 munists. "Civil war is a war in which prisoners are 
 not taken and no compromises made, but opponents
 
 THE BOLSHEVIST REGIME 69 
 
 are killed." Opponents are the bourgeoisie, which 
 just like wolves "does not change its nature." "We are 
 not waging war against separate individuals," Mr. 
 Latsis affirmed in November, 1918, in the organ called 
 "Red Terror," "We are exterminating the bourgeoisie 
 as a class. Do not seek in the dossier of the accused 
 for proofs as to whether he opposed the Soviet Govern- 
 ment by word or deed. The first question that should 
 be put is, to what class does he belong, of what extrac- 
 tion, what education and profession. These questions 
 should decide the fate of the accused. Herein lies the 
 meaning and the essence of the Red Terror." 
 
 Nothing need be added to this statement, and it ex- 
 plains why that notorious institution of the "All-Rus- 
 sian Extraordinary Commission to combat counter- 
 revolution, sabotage and speculation," which at the 
 beginning was chiefly intended to conduct investiga- 
 tions and whose powers were never clearly defined le- 
 gally, gradually erected itself into a sinister tribunal of 
 inquisition, with its branches and its torture-chambers 
 everywhere in the country, dreaded by the People's 
 Commissaries themselves. "Hang the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Workmen's Delegates and all the Soviet," 
 an official of the Odessa torture-chamber is quoted as 
 saying. "If we choose, we can arrest Lenin himself." 
 
 It is impossible to say how many are the victims of 
 this "Che-ka" ("CTwesvychainaya i^omissiya," "Ex- 
 traordinary Commission," named from its first letters). 
 A report published by it in 1920, gives the following fig- 
 ures for Moscow and Petrograd : 
 
 1918 1919 
 
 Executed 6,185 3,456 
 
 Arrested 46,348 80,662
 
 70 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 The great majority of the executed (7,068 out of 9,641 
 in two years) were shot for "counter-revolutionary 
 activities," i.e., for political reasons. These figures do 
 not include the work of the numerous provincial Extra- 
 ordinary Commissions, and, of course, they do not 
 mention the numerous victims slain here and there 
 throughout Russia, without any form of trial. The 
 number of such would probably amount to tens or 
 even hundreds of thousands. 
 
 We now know what three pillars have supported the 
 Bolshevist structure for such a long time. There are, 
 in the first place, their highly centralized system of ad- 
 ministration, numbering quite an army of officials, con- 
 trolled by the Communist Party; in the second place, 
 their Red Army, also controlled by the Communist 
 Party, and in the third place, their secret police and 
 espionage system, which is entirely in the hands of the 
 Communists. Of the two aims mentioned at the be- 
 ginning preparing for communism and keeping in 
 power the former was gradually removed to the sec- 
 ond place, while the latter has evolved into a system 
 of self-defense of the small minority against their own 
 people, a system which has never been surpassed by 
 any tyranny at any tune in the world's history. 
 
 Whether or not this system is likely to save Bol- 
 shevism from its final downfall, will be shown in the 
 following chapters.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES. 
 
 A chapter on nationalities and on the national ques- 
 tion in Russia cannot be omitted even from such a 
 brief outline as this. Russia was not and is not now 
 an entirely homogeneous "national" (i.e., "one na- 
 tion") State as France, or Germany or Italy. An 
 ethnographic map of Russia within its former bound- 
 aries (before 1914) shows variously marked spots not 
 only on the outskirts of Russia, such as Finland, the 
 Baltic States, Transcaucasia, the Central Asiatic Prov- 
 inces, but also inside Russia proper. Many remnants 
 of aboriginal tribes can be found in the North (Zery- 
 ans, Samoyeds), on the Volga and in the Ural region, 
 (Tatars, Mordva, Cheremiss, Chuvashes, Bashkirs, 
 Kirghiz) and in Siberia. The first impression is that 
 Russia before the World War was a multinational 
 State like Turkey and Hungary, bound to be rent 
 asunder from within, as a result of the growing-national 
 consciousness of its component parts. And indeed, this 
 comparison has often been used. I find it, e.g., in Gen- 
 eral Smuts' leaflet on the League of Nations. He treats 
 Russia as one of the three vanquished powers, and he 
 looks at the process of dismemberment of Russia, Aus- 
 tria-Hungary and Turkey in the light of "self-deter- 
 mination" of their enslaved nationalities. 
 
 The view of a liberal Russian like myself is, natur- 
 
 71
 
 72 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ally, a different one. We stand for self-determination 
 and for national autonomy. At the same time, we are 
 very strongly against the dismemberment of Russia, 
 We expect to find a middle path between self-deter- 
 mination and unity in a Russian federation. A com- 
 parison with Hungary and Turkey we consider too far- 
 fetched, if facts are considered, and unfair, when made 
 by a recent ally. 
 
 In contrast with conditions in Turkey, the nationali- 
 ties of the former Russian Empire, even in the worst 
 times of autocratic policy, could not be considered as 
 "enslaved." And, contrasted with Hungary, Russia had 
 its numerically predominant stock which formed a 
 geographically continuous and solid nucleus of the Em- 
 pire. The numerical relation between the component 
 nationalities of the former Russian Empire can be seen 
 from the following figures. I take them from the census 
 of 1897 (the only one we have had). The entire popu- 
 lation then numbered 128 millions; it grew to 180 mil- 
 lions in 1918, and approximate figures for the present 
 time can be calculated accordingly. 
 
 1. NATIONALITIES WITHIN THE AREA OF THE 
 PRESENT RUSSIA (IN THOUSANDS) : 
 
 European Si- Central 
 
 Russia beria Asia Total 
 Russians: 
 
 Great Russians 48,559 4,424 588 53,571 
 
 Little Russians 20,415 223 102 20,740 
 
 ("Ukrainians") 
 
 White Russians 5,823 12 1 5,836 
 
 74,797 4,659 691 80,147
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 73 
 
 Turko-Tatars: 
 
 European Si- Central 
 Russia beria Asia Total 
 
 (Kirghiz, Tatars, 
 Bashkirs, Sarts, Uz- 
 begs, Chuvashes, Tur- 
 komans, other) 4,220 
 
 Finno- Ugrians : 
 
 (Finns, Karelians, 
 Lapps, Mordvinians, 
 
 other) 2,433 
 
 Mongols 171 
 
 Jews 3,715 
 
 Germans 1,312 
 
 475 6,618 11,313 
 
 53 
 
 289 
 
 33 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 "s 
 
 9 
 
 2,499 
 
 460 
 
 3,756 
 
 1,326 
 
 11,851 855 6,648 19,354 
 
 2. NATIONALITIES IN THE BORDER STATES 
 THAT MADE PART OF THE FORMER RUSSIAN 
 EMPIRE: 
 
 Finns (in Finland) 2,353 
 
 Poles (Russian Poland) . . 7,866 
 
 (Russians in Poland proper: Great Russians, 267; Little 
 Russians, 335; White Russians, 29; Jews, 1,267) 
 
 Lithuanians 1,658 
 
 Letts 1,427 
 
 Esthonians 990 
 
 Rumanians 1,122 
 
 Caucasians (in Transcaucasia) : 
 
 (Russians in Caucasia: Great Russians, 1,830; Little 
 Russians, 1,305; White Russians, 20) 
 
 Armenians 1,096 
 
 Georgians 1,352 
 
 Turko-Tatars 1,880 
 
 Other Caucasians 1,631 
 
 5,959 
 
 Total 21,375 (-f 3,766 Russians -f 
 
 1,267 Jews, etc.)
 
 74 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 In former Russia the Russian stock made up 65%, 
 i.e., two-thirds of the population (43.3% Great Rus- 
 sians; 17.4% Little Russians; 4.5% White Russians). 
 In dismembered Russia it makes up 80%, i.e.-, four- 
 fifths of the population, and the remaining 20% do 
 not represent continuous groups but, with the excep- 
 tion of the Central Asiatic Provinces, are very much 
 scattered among the Russians. It is true that the Rus- 
 sians themselves divide into the three branches men- 
 tioned above. Since probably the XII-XIV Century 
 these branches speak different dialects, and there have 
 been some attempts made to prove that Little Russian 
 and White Russian are not dialects, but entirely differ- 
 ent languages from the Great Russian, which is the 
 language of our literature. At any rate, they are much 
 closer related to each other than to any other Slav 
 language, either of the Western (Polish or Czech) or 
 even of the Eastern (Bulgarian and Serbian) groups. 
 All three Russian branches understand each other quite 
 easily. 
 
 So far as the other nationalities are concerned, the 
 difference between such as are now detached from Rus- 
 sia and such as have remained within Russia is a very 
 gradual one. The difference is not so much in degree 
 of national consciousness as in geographical position 
 and in the degree of continuity of settlement. 
 
 To compare the relation of all these nationalities to 
 the Russian stock, with the relation of the enslaved 
 Christian nationalities towards Turkey means simply 
 not to know the character of the Turkish domination. 
 There was nothing in Russia like superposition of two 
 races, the ruling and the conquered one, with their un- 
 fathomed difference of culture and civilization. It was 
 not conquest and subjugation, but a lengthy process
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 75 
 
 of settlement and amalgamation. Up to quite recently 
 no nationality in Russia thought of separating itself 
 from the Russian State and even the idea of autonomy 
 was not common. That state of mind of the nationali- 
 ties entirely harmonized with the spirit of the Russian 
 people, which never was aggressively nationalistic; nay, 
 it was not always conscious of its own nationality. 
 
 A morbid and inflamed national feeling is born al- 
 ways under the menace of denationalization, which is 
 particularly dangerous for small nations. No such 
 menace could exist in a country like Russia. Russia 
 was too big, and its population, far from being influ- 
 enced by other nationalities, had not even much chance 
 of learning about their very existence. It is often 
 stated that the American Middle West found itself in 
 a similar situation which, until recently, made it quite 
 indifferent about other nations and foreign politics. 
 Every great nation has its middle-something which 
 does not come in contact with any boundaries and does 
 not know much about any conflicts. This is about the 
 state of mind of the Russian popular masses. There 
 were, of course, exceptions to that state of indifference 
 in the long historical life of the nation. The Tatar 
 yoke of the XIII-XIV Century made the upper social 
 layers in Russia feel keenly that they were Russians 
 and Christians. When, at a later period (XVII Cen- 
 tury and after), there was the danger of being dena- 
 tionalized by the Poles on the Western frontier of 
 Russia, the Russian population disclosed a strong de- 
 fensive or even militant nationalism. The whole na- 
 tion rose up at the beginning of the XVII Century to 
 defend Russia's political and national independence. 
 There was also much feeling against that process of 
 "Europeanization" of Russia, which began in the sec-
 
 76 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ond part of the XVII Century and especially with the 
 reforms of Peter the Great. National feeling is again 
 aroused now in the masses, as a result of the Allied 
 policy toward Russia. But as I have just said, these 
 are exceptions, and even in these cases popular feeling 
 never turned itself against other nationalities in Rus- 
 sia itself (except the Jews). Still less was it possible 
 to expect that the Russian people would "Russianize"' 
 other nationalities, as the Hungarians were "Magyariz- 
 ing" their alien populations, or the Greeks, the Serbs 
 and Bulgarians were trying to assimilate the population 
 of Macedonia. It was not the people, but the officials; 
 not the intellectuals, but the Government which dur- 
 ing the reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) started upon 
 "Russianization" of the borderlands and made of mili- 
 tant nationalism a weapon of political reaction. 
 
 However, what remained unknown to the Russian 
 masses was gradually learned by the small nationalities 
 incorporated into Russia. Naturally enough, a strong 
 and uncompromising national feeling was first devel- 
 oped by such nationalities as were more advanced and 
 comparatively recently added to the Russian State: 
 the Poles (1815) and the Finns (1809). 
 
 The end of the XVIII and the beginning of the XIX 
 Century, as is well known, was the time of a general 
 national revival in Europe, which followed as a reac- 
 tion against the cosmopolitanism of the XVIII Cen- 
 tury and of the Great French Revolution. It was a 
 period of Romanticism involving learned researches for 
 the spirit and soul of the peoples the primitive peo- 
 ples or lower social strata which preserved their folk- 
 lore, popular songs, national costumes and traditions. 
 In Russia it was also the time when the first founda- 
 tions were laid for the nationalistic doctrine which pro-
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 77 
 
 claimed that the "Russian" faith and the "Russian" 
 form of government formed the substance of the Rus- 
 sian nationality. The doctrine had its refined philo- 
 sophical development in the hands of the "Slavophil" 
 group of Russian intellectuals. But it also had its sim- 
 plified version which served quite well the nationalist 
 policy of the Russian autocracy. 
 
 This policy was not always hostile to the awakening 
 of national revival among the small nationalities in 
 Russia. On the contrary, while combating the strong, 
 the Russian Government protected the weak. It tried 
 to oppose new germs of national life to the more dan- 
 gerous nationalism of the neighboring powers. Thus 
 Russia encouraged the modest beginnings of Finnish 
 literature and defended it from the Swedish civiliza- 
 tion of the upper social layers in Finland. Russia also 
 protected the early manifestations of the Lettish and 
 Lithuanian nationalities against the German civiliza- 
 tion of the Baltic "barons" and Polish landlords. The 
 Russian Government was not hostile to the revival of 
 the Georgian and Armenian literature, while it played 
 Armenian patriotism against the Turks. 
 
 What was the attitude of Russian liberalism and 
 Russian public opinion concerning national questions? 
 The influence of Russian liberalism on politics began 
 to be felt in the second half of the XIX Century. But 
 liberalism cared little about exclusive and chauvinistic 
 nationalism. Russian liberalism was broad-minded, 
 freeth inking and cosmopolitan. Such also was the in- 
 fluence of Russian literature, poetry, fiction, wherever 
 it found its way. The intellectuals of other nationali- 
 ties reflected that state of mind, as they were strongly 
 influenced by the same literature. They remained 
 sympathetic to manifestations of the feelings of op-
 
 78 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 pressed nationalities, but they chiefly resented political 
 oppression, without being much affected by purely 
 national demands. 
 
 The change came at the end of the XIX Century. 
 After the comparatively liberal reign of Alexander II 
 (1855-81) there followed a period of recrudescence of 
 militant nationalism, under Alexander III (1881-1894), 
 which continued also under Nicholas II (1894-1917). 
 Two nationalities were especially persecuted by these 
 reactionary Governments: the Finns and the Poles 
 the most advanced two. At the end of the Century a 
 third group of Caucasian nationalities was added. The 
 fourth persecuted group were the Jews. A real exodus 
 of Russian Jews began after the world-known pogroms 
 of the Ministers Durnovo and Plehve, about 1890. At 
 the same time a new Jewish nationalist movement ap- 
 peared Zionism. Then it was perhaps for the first 
 time that Russian intellectuals, as well as the Jewish, 
 faced the national problem in its deeper sense. 
 
 The immediate result was a scission. The older gen- 
 eration preferred to remain faithful to the former type 
 of Russian liberal cosmopolitanism. The young gen- 
 eration turned nationalist, both on the side of the per- 
 secuted and the persecutors. Those that defended 
 themselves, as well as those that attacked, seemed to 
 start from the same basic axiom: the principle of na- 
 tionality was paramount for both. 
 
 Between the two generations, my personal position 
 was difficult. I never shared the one-sided cosmopoli- 
 tanism of the older generation, which ignored the very 
 existence of national problems. At the same time I 
 was unable to sympathize with the equally one-sided 
 spirit in which the national problem was solved by the 
 generation of the end of the century. And indeed, the
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 79 
 
 alternative was equally unacceptable, to disregard and 
 not to understand at all the process of growing national 
 consciousness of small nationalities (which I just then 
 learned to know at the hand of the Balkan example), 
 or to oppose to that legitimate process the national ex- 
 clusiveness of the main national body. 
 
 Both states of mind were now rousing friction be- 
 tween the Russian and the allogeneous intellectuals. 
 The cosmopolitan intellectuals were accused by the 
 other nationalities of "imperialist" proclivities and even 
 sometimes of playing a double game with national 
 questions. The cause of their supposed insincerity was 
 that they in all conscience did not include the idea of 
 national autonomy and freedom of collective manifes- 
 tations of national feelings in the catechism of liberal 
 principles which they preached. On the other hand, 
 the young generation of nationalists, which fully under- 
 stood the importance of national strivings, considered 
 them to be dangerous to the State and often took the 
 side of the persecutors, while they wished to have the 
 Russian State built on the German pattern, as a "one 
 nation" State. 
 
 I earnestly cherish the hope that the present genera- 
 tion, the third one, having grown up during the Revo- 
 lution and having learned from its lessons, will know 
 how to find a middle line between liberal cosmopolitan- 
 ism and reactionary nationalism. 
 
 At the time when the Revolutionary movement in 
 Russia began to win its first successes, there were as 
 yet no disagreements between the Russian liberals and 
 the national intellectuals. All national advanced 
 groups fought under the same banner, the political 
 banner. They did not then think of self-determination 
 as their immediate aim. It was understood that the
 
 80 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 liberation of nationalities was a part of the general 
 political liberation of Russia from the autocratic 
 regime. Poland alone claimed independence. But even 
 that claim was modified by the uncertainty of the in- 
 ternational situation, which made the task of liberating 
 at the same tune all three parts of Poland, the Russian, 
 German and Austrian, almost impossible. Finland did 
 not ask for more than an independent constitution 
 which would not exclude common links in questions of 
 imperial diplomacy, defense and partly in finance. The 
 other nationalities did not even expect or wish as much 
 as that. 
 
 In the first Russian Duma the representatives of the 
 different nationalities united with the Russian deputies 
 in a common political struggle. To realize their na- 
 tional aspirations, they formed with the Russians a 
 "Union of Autonomists-Federalists." It is character- 
 istic of that time that in the second Duma (socialistic 
 in its majority), they dropped the second part of that 
 title, thus emphasizing their desire for stronger unity. 
 It was now a "Union of Autonomists." 
 
 The tendency to acquire freedom jointly and to post- 
 pone the fight for self-determination was especially 
 strong with the more advanced parties, which united 
 socialism with national aspirations. Such parties de- 
 cidedly opposed the separatist tendencies of the older 
 and more conservative groups. As early as 1904 the 
 Polish National-Democratic Party renounced its de- 
 mand for Polish independence. The Polish Socialist 
 Party (P. P. S.) followed its example in 1907. The 
 Lithuanian democrats changed their name in the same 
 spirit. Instead of calling themselves "the Democratic 
 Party of Lithuania" (an independent State), they as- 
 sumed the name: "the Party of Democratic Lithuan-
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 81 
 
 ians" (i.e., an ethnic group fighting for democracy in 
 general and basing itself on territorial autonomy in- 
 stead of national independence). The Lithuanian 
 Social-Democrats in 1906 renounced their separate Con- 
 stituent Assembly in Vilna and declared themselves 
 satisfied with the All-Russian one. In 1907 they re- 
 nounced altogether their demand for federalism, de- 
 clared themselves satisfied with autonomy and joined 
 hands with the Russian Social-Democrats. The demo- 
 cratic Letts were still more moderate. They declared, 
 in 1905, that separation was a dangerous tendency 
 worthy of "barons and priests," and that "it would be 
 equivalent to suicide to separate themselves from 
 Russia." In Georgia, too, at the beginning of the XX 
 Century it was chiefly the noblemen who defended 
 political separatism. Such socialists as were "feder- 
 alists," provoked severe criticism on the part of their 
 fellow-socialists and were kept at the background. 
 The Armenian nationalists, the "Dashnaks," were an 
 apparent exception. But their independent Armenia 
 was to be cut out from Turkey with Russia's help, if 
 possible not from Russia. 
 
 The Mussulman population did not wish for any- 
 thing more than freedom of religious and cultural life. 
 They cast their lot with the Russian democratic parties 
 (particularly the Constitutional-Democrats). They 
 elected their deputies on imperial party platforms and 
 these deputies in the first two Dumas sat with the 
 "Cadets," before they formed their own separate fac- 
 tion. The Ukrainian radicals too at that time did not 
 go beyond a "national territorial autonomy." 
 
 All these symptoms of moderation of the advanced 
 national parties are especially interesting because here, 
 for the first time in Russian history, they were able to
 
 82 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 speak their minds quite freely. We can be sure that 
 this was indeed the expression of their real opinion. 
 They decidedly did not wish to be detached from Rus- 
 sia. 
 
 Two circumstances changed that conciliatory state 
 of mind during the last decade before the Revolution 
 of 1917. 
 
 In the first place, the nationalities were bitterly dis- 
 appointed in the Duma. Not only did they not suc- 
 ceed in winning political and national freedom in the 
 first two Dumas, but in the last two Dumas a majority 
 could be formed by the Government, which was almost 
 more reactionary in national questions than the Gov- 
 ernment itself. The most chauvinistic legislation was 
 carried by the Duma, which hurt deeply the feelings of 
 the chief nationalities, the Finns, Poles, Mussulmans, 
 Ukrainians, etc. To be sure it was autocracy that was 
 responsible for the composition of the two last Dumas 
 (See Chapter I). The opposition parties fought by the 
 side of the nationalities. But chauvinism breeds' chau- 
 vinism. The public opinion of the nationalities turned 
 vindictive. The opinion prevailed among them that 
 the Russian liberals and intellectuals were as "imperial- 
 istic" as the Tsar's Government, and that the nationali- 
 ties could expect nothing from them, even if Russia 
 should succeed in obtaining a good constitution and real 
 political freedom. 
 
 The second reason for the change of mind of the 
 nationalities was even more weighty. Their growing 
 disaffection was very skillfully exploited by forces out- 
 side Russia. 
 
 The dismemberment of Russia on her western 
 frontier was deliberately made a part of the Pan- 
 German and the so-called Middle-European scheme of
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 83 
 
 reconstruction of the future Europe, after the German 
 victory. The expected annexations of industrial 
 regions on the Belgian and the French frontiers were 
 to be balanced by an equivalent annexation of agricul- 
 tural regions to the east of the Russian frontier. Rus- 
 sia's part of the indemnity was thus to be paid with 
 land. 
 
 As early as the beginning of 1916 the German Army 
 occupied a great part of the area under consideration: 
 Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Latvia and Lithuania, 
 also a part of the Ukraine. But even before that, as 
 soon as the War was definitely decided upon namely 
 in 1913 there began an active German and Austrian 
 propaganda among the nationalities they intended to 
 detach from Russia. Subsidies were given in profusion 
 to the leaders of the different national movements. 
 Presumably, that was about the moment when Lenin 
 also, then in Krakov, and Trotsky condescended to ac- 
 cept German and Austrian money. Lenin's interna- 
 tional program was then enriched with a new, ultra- 
 national addition: "self-determination going as far as 
 complete disannexation." 
 
 When the War began, a further step was taken to 
 prepare for Russia's dismemberment. The prisoners 
 of all the nationalities mentioned, the Finns, Esthon- 
 ians, Letts, Ukrainians, Moslems, were intentionally 
 concentrated each group in a special national camp. 
 They were there trained for revolutionary propaganda 
 and for military insurrections in the corresponding 
 parts of Russia, However, the opinion of the leading 
 national groups even then remained moderate. At a 
 special "Congress of Nationalities" which met at Lau- 
 sanne in June, 1916, only the Finns, the Poles and the 
 representatives of Bokhara and Khiva unconditionally
 
 84 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 asked for independence. The Esthonians, the Cauca- 
 sian nationalities, the Kirghiz and Tatars, and the 
 Ukrainians formulated their demands in a conditional 
 form. They still were ready to be satisfied with na- 
 tional autonomy. 
 
 But now the Revolution broke. The results of the 
 aforementioned German-Austrian propaganda at once 
 became manifest. Drilled propagandists of different 
 nationalities rushed into Russia. Here they concurred 
 in the forming, within the Russian army, of separate 
 national military groups, composed of Ukrainians, 
 Poles, Lithuanians, White-Russians, Moslems, Siber- 
 ians. At the same time, Lenin proclaimed the right to 
 "disannexation" of such "annexed" provinces as Fin- 
 land, Poland, Esthonia, Courland, the Ukraine, Bessa- 
 rabia, Georgia, Armenia, Daghestan, Turkestan, to- 
 gether with Ireland, India, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, 
 etc. His Krakov promises were thus fulfilled and sur- 
 passed by far. In vain did other Social-Democratic 
 groups try to make head against Lenin and stand firm 
 by their attitude of 1905 (which attitude we know), to 
 stem the separatist strivings. Lenin's view prevailed 
 fully after the Bolshevist victory of November, 1917. 
 A week after his coup d'etat, on November 15. Lenin 
 issued a declaration of the "rights of nationalities in 
 Russia." He confirmed here the principles of equality 
 and sovereignty of nationalities in Russia and their 
 right "to dispose of themselves as far as the separation 
 and building of independent States." 
 
 Immediate use was made of these gallant concessions 
 by the Germans. On November 29, the German Chan- 
 cellor Hertling declared in the Reichstag that he "re- 
 spected the right of Poland, Courland and Lithuania to
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 85 
 
 decide" about their fate independently from Russia. 
 On New Year's day these three provinces, as well as 
 parts of Livonia and Esthonia were proclaimed defi- 
 nitely detached from Russia. It corresponded to the 
 dot to the above-mentioned drafts of alterations on the 
 Eastern Frontier of Germany. Moreover, by the Brest- 
 Litovsk treaty, Russia undertook to directly evacuate 
 Finland, the Baltic Provinces, the Ukraine and Trans- 
 caucasia. The Ukraine was forced to conclude a sep- 
 arate peace with Germany, as a first proof of its inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Up to that moment everything was clear and easy 
 to understand for every Russian. We knew that in the 
 event of his victory our enemy would be inexorable in 
 the realization of his decision to weaken Russia and to 
 make use of her economic resources for himself. We 
 fully expected Germany to do that. That is why we 
 fought so hard against Germany and in fact very much 
 longer than we actually could bear the strain. 
 
 On the other hand we also expected that our Allies, 
 after having attained the aim of our common effort, 
 would help us to make good the fatal results of our 
 sacrifice. We did not expect them, of course, to re- 
 store the unity of Russia, as long as Russia remained 
 in the possession of the Bolsheviks. We also under- 
 stood that the newly-built border states had good rea- 
 son to insist on their matter-of-fact separation, in order 
 not to be swallowed by the Bolshevist Russia. As long 
 as the situation remained temporary as well as the 
 causes which created it there was no reason for real 
 worry. The Bolsheviks were allies of the Germans; 
 Russia was dismembered by the Germans. This state 
 of things must change with the defeat of the Germans.
 
 86 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Germany was defeated. The Brest-Litovsk treaty was 
 abrogated. Imagine our utter astonishment and dis- 
 may when after some waiting we began to realize that 
 to weaken Russia was not only the aim of our enemies, 
 and that "self-determination" of nationalities was really 
 going to transform itself into "dismemberment" of 
 Russia, under the conditions of a definite peace treaty ! 
 Mr. Lloyd George told us in the House of Commons, 
 on November 17, 1919, that "fighting for a reunited 
 Russia might not be a policy that suits the British 
 Empire." He mentioned a "very great statesman, Lord 
 Beaconsfield," who "regarded a great, gigantic, colossal, 
 growing Russia as the greatest menace the British Em- 
 pire could be confronted with." Lloyd George ob- 
 viously shared that view. 
 
 The interests of the Allies were unequally distributed 
 among the newly-built border states, and the recogni- 
 tion of their newly-acquired independence also varied 
 in degree and in speediness according to the degree 
 of interest of each of the Allies. The interest of France 
 was chiefly centered on that idea of controlling Ger- 
 many from the East and of finding a substitute for 
 the Russian alliance. For a considerable time Poland 
 was considered able to take the place of Russia, espe- 
 cially if it would be a "strong" and territorially en- 
 larged Poland. Certain Polish statesmen tried to im- 
 press that idea on their Allies, and to a certain degree 
 they succeeded. But, as a consequence of further events 
 and complications, the traditional enthusiasm of the 
 French public opinion seems to have cooled down. It 
 left, however, a pernicious result in the form of the 
 annexation by Poland of a strip of land with a 4,000,000 
 Russian population, contrary to the good ethnographic
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 87 
 
 frontier proposed to Poland by the League of Nations 
 in July, 1919. The treaty of Riga of 1920, which con- 
 tains that decision, will remain a source of dangerous 
 complications in the future. 
 
 The British interest is chiefly limited to such border 
 states as can be reached from the sea. Mr. Lloyd 
 George, in his Guildhall Speech of 1919, formulated 
 that policy plainly. "True to the instinct which has 
 always saved us," he said, "we never went far from the 
 sea," a remark which was met with the laughter of 
 recognition. There are now two more seas added to the 
 domain of British interest: the Baltic and the Black 
 Sea. Situated on the Baltic Sea, Esthonia and Latvia 
 were provisionally recognized by Great Britain on May 
 3 and November 18, 1918, before their final recogni- 
 tion by the Supreme Council in January, 1921. An 
 American writer sums these facts up in a keen com- 
 ment, which I permit myself to quote here. 1 "The recog- 
 nition of the two governments of Esthonia and Latvia 
 by Great Britain," he states, "has a commercial signifi- 
 cance, not only in respect of the future of Russia, but 
 with reference to general imperial policy ... It ap- 
 pears to be understood that the Baltic Sea is a British 
 trade realm in which there will be important develop- 
 ments in the future. Thus it was the British navy 
 that blockaded the coasts of Germany and Soviet Rus- 
 sia. A British High Commissioner sits at Danzig, and 
 British naval units have patrolled the coast of the 
 Baltic. ... All this is in line with the British tradi- 
 tional policy of establishing influence or control in 
 
 *"The New World Problems in Political Geography," by Isaiah 
 Bowman, Ph. D., Director of the American Geographical Society in 
 New York.
 
 88 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ports and coastal belts serving as outlets for interior 
 population, from which flow important currents of 
 trade." 
 
 An equally important change took place in the status 
 of the Black Sea, which reflected itself in the situation 
 of the Transcaucasian border states, Georgia, Armenia 
 and Azerbaidjan. According to the treaty signed at 
 Sevres, on August 10, 1920, passage through the Straits 
 of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is made free not 
 only for trading vessels, but also for all warships, ir- 
 respective of their flags, hi time of war as in time of 
 peace. This was done hi spite of the observations of 
 the Ottoman Delegation which found the sovereignty 
 of Turkey, her integrity and security deeply affected, 
 and also in spite of the objections of the Russian 
 (unofficial) delegates who stated on July 5, 1919, that 
 free access to the Black Sea for warships leaves without 
 defense the 2,230 kilometers of Russia's southern lit- 
 toral. From the point of national defense, the situa- 
 tion on the Black Sea was thus extremely deteriorated, 
 as a result of the World War. At the same time the 
 Transcaucasian border states became an object of 
 special attention on the part of the British. 
 
 It is impossible to describe here all the havoc played 
 by the "Balkanization" in Transcaucasia. Geography, 
 ethnography and historical tradition worked very 
 strongly for unity among the three chief Transcauca- 
 sian nationalities and between all of them and Russia. 
 The Russian population in that region, as can be seen 
 from the table, constituted a very large minority. Rus- 
 sian civilization has had an enormous influence on these 
 regions and their economic development is chiefly due 
 to the peaceful conditions created by the Russian sway. 
 Separatist tendencies prevailed here only under condi-
 
 -LEGEND 
 
 f thnoqraphk Sorter Line of Poland 
 
 Border Lint tftaWihed by lord Cunon and acapftd 
 
 by Peace Conference 
 int utablished by Treaty of Riga
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 89 
 
 tions of imperative necessity. Directly after the Bol- 
 shevist coup, the prominent Georgian leader, Mr. Noe 
 Jordania, declared (December 3, 1917) : "As a part 
 of Russia we continue to stand for an All-Russian plat- 
 form. . . . Separation from Russia means submission 
 to the East. . . . The interests of all Caucasians re- 
 quire a regeneration of the central power in Russia." 
 As late as the end of February, 1918, at a Diet of Trans- 
 caucasian members of the All-Russian Constituent As- 
 sembly, representatives of all three nations, Georgians, 
 Armenians and Moslems declared themselves for a 
 "united Russian federative democratic Republic." It 
 was only when the Brest-Litovsk treaty was signed that 
 the Diet was forced (April 27, 1918) to declare the 
 "independence" of Transcaucasia, at the demand of 
 the Turks whose armies invaded the country. The 
 aim of the Turks was to unite the Transcaucasian Mus- 
 sulmans and to form of them an independent "Republic 
 of Azerbaidjan." It was in order to save themselves 
 from the Mussulman menace that the Georgians threw 
 themselves into the hands of the Germans and asked 
 the German Army to come and take up their defense 
 against the Turks and the Transcaucasian Moslems, 
 and, as a consequence of their demand, proclaimed the 
 independence of their own "Georgian Republic" (May 
 26, 1918). The Armenians, who were the only ones 
 to remain faithful to the Entente, had to pay the bill. 
 Both the Turks and the Georgians wanted their land, 
 and they could not but succumb under the double at- 
 tack. 
 
 This was the state of things in Transcaucasia when, 
 after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, access to 
 the Black Sea was made free for the Allied fleets. Just 
 before that moment an appeal by Mr. Balfour to the
 
 90 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 peoples of Russia, published in Baku ("Azerbaidjan") 
 on August 26, 1918, promised to support Russia against 
 dismemberment. Such were also the first pronounce- 
 ments of the British troops which came to the assist- 
 ance of Baku against the Azerbaidjan and Turkish be- 
 sieging troops. But soon that policy changed. Gen- 
 eral Thompsons proclamation of November 24, 1918, 
 declared that the fate of the "Russian territory" be- 
 tween the Black Sea and the Caspian was to be decided 
 (in the absence of Russia) at the Peace Conference. 
 On December 28, 1918, the Azerbaidjan government 
 was recognized by General Thompson as the only right- 
 ful power. On December 30, 1918, Mr. Balfour in- 
 formed the Georgian representatives "that His Maj- 
 esty's Government view with sympathy the creation 
 of a Georgian Republic and are prepared to urge its 
 recognition at the Conference and to support its desire 
 to send its delegates to Paris with the object of pre- 
 senting its claims." And, indeed, it was at Earl Cur- 
 zon's initiative that on January 15, 1920, the Supreme 
 Council recognized the de facto independence of Azer- 
 baidjan, Georgia and Armenia. 
 
 However, this recognition took place after the Brit- 
 ish occupation of Transcaucasia was discontinued and 
 the British troops withdrawn from Georgia and Ar- 
 menia (July- August, 1919). Mr. Lloyd George's utter- 
 ances as to the "instinct which always saved" the 
 British and helped them to "extricate themselves," 
 when they went too "far from the sea," seems to have 
 been suggested by the situation in Transcaucasia. The 
 Italians were also unwilling to take up the task which 
 the British had found too costly and dangerous for 
 themselves, and, finally, the newly created republics 
 were occupied by the Bolsheviks. On April 28, 1920,
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 91 
 
 Baku was peacefully taken by the Bolsheviks, who were 
 invited to come by a meeting of the representatives of 
 the parliamentary parties. With Georgia, a peace 
 treaty was signed by the Bolsheviks on May 8. But at 
 the moment when they seemed to be restoring Russia's 
 unity, the real aim of the Bolshevist advance to Trans- 
 caucasia became clear. It was a part of their scheme to 
 bring about a revolution in the East, and the Trans- 
 caucasian Christian nations .were to be sacrificed to the 
 Turko-Bolshevist Alliance. As a result of the decision 
 of the Third International at Moscow, a congress of 
 Eastern "peoples" met at Baku on August 27, 1920. 
 Armenia was forced on November 7 to make peace with 
 Turkey and to open a corridor between the Turks and 
 the Bolsheviks by giving up two of her districts (Zan- 
 ghezur and Karabagh). Bolshevist armies were sent 
 to Azerbaidjan in order to cooperate with the Turks 
 against the Armenians and the Georgians. As a re- 
 sult, communist governments were created in Armenia 
 and in Georgia and both nationalities were put under 
 direct Bolshevist control. The last treaty of the Bol- 
 sheviks with the Turks practically gives up all Trans- 
 caucasia to the Turks. Such were the results of the 
 involuntary "self-determination" in Transcaucasia. 
 
 I am satisfied to state that the policy of the United 
 States in all these questions concerning national prob- 
 lems and dismemberment of Russia was perfectly con- 
 sistent with general principles of democracy and com- 
 pletely loyal towards the Russian people. The Ameri- 
 can viewpoint was especially well emphasized in 
 Secretary Colby's note of August 10, 1920, sent out in 
 reply to the Italian Government's questions as to the 
 claims of Poland. "Friendship and honor," Mr. Colby 
 said, "require that Russia's interests must be gen-
 
 92 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 erously protected and, as far as possible, all decisions 
 of vital importance to it, and especially those concern- 
 ing its sovereignty over the territory of the former 
 Russian Empire, be held in abeyance. By this feeling 
 of friendship and honorable obligation to the great na- 
 tion whose brave and heroic self-sacrifice contributed so 
 much to the successful termination of the war, the 
 Government of the United States was guided in its 
 reply to the Lithuanian National Council on October 
 19, 1919, and its persistent refusal to recognize the 
 Baltic States as separate nations independent of Rus- 
 sia. The same spirit was manifested in the note of this 
 Government of March 24, 1920, in which it was stated 
 with reference to certain proposed settlements hi the 
 Near East that 'no final decision should or can be 
 made without the consent o* Russia,' In line with 
 these important declarations of policy the United 
 States withheld its approval from the decision of the 
 Supreme Council in Paris recognizing the independence 
 of the so-called Republics of Georgia and Azerbaidjan, 
 and so instructed its representative in Southern Rus- 
 sia, Rear- Admiral Newton McCully. Finally . . . the 
 Government of the United States has taken the posi- 
 tion that final determination of the boundaries (of the 
 independent Armenia) must not be made without Rus- 
 sia's cooperation and agreement. . . . We were unwill- 
 ing that while Russia is helpless in the grip of non- 
 representative government whose only sanction is bru- 
 tal force, Russia shall be weakened still further by a 
 policy of dismemberment conceived in other than Rus- 
 sian interests." 
 
 This noble line of conduct has not changed under 
 the new administration. The note of Secretary Hughes,
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 93 
 
 issued on the occasion of the Washington Conference, 
 fully confirms Secretary Colby's statement. 
 
 The suspicion has often been voiced that under the 
 cloak of that idea of sovereignty of the people and unity 
 of territory the old Russian form of centralized gov- 
 ernment may be introduced. As we have just seen, 
 it has already been introduced by the Bolsheviks in 
 such border states of former Russia which they suc- 
 ceeded in bringing back under their control. I have 
 little doubt but that the reactionary and monarchist 
 extremists cherish an ideal that would be equally able 
 to restore the formal, purely mechanical unity of Rus- 
 sia, based on passive submission. Probably, it is ap- 
 prehension of such prospectives that urges the repre- 
 sentatives of nationalities at present to insist on for- 
 mal recognition of their newly acquired independence. 
 Even such of them as are inclined to federate with 
 Russia, will often say that formal independence is 
 the best starting point for future negotiations. The 
 difficulty is that there can be no final recognition of 
 independence without the formal act of a legally con- 
 stituted Russian Government. Recognitions by other 
 powers are not binding for the Russian people. In an 
 acuter form, we come to the same vicious circle that 
 threatened the success of the Irish negotiations with 
 the British. No negotiations without recognition, 
 would be the view of nationalities. No recognition 
 without previous negotiations, may be the view of the 
 other side. What then is the way out from that prob- 
 able imbroglio f 
 
 To a great extent it can be disposed of by the atti- 
 tude taken by the Russian democracy. This attitude 
 may be seen from the resolution adopted by the Con-
 
 94 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ference of the Members of the All-Russian Constituent 
 Assembly which met in Paris, in January, 1921 
 with regard to the newly formed border States. Po- 
 land and Finland are here not included, as their sev- 
 erance from Russia is considered to be final. 
 The resolution reads as follows: 
 
 "1. The Russian Democratic parties have always recog- 
 nized the justice of the claim of Russia's nationalities for 
 free self-determination, and the Constituent Assembly ac- 
 cordingly proclaimed on January 5, 1918, the principles of a 
 federal structure for Russia. This desire of the nationalities 
 of Russia, however, in view of the tragic circumstances 
 which ensued subsequently, took the form of a demand for 
 absolute secession of the Border States and complete sever- 
 ance of all connection with Russia, from a desire to pro- 
 tect themselves against the despotic power and destructive 
 policy of the Bolshevist dictators. 
 
 "2. As long as the Bolshevist dictatorship will continue to 
 oppress Russia the gravitation of the Border States towards 
 Russia will not be able to assume rational and lawful forms. 
 The stabilization of any moral and political break between 
 those countries and Russia will only lead to Balkanization 
 and mutual feuds which will be taken advantage of to serve 
 the interests of foreign imperialistic politics. 
 
 "3. Reckoning with the established fact of a number of 
 new States founded through the efforts of the Border nation- 
 alities, and also with our desire to safeguard their independ- 
 ence, in as far as it is expressed by their representative in- 
 stitutions based upon universal suffrage, the democracy of 
 Russia assumes that after the liquidation of the Bolshevist 
 dictatorship and the restoration of popular rule in Russia 
 there is inevitably bound to come to the fore a community 
 of social, political and cultural interests which will dictate 
 an economic and political coalition equally advantageous 
 and even indispensable to both sides. 
 
 "4. A federal union appears to be the most appropriate 
 form of such a coalition, harmonizing with the general ten- 
 dencies of the historical process as well as with the cultural 
 interests of mankind.
 
 REVOLUTION AND NATIONALITIES 95 
 
 "5. Defending the standpoint of Russia's reconstruction 
 along federal lines and having no desire to impose upon any 
 one by force of arms any particular form of political con- 
 nection, the Russian democracy considers a mutual agree- 
 ment on a basis of liberty and equality for both agreeing 
 parties as the only correct settlement of the issue." 
 
 The task which is here set forth is not easily accom- 
 plished. But the American example is there to show 
 us that solution is not at all impossible. When the 
 representatives of the separate states came together in 
 the summer days of 1787, in Philadelphia, each state 
 was hardly less zealous to preserve its independence 
 than the new border states of Russia. Every precau- 
 tion was taken to consider that feeling and the very 
 word "Nation" seemed to be tabooed in order not to 
 provoke separatist susceptibilities. But years have 
 passed since, Federal institutions have been steadily 
 working for amalgamation and the result is the great 
 American nation strong in its moral ties and united 
 with common bonds of growing national tradition. We 
 are confident that the United States of free and re- 
 generated Russia will pass through a similar process 
 of evolution.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE BOLSHEVIKS. 
 
 The juxtaposition of these two words: Bolshevism 
 and diplomacy is it not a most flagrant contradic- 
 tion? How can it be possible that an extremist party 
 whose chief business is to blow up the world would be 
 permitted to treat and to sign agreements with the 
 same authorities against which it conspires, thus fa- 
 cilitating its task? 
 
 Well, life is the most improbable of fictions. Life 
 gives us that exhibition of a Bolshevist diplomacy work- 
 big in the open for the same aims which the Bolshevist 
 agents of secret propaganda are at the same tune striv- 
 ing to attain under cover. Moreover, the Bolshevist 
 diplomatists are not only permitted to negotiate, they 
 even have their moments of triumph. Their outspoken 
 way of telling everybody unpalatable truths beats all 
 records of diplomatic sincerity. At the same time, they 
 are very much helped by what is so often lacking in 
 professional diplomacy: unity of design and complete 
 consistency in carrying it out. I do not intend to give 
 them much credit for that, because their aim is too 
 plain and absolute and unattainable while their 
 methods are too daring and reckless and irresponsible, 
 to be imitated by any civilized diplomacy. It is also 
 important to note that while the Bolsheviks are con- 
 sistent in pursuing their aims, they do not at all claim 
 
 96
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 97 
 
 to be consistent in their methods. They would change 
 these methods and break the agreements entered upon 
 as soon as they found it necessary to do so, to promote 
 their chief aim. Also, they are never embarrassed when 
 they change their arguments, or even when at the same 
 time they use conflicting arguments in their diplo- 
 matic documents and their pieces of propaganda. 
 Some one may raise the objection that even in current 
 diplomacy the methods of Talleyrand and Bismarck 
 are not unusual and that that principle, according to 
 which agreements stand only as long as conditions re- 
 main the same ("rebus sic stantibus"), is regularly ob- 
 served. But the Bolsheviks have carried these methods 
 to the extreme. The great Bismarck once said that he 
 could safely speak the truth because nobody would be- 
 lieve that he was doing so. The Bolshevist diploma- 
 tists have that advantage on Bismarck that they freely 
 and daily speak out their main truth about the World 
 Revolution and they are believed but the fine old- 
 type diplomatists are satisfied to think that that is 
 still a long way off, and that sufficient unto the day is 
 the evil thereof. In contradistinction to these old- 
 school diplomatists, the Bolsheviks have one great big 
 job ahead of them, and they keep clear of small details 
 that obscure the chief issue. Monomaniacs are some- 
 times very clearsighted people, in so far as the object is 
 in the immediate sphere of their vision. 
 
 Whoever believes that the Bolshevist chief aim, i.e., 
 World Revolution, can be changed or even that they 
 have already "abandoned World Revolution together 
 with communism and all the other foundations of Bol- 
 shevism" has not taken sufficient stock of Bolshevism 
 and is bound to be utterly mistaken in all his judg- 
 ments of the Bolsheviks' deeds. But we would be
 
 98 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 equally mistaken were we to overlook that in their 
 tactics the Bolshevist diplomatists have proved to be 
 extremely keen and flexible. They knew how to learn 
 from experience. In the four years of their existence 
 they have thus gradually passed from the awkward 
 and childish initial attempts to set fire to every piece 
 of inflammable matter, to a widely spread and skill- 
 fully arranged organization, led by good experts who 
 know how to mark time and how to continually modify 
 their preparatory steps. 
 
 The origin of the Bolshevist diplomacy is contem- 
 poraneous with their first attempts to start raising an 
 international organization with the avowed aim of 
 "turning the war for booty into a war of all the slaves 
 against all the masters." At the beginning their anti- 
 war activity was skillfully diverted by Germany to serve 
 her own purposes. Russian Bolsheviks and their fel- 
 low-extremists from the Allied countries were used by 
 the Germans to split patriotic public opinion and to 
 demoralize the armies of the Entente. However, the 
 first attempts to make use of the "Second Interna- 
 tional" for these aims failed, as socialist members of 
 that "International" forgot their internationalism in 
 the imminent national danger to their respective coun- 
 tries. It was then that the chance came for the 
 "Third," the extremist International, to be tried. Here, 
 too, German policy ran parallel with the Bolshevist. 
 The basis for the "Third International" of "anti-war 
 socialists of belligerent countries," with the exclusion 
 of the "social patriots," was laid down at the Zimmer- 
 wald and Kienthal conferences (September 5-8, 1915, 
 and April 27-30, 1916). A year of propaganda fol- 
 lowed, and during 1916 the idea of transforming the 
 patriotic World War into a revolutionary class war
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 99 
 
 against capitalism began to spread among the popular 
 masses, both in Germany and in the Allied countries. 
 The Bolshevist diplomacy, in the pursuit of its own 
 aims, 1 was gradually detaching itself from the German 
 diplomacy. 
 
 A revolution in Russia, whose resistance was most 
 weakened, was already planned at that time. It was 
 to be directly followed by a Spartacist revolution in 
 Germany and within a brief time by the triumph of 
 the French and British "comrades" in Paris and Lon- 
 don. A Swiss socialist, Mr. Grumbach, recollects that 
 Lenin had told him, before his return to Russia, that 
 he "firmly believed in a revolution in Germany, if only 
 a revolution could be first victorious in Russia." 
 
 Then followed, for the Bolsheviks, that period of 
 asserting themselves in Russia between the March 
 and November revolutions of 1917 with which we are 
 already familiar. The Bolshevist and the German di- 
 plomacy again ran parallel so far as the dissolution of 
 the Russian army and statehood was concerned. But 
 then, after the Bolshevist coup d'etat, the tune came 
 for them to redeem their pledges to Germany, who had 
 been giving them help. This was the first opportunity 
 for a purely Bolshevist i.e., Internationalist diplo- 
 macy to win its first laurels. Lenin was still sure that his 
 Spartacist revolution in Germany would come soon, 
 while the German Government was urging peace with 
 Russia. Peace was also proclaimed by the Bolsheviks; 
 but, as we know, it was a different kind of peace: a 
 peace with the German "proletarians" and a beginning 
 of civil war with the German "bourgeois-imperialists." 
 Accordingly, it was not to the German Government 
 
 1 See for further details my book on "Bolshevism, an International 
 Danger," 1920, Scribner and George Allen & Unwin.
 
 100 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 but to the German soldiers that the Bolsheviks ad- 
 dressed themselves. "Peace is to be concluded not 
 from above but from below," Lenin argued on Novem- 
 ber 11, 1917, in the Central Executive Committee. 
 
 The whole trend of the following events is explained 
 and commented upon by the Bolsheviks in the light of 
 their leading idea. The Germans consent to negotiate. 
 It means, said Trotsky on November 19, that the gen- 
 erals of the Kaiser are forced "to pass under the yoke." 
 To Trotsky's great surprise, "the actual proposals of 
 the German Imperialists" do not at all agree with the 
 program of a "democratic peace," as formulated by 
 the Russian Revolution. "We, indeed, did not expect 
 such an acme of impudence." Never mind. "We shall 
 have to carry through other negotiations with Germany, 
 when Liebknecht is at the head of the revolutionary 
 proletariat, and together with him we will readjust 
 the map of Europe." But, in the meantime, General 
 Hoffmann is speaking quite another language at Brest- 
 Litovsk? It does not matter. "We do not consider it 
 peace negotiations that we are carrying on with Ger- 
 many. We are speaking to them our customary revo- 
 lutionary language." With the German people we will 
 carry on "other negotiations, a true diplomacy of the 
 trenches." But the German generals are using that 
 kind of diplomacy to increase their demands? So 
 much the worse for them. "The German proletarians 
 and peasants will reply with the cry of revolt." And 
 they protracted negotiations for fully three months, 
 waiting for a German revolution to come. 
 
 Here came the first disappointment. The revolution 
 was slow in coming. Trotsky then resorted, on Febru- 
 ary 10, 1918, to a method "never used in the World's 
 history." He demobilized his army and "handed over
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 101 
 
 the Russian front to the protection of German work- 
 men." Mr. Zinoviev, the Petrograd dictator, reveled 
 in exultation. "We dealt a terrible blow to the 
 World's imperialism, when, three months ago, we began 
 our peace negotiations. Now we deal that imperialism 
 a deadly blow by our new formula ('neither peace nor 
 war')." At Smolny, in Petrograd, a member of the 
 Assembly asked: "What next?" Lenin was calm as 
 he answered: "Next is the revolution in Germany." 
 And the Soviet voted its approval while expressing its 
 faith "that German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and 
 Turkish workingmen will do their duty and will not 
 permit their Governments to assail the peoples of Po- 
 land, Lithuania and Courland." 
 
 The real result was somewhat different. A week 
 later, German armies invaded the Russian borderlands. 
 Petrograd was in panic. On February 24, the Soviet 
 capitulated. "Yes," said Lenin, "these peace conditions 
 are doubly ruinous, but we have not the strength to 
 resist." . . . Three weeks pass after the signing of the 
 Brest-Litovsk peace (March 3) and one week after its 
 ratification by the All-Russian Soviet. And Lenin, in 
 an interview with a Daily News correspondent (March 
 22), said: "The task of the Soviets is to hold on until 
 the mutual exhaustion of the fighting groups of Euro- 
 pean capital brings about revolution in all countries." 
 On October 22, 1918, he repeated before the Central 
 Executive Committee: "In the chain of revolutions 
 the chief link is the German one. The success of the 
 World Revolution depends on it much more than on 
 any other." 
 
 These people are mad, one might be induced to say. 
 Just wait a while with your judgment. There was a 
 method in that madness. At the moment when these
 
 102 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 words were being pronounced, the German Army was 
 already demoralized, and on November 11, the Armis- 
 tice was concluded. What a chance for a "World Revo- 
 lution" to follow! "Never before," said Lenin in the 
 speech just mentioned, "was the universal proletarian 
 revolution as close as it is now." A few days later, 
 Zinoviev seconded him: "The bankers of France and 
 of London will soon learn that a revolution in Berlin 
 is not a feast but a momenta mori to remind them of 
 their coming perdition." And they prepared for the 
 spring of 1919 an extensive scheme for revolutionizing 
 the whole of middle Europe. 
 
 Millions of Russian roubles were rushed to Germany, 
 in order to promote the revolutionary movement, 
 through the new Russian "Ambassador" in Berlin, Mr. 
 Joffe. After the Bolshevist literature was discovered 
 in a diplomatic courier's bag, Mr. Joffe had to go (No- 
 vember 5, 1918). But in December another, unofficial 
 envoy to the German proletarians, Mr. Radek. came, 
 and in January, 1919, he concluded a formal "treaty" 
 directly with Liebknecht himself. By the terms of his 
 treaty, Lenin undertook to recognize Liebknecht as 
 President of the German Soviet Republic, to furnish 
 important funds for Spartacist propaganda and to 
 order Soviet armies to take the offensive and cross the 
 German frontier in support of a simultaneous Spar- 
 tacist rising in Berlin. These were the same Red armies 
 concerning which negotiations had been carried on a 
 year before between Trotsky and Colonel Raymond 
 Robbins for America and Captain Sadoul for France, in 
 order to get Allied assistance and Allied instructors, to 
 fight Germany. They now were to be used indeed to 
 fight Germany but with the aim of imposing com- 
 munist law on Europe. Liebknecht, on his part,
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 103 
 
 pledged himself to establish a Soviet Government in 
 Germany immediately upon his advent to power, to 
 raise a Red Army of 500,000 men to be placed under 
 the supreme command of Trotsky and observe faith- 
 fully and put into practice all the teachings of Lenin's 
 doctrine. After a successful revolution in Hungary, 
 in March, 1919, another treaty was concluded between 
 Lenin and Bela Kun, his Hungarian nominee, accord- 
 ing to which "up to the time of the other European 
 States going over to the Soviet regime" mutual mili- 
 tary and material assistance was to be accorded ; move- 
 ments of troops were to be as a preliminary concerted 
 "among the different Soviet States." An attack was 
 designated against "the Entente, and especially Po- 
 land and Rumania." When on February 12, Radek 
 was arrested, in his Spartacist-Bolshevist propaganda 
 bureau in Wilmersdorf (Berlin), more proofs were 
 found that "a great Bolshevist revolutionary stroke 
 throughout Germany had been planned to take place in 
 the spring, whilst at the same time a Bolshevik army 
 was to attack Germany on the Eastern frontier." This 
 news was confirmed from Moscow, via Helsingfors. A 
 Red army of 150,000 men was to be prepared in all 
 haste to invade Germany at the end of April or the mid- 
 dle of May via Poland and Courland. The next step 
 was to put on a war footing several hundred thou- 
 sands of Russian war prisoners, to take the line of the 
 Elbe. This plan was said to have been worked out by 
 a German major a certain Busch a former prisoner 
 who had declared himself a communist and played a 
 prominent role in Moscow. It is interesting to compare 
 with this news, the boastful declarations of the Hun- 
 garian leaders after their revolution. "In three weeks," 
 they were saying, "we shall have 150,000 perfectly
 
 104 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 equipped, trained men. In six weeks we expect to 
 have 500,000 men trained. . . . We are surrounded with 
 discontented peoples. . . . We shall start with Czecho- 
 slovakia. . . . Then comes Rumania's turn . . . Jugo- 
 slavia will follow . . . ; in three months Italy will 
 come over to us. On April 8, there will be a joint meet- 
 ing of Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils in Berlin. We 
 have absolutely certain information that Germany will 
 adopt Bolshevism. . . . How long do you think France 
 will hold out? . . . Then will come England's turn. 
 . . . We have every scrap of paper ready for Czecho- 
 slovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Italy, France and Eng- 
 land. No country will be able to hold out against us." 
 Bolshevist preparations for the Spring of 1919 were 
 not confined to the West of Europe. A revolution was 
 also expected to take place at that very time in the 
 East, and especially in India. The Soviet official paper, 
 the Pravda (The Truth), is responsible for the state- 
 ment that 4,000,000 copies of pamphlets were published 
 by a special "Bureau of Mussulman Communist Organ- 
 izations," during the first ten months of 1918, in the 
 Tatar, Turkish, Kirghiz, Sart and Hindu languages. 
 At the same tune explosives and money were sent to 
 Bombay by the Bolshevist representatives in Stock- 
 holm, via London. A certain "Indian professor," May- 
 avlevi Mohammed Baranutulla, a former German agent 
 in Afghanistan during the war, formally declared in 
 Moscow that "in the normal course of events this 
 summer (1919) will prove decisive in the liberation of 
 India." Afghanistan was considered to be "of primary 
 importance for the propaganda in Asia," just like Hun- 
 gary in Europe. The hopes of the Bolsheviks ran 
 especially high when the new Afghan Ameer, Amanul- 
 lah declared (in May) war on England. Although the
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 105 
 
 Ameer was forced to ask for peace, less than a month 
 after the opening of hostilities, the negotiations were 
 continued between Kabul and Moscow. As late as 
 August, 1919, the Muscovite diplomatists addressed a 
 note to the Ameer, to inform him of the advance of 
 their World Revolution. "The successes of our troops 
 in the East," they declared, "hold out the promise that 
 we shall soon join forces with the Siberian revolution. 
 Despite all difficulties, we can safely say that victory 
 will be ours, not only in Russia, but on an international 
 scale." 
 
 It is not necessary to narrate in detail, how and why 
 all these great schemes fell flat. It is sufficient to men- 
 tion that the invasion of Germany through the border 
 states did not materialize, three successive uprisings in 
 Berlin were stifled by Noske, Liebknecht was mur- 
 dered, Soviet rule in Hungary was liquidated, revolu- 
 tionary outbursts in Vienna and in Slovakia were stifled. 
 Red armies, prepared to invade the Western frontier, 
 were diverted to the side of the internal fronts in the 
 North, in the East and in the South, where "white 
 armies" of the Archangel Government, Kolchak and 
 Denikin were advancing. The first year of the World 
 Revolution, 1919, thus passed without realizing the 
 Bolshevist aspirations. But at the same time it helped 
 to disclose just how widely spread their schemes were 
 and how active the Bolshevist propaganda and diplo- 
 macy were hi pursuing these schemes. 
 
 Facing all these preparations which, of course, could 
 not be kept entirely secret, what was the attitude of 
 the Allied Powers? 
 
 The Allied diplomacy toward Russia since the Bol- 
 shevist coup d'etat has passed through three stages, 
 each distinctly different from the other. The first stage
 
 106 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 lasted from November, 1917, to March, 1918, the 
 time of the signing of the Brest- Litovsk peace. The 
 second stage followed after the Bolshevist peace with 
 Germany and its end came with the Allied armistice of 
 November 11, 1918. The third stage begins after the 
 armistice. 
 
 During the first two periods the Allied policy was 
 actuated by the interests of the World War. As long 
 as there was hope that the Bolsheviks would fight on 
 against Germany, or that the Brest-Litovsk peace would 
 not be ratified by the Soviets, or that at least after the 
 ratification the struggle against Germany would re- 
 commence, the Allied Powers kept in contact with the 
 Bolsheviks and promised them help and support. For 
 that aim a sort of diplomatists' in partibus infidelium 
 was used. It was Captain Sadoul who, for France, 
 daily visited Trotsky at Smolny, 1 and wrote long re- 
 ports to Mr. Albert Thomas, which afterwards were 
 published. Mr. Raymond Robbins, the head of the 
 American Red Cross, was used for the same purpose 
 by Ambassador Francis. Finally, the British Foreign 
 Office worked through Mr. Lockhart. On December 
 2, 1917, Sadoul arranged for an interview between 
 Trotsky and Mr. Noulens at the French Embassy, and 
 both parted "pleased with one another," after a two 
 hours' conversation. On January 2, 1918, Col. Robbins 
 obtained from Mr. Francis a signed statement, promis- 
 ing every kind of assistance and even a recommenda- 
 tion to his Government for a formal de facto recogni- 
 tion, should the Bolsheviks continue the war and "seri- 
 ously conduct hostilities" against Germany. Sadoul 
 knew perfectly well for what purpose the Bolsheviks 
 
 1 Smolny Women's College was used by the Bolsheviks as their 
 Headquarters.
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 107 
 
 were trying to reorganize the army. "Freed from war," 
 he said in his letter of January 11, 1918, "they will 
 make every effort to fight against the internal and ex- 
 ternal bourgeoisie, they will organize Russia, and will 
 prepare in peace time an army which will afterwards 
 assist the proletariat of Central and Western Europe 
 to rid themselves of the old order." Mr. Raymond Rob- 
 bins also admitted subsequently, before the investiga- 
 tion Committee of the United States Senate, that he 
 "from the beginning was in full understanding of that 
 purpose (of the World Revolution), but encouraged 
 the Bolsheviks as the first attack was to be directed 
 against Germany. 
 
 At the same time, however, the Allied powers were 
 preparing for other measures to paralyze the Bolshe- 
 vist peace with Germany. Beginning with December, 
 1919, they were engaged in parleys for intervention, to 
 build up a so-called "Eastern Front" somewhere in 
 Russia, in order at any rate to divert the German Army 
 from being transferred to the Western Front, against 
 France. Intervention this was the meaning of the 
 new stage which was to commence as soon as the hope 
 for using the Bolshevist armies against Germany was 
 definitely lost. The British landed in Murmansk and 
 in Archangel, and the Japanese in Vladivostok. For a 
 time the Allies succeeded in combining that policy with 
 preserving a friendly attitude towards the Soviets. 
 They even continued promising assistance to them. 
 But as early as the end of April this ambiguous atti- 
 tude became impossible. "Is it our intention to inter- 
 vene without the Soviet or against them?" Sadoul 
 asked on April 30, in behalf of Chicherin and Trotsky. 
 On June 28, and on July 13, Chicherin protested against 
 the advance of the British troops southwards from
 
 108 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Murmansk. On June 13, the Soviet complained that 
 French officers had taken part in the "White Guard" 
 mutiny of the Czecho-Slovaks. And indeed, at that 
 very time the first anti-Bolshevist front was formed 
 at Samara and the first anti-Bolshevist government 
 appeared ("The Committee of the Members of the All- 
 Russian Constituent Assembly"). Thenceforth, the 
 Allied effort turned to that side. The in partibus diplo- 
 matists had to be dismissed : Sadoul turned Bolshevik, 
 Robbins was recalled, and Lockhart began to work for 
 an anti-Bolshevist movement. 
 
 We shall have to return to that second stage of the 
 Allied policy on another occasion. That stage did not 
 last long. The main purpose of the Allied interven- 
 tion on the new "Eastern front," namely the diversion 
 of Germany's military forces to the East, disappeared 
 with Germany's defeat. On August 9, the United 
 States Ambassador for the last time described the Rus- 
 sian people as an "Ally against a common enemy." 
 After the armistice of November 11, 1918, there was 
 no "common enemy" any more. The enemy of the 
 Entente was defeated. The enemy of Russia, Bol- 
 shevism, was considered as the "common enemy" of all 
 the "capitalist" States only by the Bolsheviks them- 
 selves. 
 
 However, the Bolshevist diplomacy was sure, that 
 the "World Capitalism" would understand that. The 
 Bolsheviks firmly believed that directly after the armis- 
 tice the "capitalist" powers would turn their front 
 against the World Revolution. Mr. Lenin was heard 
 to say that "the situation was never so dangerous." As 
 they knew the situation very well, they expected the 
 blow to come not from the North or the East, but 
 from the South, as the most vulnerable point. Trotsky
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 109 
 
 declared beforehand (October 12) that the Allies would 
 pass through the Straits to Southern Russia and that 
 the Don Region would "become the wedge of the 
 World Revolution." Mr. Wilson's project to build a 
 "League of Nations," they also explained in that light. 
 Lenin's comment was that here the world capitalism 
 was going to form its own "International," a counter- 
 part to the "Third International" of Moscow. Two 
 "fronts" opposed to each other in a mortal grip: Lenin's 
 front and President Wilson's front. Such was for a 
 time the favorite theme of the Red press editorials. 
 
 Great was the astonishment of the Bolshevist leaders 
 when, instead of an Allied armed force coming through 
 the Straits, there came to Moscow from the Paris Peace 
 Conference on January 22, 1919, a proposal to come 
 and sit at the same table with the "bourgeois" diplo- 
 matists and to discuss the question of peace. This 
 sounded rather strange, and the first moment the Bol- 
 sheviks thought they were mistaken. But the news 
 was confirmed, and the Bolsheviks decided at once to 
 make use of the unexpected "respite." Some objec- 
 tions were raised by M. M. Zinoviev and Kam- 
 enev. Would not, they wondered, the character 
 of the Soviet Republic be altered and eventu- 
 ally destroyed by negotiations with "bourgeois" 
 governments? Lenin had a ready answer. "Periods 
 of rest," he said, "are necessary for the successful de- 
 velopment of the Bolshevist doctrine throughout the 
 world. . . . After having conquered, as it were, two- 
 thirds of the enemy territory, we must interrupt our 
 offensive in order to establish new lines of communica- 
 tion, organize new depots, bring up more heavy guns, 
 munitions, fresh reserves. I have never hesitated," 
 he went on to say, "to come to terms with bourgeois
 
 110 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 governments when by so doing I could weaken the 
 bourgeoisie and strengthen the proletariat in all coun- 
 tries. It is sound strategy in war to postpone opera- 
 tions until the moral disintegration of the enemy 
 renders the delivery of a mortal blow possible. . . . We 
 must make peace not only with the Entente but also 
 with Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine, and all the 
 other forces which are opposing us in Russia. We 
 must be prepared to make every concession, promise 
 and sacrifice in order to entice our foes into the con- 
 clusion of this peace. . . . We shall know that we have 
 but concluded a truce permitting us to complete our 
 preparations for a decisive onslaught." These last 
 words are confirmed by the fact that at that very mo- 
 ment, on January 23, 1919, Lenin was sending round 
 an invitation, by wireless, to all revolutionary "social- 
 ists and communists of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal 
 coloring" to come to Moscow and definitely to organ- 
 ize the "Third International." We also know what 
 provisions were taken simultaneously to start the World 
 Revolution in the spring of 1919. Its failure to materi- 
 alize has shown that Lenin's "sound strategy" of post- 
 ponement and truce was the more reasonable one. 
 
 That policy also soon became the policy of the 
 Allies. In another place we shall come back to their 
 policy of intervention on the anti-Bolshevist side, as it 
 reflected itself in their activities in 1919. We shall 
 then see the causes of the failure of that line of con- 
 duct, which, however, never was consistently carried 
 out. As a result of that failure, the year 1920 opened 
 with the famous decision of the second Paris Confer- 
 ence (January 17) to trade with the Soviets through 
 the cooperatives. Two other policies still kept running 
 side by side with Mr. Lloyd George's policy of rap-
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 111 
 
 prochement with the Bolsheviks. I mean Mr. Clemen- 
 ceau's policy of the "barbed wire" and "sanitary cor- 
 don" around Russia, made of the border States, and 
 Mr. Winston Churchill's policy of intervention. As a 
 consequence, the Supreme Council in Paris at the same 
 session recognized the de jacto independence of three 
 Transcaucasian Republics, while the British squadron 
 was ordered to proceed from Malta to the Black Sea, 
 in order to observe the movements of the Red Army in 
 the direction of Persia, India and China. 
 
 Out of the three policies mentioned, it was Mr. Lloyd 
 George's policy that survived. It is true, that Great 
 Britain remained alone in her desire to conclude a trade 
 agreement with the Bolshevist Russia. The French 
 and Belgian delegates systematically emphasized the 
 hopelessness of trade relations with Russia, as long as 
 the Bolshevist rule continued to exist. It was also 
 clear from the very beginning that at least two of the 
 three conditions which Mr. Lloyd George put to the 
 head of the Bolshevist mission in London, Mr. Krassin, 
 would never be complied with by the Bolsheviks. Mr. 
 Lloyd George insisted on cessation of the anti-British 
 propaganda by the Bolsheviks and on non-interference 
 with the British interests in the East. At the same 
 time, an open communist propaganda subsidized with 
 Bolshevist money was being carried on in London, and 
 the Red Armies were occupying Azerbaidjan, making 
 an incursion into Persia negotiating with Afghanistan 
 and conspiring with Indian leaders. At a later date 
 they flooded Georgia and Armenia, while, on the 
 Western frontier, they were approaching Warsaw. 
 The Bolshevist diplomacy scorned the Allied notes 
 and twice refused the invitation to come to Lon- 
 don with other representatives of the Border
 
 112 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 States (July 11 and 28). On their part, they 
 proposed to convene a conference of the Allied 
 Powers on an equal footing with the Bolsheviks. As 
 a condition of peace with Poland, the Bolshevist di- 
 plomacy proposed the organization of a civic militia 
 of workmen. It meant coming back to the basic slogan 
 of a communist world revolution: "Disarm the 
 bourgeoisie, arm the proletarians." 
 
 Nothing short of a defeat of the Red Army at the 
 hands of the Poles was needed to change that attitude 
 of the Bolshevist diplomatists and also that of the 
 British Premier. Mr. Lloyd George finally decided to 
 send away from London the Bolshevist Commissary, 
 Mr. Kamenev, who was guilty of the regular Bolshe- 
 vist tricks, and he suspended the "political" side of his 
 negotiations. However, trade negotiations were re- 
 sumed in September, 1920, and after fully nine months 
 the British-Soviet Trade treaty was finally concluded. 
 On the same day, Sir Robert Horn handed Mr. Krassin 
 a paper disclosing some of the aspects of the Bolshevist 
 propaganda in Asia. Simultaneously the Bolshevist 
 diplomacy counted some minor successes in the Scandi- 
 navian countries, Switzerland and Italy. 
 
 How did all this affect the basic Bolshevist aspira- 
 tion for world revolution? 
 
 We have a series of Mr. Lenin's and his friends' 
 avowals as to their mistakes in counting on an im- 
 mediate advent of the world revolution. But we have 
 none, as to the presumed change of the principle itself. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps we were wrong," Mr. Zinoviev said 
 at the International Communist Congress in July, 
 1920. "Not one year, but two or three will be neces- 
 sary for all Europe to become Soviet. You still have 
 a period of grace, before you will be destroyed." On
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 113 
 
 August 23, 1920, Mr. Lenin gave voice to the same 
 opinion with the same underlying hope. "We have 
 learned to understand," he said, "during the last three 
 years, that basing ourselves on an international revolu- 
 tion does not mean calculating on a definite date, and 
 that the increasing rapidity of development may bring a 
 revolution in the spring (of 1921) or it may not. . . . 
 We must, therefore, know how to adapt our activity to 
 the mutual class relations within our own and other 
 countries, that we may be able to retain the dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat for a long time and, at least 
 gradually, to cure all the ills and crises besetting us." 
 At any rate, "the world revolution is growing stronger, 
 while the economic crisis in Europe is getting worse 
 at the same time." . . . "Of course, the world revolu- 
 tion has made a great step forward, in comparison with 
 the last year." 
 
 World revolution was thus not lost sight of. But 
 the Bolshevist diplomacy now had a much more diffi- 
 cult task to solve. It had to "adapt itself" to changing 
 conditions of work, instead of imposing its own solu- 
 tions. And it had to use every opportunity to speed up 
 the cause of the world revolution, and at the same 
 time be ready to extend its activity "for a long time." 
 The new instructions to the Bolshevist diplomatists, 
 for 1921, which were issued by Chicherin, were formu- 
 lated accordingly. Their basic motive was: let us 
 foment foreign discords and conflicts while trying to 
 divert their attention for a while from Bolshevist Rus- 
 sia. "We must see to it that the center of gravity is 
 transferred from us to the West. Let European diplo- 
 mats break their heads over the solution of problems 
 that cannot be solved. We shall always manage to 
 remain the decisive factor. It is not to our benefit that
 
 114 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 we should be feared and our power exaggerated. It is 
 best for us to be temporarily in the shadow. Official 
 recognition of our representatives, development of 
 trade relations, gradual dissemination of propaganda 
 and the strengthening of our authority among the prole- 
 tarian masses these are the aims of our work." Ac- 
 cordingly, it was up to the Bolshevist diplomatists to 
 bide their time and in the meanwhile not be sparing of 
 concessions. "Germany is in need of moral support? 
 We will furnish that. Germany needs security for her 
 eastern border? That shall be promised her. France 
 wants to see us helpless? Let us show her our help- 
 lessness. England wants to exploit us? We shall 
 grant her every opportunity to do so." At the same 
 time no opportunity to breed an international conflict 
 must be left unheeded. Mr. Chicherin suggested to his 
 missions abroad the following combinations as worthy 
 of consideration. "British-Japanese, as a threat to 
 America; British-German, as a threat to France; 
 Italian-Greek as a counter-balance to the policies of 
 England and France in the Near East; Polish-French 
 as a direct threat to Germany; Czech-Rumanian as a 
 threat to Hungary," etc. "Should circumstances inter- 
 fere with our activity in the West, it will then be nec- 
 essary to transfer the center of our diplomatic work 
 to the Balkan Peninsula and to capture the sphere of 
 influence in the Near East." 
 
 The Bolshevist agents abroad worked accordingly. 
 I am in a position to give you a summary of their ob- 
 servations and suggestions to the central government, 
 as given in their reports in the summer months of 1921. 
 In substance, it was as follows: 
 
 So far as the West is concerned the Bolshevist ob- 
 servers know that the time for a direct world revolu-
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 115 
 
 tion is now over. The economic crisis upon which they 
 were building their hopes is gradually settling down. 
 The situation is no longer catastrophic for interna- 
 tional capitalism. The post-war crisis had caught the 
 working men unprepared, and they had let the mo- 
 ment pass. Now they are even more disorganized than 
 a year ago, in spite of the activity of the Third Inter- 
 national. The observer might add that the disorganiza- 
 tion has come not "in spite" of, but as a consequence 
 of Lenin's orders to the Third International. In a 
 word, the chance for attacking capitalism at the mo- 
 ment of its greatest weakness has gone. 
 
 This is especially true as far as Germany is concerned. 
 This country, according to the Bolshevist observers, 
 has shown endurance, energy and steadiness at work 
 to a quite astonishing degree. In Austria the situation 
 remains critical, but it is better than a year ago. In 
 Hungary as well as in Bulgaria the national economy 
 has now been brought to a settled condition. Great 
 Britain labors under an unprecedented crisis of unem- 
 ployment, but the Government keeps the nation in- 
 formed on all the difficulties of the situation, and, as 
 a result, the confidence of the population in its Gov- 
 ernment is not at all shattered. In France, the near fu- 
 ture is gloomy. Confidence and mutual understanding 
 between the nation and the Government are here lack- 
 ing. Finance and economy are in a bad condition. The 
 only hope lies in the resumption of trade with Russia, 
 France's chief pre-war customer. But this issue is 
 precluded by wrong politics. Italy is ready to trade 
 with everybody on a non-political basis. But all the 
 hopes which were founded on the emotional receptivity 
 of the working class were deluded. The revolutionary 
 enthusiasm of the Italian communists did not stand
 
 116 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the test of the first serious resistance by the fascisti. 
 The bourgeoisie organized themselves for self-defense, 
 and the communist groups were obliged to change their 
 open propaganda for underground work. Czecho-Slo- 
 vakia has proved a much stronger organism than was 
 to be expected. The reason is a deeply-rooted instinct 
 for private property (sic). A deep mutual understand- 
 ing between the working men and employers precludes 
 any possibility of success for the communist propa- 
 ganda. National conflicts are also eliminated by a great 
 degree of national toleration. Jugo-Slavia, on the con- 
 trary, is a State of the lowest culture. But it is an 
 agricultural country, and no class antagonisms are here 
 possible. The social movement on a communist basis, 
 of course, could not strike roots in such a country. 
 However, national conflicts are active here and can be 
 exploited in the future. Rumania is as rich and as 
 patriarchal as she was before the war, and is as much 
 lacking in any industrial development. But outbursts 
 of national hatred are unavoidable, as a consequence of 
 the recent annexations of the populations which are 
 much more developed and receptive for social teach- 
 ings than the original Rumanian stock. Poland's situa- 
 tion is still more compromised, and a crisis is here un- 
 avoidable, as a combined result of the aggressive im- 
 perialism of the leading political parties, the intense 
 hatred of the annexed populations towards the Poles, 
 the high degree of class consciousness of the Polish 
 proletariat and the extremely poor economic conditions. 
 The foregoing may lead to the inference that noth- 
 ing important could have been done in the West of 
 Europe by the communist organizations. They were 
 helping the Irish revolutionary movement, they sup- 
 ported strikes in Great Britain, carried on communist
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 117 
 
 propaganda in the Navy, in Manchester and Birming- 
 ham. In France they transferred their activity to 
 the French African colonies, in order to tender their 
 hand to the revolutionary communists in Turkey and 
 thus "close" the circle. They admit that their work 
 in Germany was quite unsuccessful and that the at- 
 tempt at an uprising in Hall (in March, 1921) was a 
 grave mistake which caused the collapse of the whole 
 organization. "The German working man is too realis- 
 tic and only then does he decide on action when he 
 clearly sees the practical consequence of his step." 
 
 You see that the Bolshevist agents in Western Eur- 
 ope are not lacking in powers of observation. Their 
 views as to the chances of communist success in the 
 West are thoroughly pessimistic. But it is quite differ- 
 ent with the situation in the East. 
 
 Of course, even here they no longer hope for immedi- 
 ate outbreaks. They are especially careful that their 
 "trump card," a revolution in India, should not be 
 spoilt by any premature and thoughtless attempt. But 
 they see great opportunities for the near future: not 
 in the sense of an extensive social movement, but as 
 the consequence of a widely spread pro-Turkish and 
 Pan-Islamic propaganda. They report that they were 
 here "obliged to renounce a forcible planting of com- 
 munist ideas, and have had to cover the aim of the 
 Communist International under a nationalist cloak." 
 
 They are very well satisfied with the result. "In 
 1919," they say, "we had great difficulties in defending 
 Turkestan from the British influence. In 1921 we are 
 out to attack the capitalist buttresses in India." After 
 their first congress at Samarkand and their second con- 
 gress at Baku, after their last diplomatic negotiations 
 at Trebizond, which ended with the conclusion of a
 
 118 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 treaty between Afghanistan and the Government of 
 Angora (April 25, 1921), they feel sure they have 
 reached the stage of "a united and powerful Mussul- 
 man movement of the down-trodden nation, which will 
 deal the final blow to the domination of capital and 
 destroy its colonial basis." 
 
 They particularly appreciate the Indian national 
 movement, for the reason that here they find them- 
 selves in their own atmosphere of social and class strug- 
 gle. However, they are not at all induced by the reports 
 of their communist organizations in India to believe 
 that the outbreak must be undertaken just now. They 
 believe, on the contrary, that a certain time must pass 
 before the crisis will be reached and "the narrow na- 
 tionalistic movement based on religious prejudices and 
 on survivals of olden times, will be diluted in the 
 powerful stream of a "proletarian uprising." 
 
 Until then, they appreciate highly the part played 
 by the Turkish national Government in Angora, and 
 they state that in spite of all exertions of the British 
 diplomacy, in spite even of the "partial successes" of 
 Great Britain in Egypt and on the Afghan frontier, as 
 well as in Southwestern Persia, they nevertheless suc- 
 ceeded in arranging for cooperation with Angora. They 
 are especially proud of having finished with the double 
 game of Afghanistan and having caused the Afghans 
 to recognize the political supremacy of Turkey in the 
 great Mohammedan movement. The defensive alliance 
 against foreign aggression, covered by points 4 and 8 
 of the Treaty, "annuls all British achievements in the 
 Afghan question and creates a situation full of menace 
 for the British domination of India." 
 
 You see that in spite of their skepticism concerning 
 the West, the Bolshevist diplomatists are still very
 
 FOREIGN POLICY OF BOLSHEVIKS 119 
 
 hopeful so far as the general situation is concerned. 
 Their analysis of the situation in the East makes them 
 again not only optimists, but visionaries. They predict 
 that as a consequence of a general shifting of the World 
 politics, from Europe to Asia, the Pan-Islamic move- 
 ment will necessarily come to the forefront. They are 
 quite sure as to their friendly contact with the Turkish 
 national assembly at Angora, and they think they can 
 even have "a certain influence on the trend of events in 
 Asia Minor and in Eastern Africa. "At present," they 
 declare, "the whole territory from the Ganges to the 
 Nile may be looked upon as a united front of enslaved 
 nations, fighting against their oppressors for liberty and 
 national civilization. The spiritual and the organiz- 
 ing center of the movement, which embraces hundreds 
 of millions of Moslems, finds itself in Angora, and its 
 branches are in Samarkand and in Cairo. . . . The 
 diplomatic front, on which Soviet Russia defends the 
 oppressed nations from the greedy hands of Interna- 
 tional capital, surrounds the powers of the Entente 
 with a regular half-circle from Riga to Morocco. In the 
 very next days this front threatens to be converted into 
 a military front. The weakest point for Eastern capi- 
 tal, as represented by the Governments of the Entente, 
 appears to be the Eastern frontier of (Western) Europe, 
 round which the very next events will take place, which 
 will mean the beginning of the end for the capitalistic 
 hegemony of the victorious powers and the era of lib- 
 eration for the working masses." 
 
 This is how, in a long roundabout way, the Bolshevist 
 diplomatists have succeeded in regaining their initial 
 enthusiasm about the imminent World Revolution. 
 "Thoughts that breathe and words that burn" are in- 
 herent in their political and social creed. It is irrele-
 
 120 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 vant that they have taken their new commandments 
 from another people's catechism. They do not ask 
 themselves just what has the Pan-Islamist movement 
 in common with the communist ideal. They want 
 something grandiose, and here is new stuff for glow- 
 ing rhetoric. The light comes from Asia! 
 
 I am not going to discuss the problems here raised, 
 which are very serious indeed. It would make me di- 
 gress very far from Russian Bolshevism. My only aim 
 has been to show that now, as four years ago, the Bol- 
 sheviks still stick to their great illusion. They are 
 ready to sacrifice everything, to "make every conces- 
 sion and promise," hi order to see their vision material- 
 ize and to stay in power until they enter their promised 
 land.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA. 
 
 The subject of this chapter is as important for a 
 general understanding of Russian events during these 
 four last years, as it is complicated. Public opinion 
 on the anti-Bolshevist Russia has been hardly less 
 biased than on the Bolshevist regime. Of course, I 
 shall try to put aside current popular judgments and let 
 facts speak by themselves, just as I tried to do so con- 
 cerning Bolshevism. But beside that danger of being 
 or rather seeming to be partial, there are other 
 causes which make the subject intricate. Anti-Bolshe- 
 vist Russia was not one. It was divided in at least two 
 different and in the main opposite political trends which 
 only rarely came together. We saw the origin of their 
 scission in the chapter which explained the causes of 
 the Bolshevist victory. The non-socialist current held 
 the moderate socialists responsible for their common 
 defeat by the Bolsheviks. The Kornilov movement in- 
 tensified that difference of attitudes, as it was directed 
 against moderate socialism and morally supported by 
 a part of its political antagonists. The scission weak- 
 ened both anti-Bolshevist currents equally, and made 
 easier the Bolshevist coup d'etat. 
 
 Common defeat brought about a new stage of rap- 
 prochement. For about a year (November, 1917-No- 
 vember, 1918) both the socialist and non-socialist cur- 
 
 121
 
 122 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 rents cooperated against Bolshevism. We shall see 
 that the growth of influence of the military non-Bol- 
 shevist elements marked the end of cooperation. Dur- 
 ing the two following years, 1919-1920, the breach 
 between the two anti-Bolshevist camps became irri- 
 trievable and again, as in 1917, the scission was fol- 
 lowed by defeat. The situation changed for the fourth 
 time, when the military anti-Bolshevist elements defi- 
 nitely broke down. A new coalition of democratic non- 
 socialist and moderate socialist groups has become a 
 fact from the beginning of 1921. Further events will 
 show whether the reunion of democratic anti-Bolshe- 
 vist forces will be lasting and will lead to success. 
 
 To sum up, there are five stages in the relations be- 
 tween the socialist and non-socialist elements of anti- 
 Bolshevist Russia: 
 
 1. Coalition March-August, 1917. 
 
 2. Scission September-October, 1917. 
 
 3. Cooperation November, 1917 November, 1918. 
 
 4. Final differentiation November, 1918-December, 1920. 
 
 5. Coalition of democratic elements 1921. 
 
 A further complication is due to the fact that not 
 only the mutual relations between the two elements 
 of non-Bolshevist Russia were changing, but that at 
 the same time the attitude of the Allies and of the 
 people of Russia towards the non-Bolshevist Russia 
 was also changing. This chapter will show just how 
 and why. 
 
 In the midst of these perpetually changing circum- 
 stances my personal attitude also could not remain in- 
 variable. It underwent an evolution, and to explain 
 it to the reader would be the best means to introduce 
 him to the exposition of facts.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 123 
 
 I was an anti-Bolshevik from the very beginning and 
 I still am. But until 1920 I belonged to that group of 
 anti-Bolshevik Russians who thought it possible to lib- 
 erate Russia by an armed Russian force, with the mili- 
 tary help of our former Allies. I no longer belong to 
 that group. 
 
 I thought and I still think it now that Russia 
 might have been liberated from the Bolshevist yoke 
 by the military method of struggle if all the conditions 
 necessary for success had been duly considered and real- 
 ized in time. Unfortunately this was not the case, and 
 what was possible then (1918-1919) has become impos- 
 sible since. 
 
 There were three chief causes which turned into fail- 
 ure what might have been a success. These causes are : 
 (1) the insufficient help from the Allies; (2) the reac- 
 tionary policy of the military leaders and (3) the disap- 
 pointment in them on the part of the Russian people. 
 
 The first condition for success which did not materi- 
 alize was the Allied help. I mentioned already how 
 wavering and uncertain the Allied policy was towards 
 Russia in distress. Now and then representative states- 
 men recalled to their peoples their "obligations of 
 honor" and of "mutual loyalty" towards Russia. They 
 were moral obligations, as a result of the great sacri- 
 fices Russia made in the war, but they were also legal 
 obligations, as a consequence of that "one treaty which 
 was not secret, the London Pact of October 4, 1914, 
 which bound the Allied nations to make war in com- 
 mon and not to make peace except in unity" (Mr. 
 Winston Churchill in the Commons, Nov. 5, 1919). It 
 was understood that there existed an "unbroken con- 
 tinuity between the position held by the Russia anti- 
 Bolshevist leaders and that position held by their (the
 
 124 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 British) erstwhile great ally, without whose aid they 
 never could have won the war" (the same speech by 
 Mr. W. Churchill). Lord Robert Cecil regarded it as 
 "the foundation of good faith and of the possibility of 
 sincere dealing between one country and another," that 
 "the engagements towards Russia shall be carried out/* 
 and he thought that "no responsible politician could 
 throw doubt on this principle " (May 16, 1917). Sir 
 Edward Carson once more solemnly declared: "We 
 shall not abandon Russia" (October 26, 1917, Le 
 Temps}. 
 
 We shall see that the help that was really given to 
 anti-Bolshevist Russia on the basis of that principle of 
 continuation of a common struggle was selfish and in- 
 consistent. But within the same cabinet there was 
 another policy which paralyzed even such inefficient 
 help as was actually given. It was this policy, the 
 policy of Mr. Lloyd George, which finally triumphed. 
 It was the policy of "hands off Russia" which for a long 
 time identified itself with the policy of the Labor 
 Party. Far from helping the anti-Bolshevist Russia 
 on the principle of "unbroken continuity," the par- 
 tisans of that policy wished to break the continuity as 
 soon as possible : to recall as soon as possible the Allied 
 troops still remaining in different parts of Russia, to 
 stop sending munitions and, finally, to refuse every 
 kind of aid. Between the two opposite principles the 
 actual policy developed in zigzags. 
 
 The second and probably the more important 
 cause of the anti-Bolshevist failure was the reactionary 
 policy of the military leaders and of their environment. 
 This was also the reason why the "hands off Russia" 
 policy had the upper hand. It would not have 
 amounted to much if that policy had been confined to
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 125 
 
 mere pro-Bolshevist circles. If the Bolshevist propa- 
 ganda was able to determine or to modify the policy of 
 the Allied Governments, it was because large circles 
 of liberal public opinion grew suspicious. The world 
 which deeply sympathized with the glorious beginnings 
 of our Revolution of 1917 did not at all wish to see its 
 sound principles and its lasting acquisitions thrown 
 overboard all along with its horrible excesses. 
 
 There was little reason for suspicion at the begin- 
 ning of the anti-Bolshevist struggle. There were reac- 
 tionary elements among the "whites" but they kept 
 quiet ; the enthusiasm of the Revolution was as yet too 
 strong in the "white" ranks to encourage that particular 
 group. All the political elements, socialistic, demo- 
 cratic, liberal and conservative, stood together and there 
 was no difference of opinion between them as to the ad- 
 missibility of Allied help, which had not yet been called 
 "intervention." However, gradually the military anti- 
 Bolshevist movement degenerated into a purely reac- 
 tionary movement. As a consequence, the socialist 
 groups were the first to change their attitude towards 
 it. They declared themselves neutral. For the Rus- 
 sian non-socialist liberal democracy, to which I belong, 
 it also became increasingly difficult to identify itself 
 with the reactionary tendencies of the "white" move- 
 ment. For a while they abstained from open criticism, 
 as they did not wish to interfere with the possibility of 
 a military victory over the Bolsheviks. They under- 
 stood only too well that it would not be a victory of 
 liberalism in Russia. But at the same time they did 
 not believe in the possibility of a lasting reaction in 
 post-revolutionary Russia. They found their consola- 
 tion in the idea that, at least, it would be some kind of 
 State that would be reestablished in Russia, while the
 
 126 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 very foundations of Statehood had been destroyed by 
 the Bolsheviks. 
 
 Now there came that third circumstance which made 
 clear why the defeat of the anti-Bolshevist generals 
 was inevitable, and it definitely changed the stand of 
 the Russian democratic liberals. The Russian people 
 themselves, the great silent masses, proved to be not 
 at all willing to be liberated by the reactionaries, in 
 whose ranks they recognized their former landlords. 
 This is where many of us had to change and to im- 
 prove our view of the masses. We had thought that 
 the attitude of the popular masses toward the "white" 
 movement would be if not sympathetic, at least pas- 
 sively neutral. But it was not. The uneducated Rus- 
 sian masses, who were thought to be groping in the 
 darkness, proved to be the first to understand the 
 situation as it really was. For the first time many of 
 us then understood how great was the evolution of 
 the Russian peasants towards political consciousness, 
 which was caused not by Bolshevism, but by the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Henceforth, there was no more room for doubts or 
 wavering. Everybody understood that and why the 
 military anti-Bolshevist movement had no more chance 
 to win. Further bloodshed now appeared not only 
 useless but criminal One had to admit that the 
 "white" movement far from being able to weaken the 
 Bolsheviks was practically strengthening them, by 
 keeping up the spirit of the Red Army, by giving them 
 a chance to live at the expense of internal civil war, and 
 also by giving the excuse of patriotism to former officers 
 of the General Staff in the Bolshevist sen-ice. The 
 Allied policy made good material for indignation 
 against our former Allies. Their role was now ex-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 127 
 
 plained not as that of Allies bringing help but as that 
 of foreigners bent on intervention. Help was welcome. 
 Intervention was to be repudiated. 
 
 The entire tactics of Russia's liberation had now 
 to be changed. It was the new, tactics that served 
 as a basis for rapprochement between the moderate 
 socialist and non-socialist democratic groups in 1921. 
 Their common opinion now was that the liberation of 
 Russia had to come about as the result of an internal 
 process of change of mind in the large masses, not as 
 the result of a military invasion from the outside, which 
 now had definitely become impossible, both psycho- 
 logically and technically. To follow closely and to help 
 that internal process has now become the predominant 
 aim of the Russian democratic groups. The remaining 
 detachments of the former white armies were expected 
 to demobilize. This idea, of course, met with resistance 
 on the part of the military elements, which have defi- 
 nitely broken with democracy and joined the reaction- 
 ary current which works for the restoration of mon- 
 archy. 
 
 There is one more point to make before we go into 
 details. Where is the anti-Bolshevist Russia? Is it 
 on this or on that side of the Russian frontier? 
 
 The anti-Bolshevist Russia is all Russia except the 
 Communist Party, or rather a part of the Communist 
 Party. All tendencies of the anti-Bolshevist Russia 
 are to be found on both sides of the frontiers. The re- 
 actionary element, of course, is more largely represented 
 among the emigres. It is rare but not entirely lacking 
 in Russia. The liberal and socialist political par- 
 ties are much more differentiated outside of Russia, as 
 a consequence of the possibility of free discussion of 
 future possibilities and open expression of opinion. In
 
 128 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Russia the same tendencies, with the same variations, 
 also exist, but the general tone of the underground po- 
 litical life is an intensely negative attitude towards the 
 common enemy at present. 
 
 The history of the anti-Bolshevist Russia begins 
 from the very moment of the Bolshevist victory. In 
 November, 1917, all parties were united against the 
 usurpers. The attitude of the large class of function- 
 aries was that of complete abstention from coopera- 
 tion with the new power: the Bolsheviks called it 
 "sabotage." As long as there was any hope of the im- 
 mediate overthrow of the Bolsheviks and as long as 
 the means of subsistence were not entirely exhausted, 
 this attitude of opposition did not change. Later on, 
 some few fled away or continued their opposition in 
 secret. The majority were obliged to enter the Bol- 
 shevist service, but only a few entered the Communist 
 Party. Most of the anti-Bolshevist functionaries that 
 entered the Bolshevist service called themselves "sym- 
 pathizers" (of Bolshevism) or "non-party." On the 
 contrary, the resistance of the workingmen to the Bol- 
 shevist regime increased with time and in the spring 
 of 1918 attempts were already made for mass uprisings. 
 The "Conference of Factory Workers," representing 
 more than 100,000 workingmen of Petrograd, met in 
 April, 1918, and demanded the resignation of the Sov- 
 iets and the transmission of power to the Constituent 
 Assembly. The same demand was put forth by the 
 railroad men, who threatened the Government with a 
 strike. The sailors in Petrograd, who had helped the 
 Bolsheviks to their November victory, repeatedly de- 
 manded the resignation of the Soviet Commissaries. 
 The same regiments of the Petrograd Guards that 
 brought about the November overthrow had to be dis-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 129 
 
 armed a few weeks later, as well as many divisions of 
 the Red Army, sailors serving on mine-sweepers, etc. 
 It was then that the Bolsheviks began to resort to 
 hired detachments of aliens, Chinese, Letts and Hun- 
 garians. 
 
 Out of all the Russian political parties only the left 
 wing of the Social-Democrats (Mr. Martov's "interna- 
 tionalist" group) consented to cooperate with the Bol- 
 shevist Government. All the other parties, the so- 
 called "minority" of the Social-Democrats ("Menshe- 
 viki" as opposed to the "majority," the "Bolsheviki"), 
 the Social-Democratic group of the late Plekhanov 
 ("Unity"), nearly all the Social-Revolutionaries, the 
 Socialists-Populists and the Constitutional-Democrats 
 (the "Cadets") were opposed to the Bolsheviks. All 
 the parties mentioned together represent Russian de- 
 mocracy. The other, the conservative and reactionary 
 (the "right") wing in Russian politics is not organized 
 in political parties: such conservative and reactionary 
 parties as had existed at the time of the Dumas ( 1907- 
 1917) had been artificially built with the help of the 
 Tsarist Government and broke down completely under 
 the Revolution of 1917 (the "Octobrists," the "Nation- 
 alists," the "Union of the Russian People," etc.) Such 
 elements of them as remained were unable to join the 
 democratic groups, even for the purpose of fighting the 
 Bolsheviks. That is why there were two separate po- 
 litical coalitions in the first half of 1918: the "Right 
 Center" (conservative and reactionary) and the "Left 
 Center" (the left wing of the cadets and the socialists). 
 
 The further evolution of these groups took place in 
 the middle of 1918 (May) under the direct influence 
 of the Allied scheme to form a new "Eastern Front" 
 (see Chapters V and XI). After the Brest- Litovsk
 
 130 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Treaty some conservative and reactionary groups en- 
 tered into relations with the German representatives 
 in Petrograd and in Moscow. "Germanophilism" was 
 traditional in these political circles, and they cherished 
 the hope of making use of the Germans to restore mon- 
 archy in Russia. The secret soon leaked out and the 
 disclosure brought about a scission among the members 
 of the "Right Center." The more liberal elements, 
 which were strongly pro- Ally, detached themselves from 
 the "Right Center" (which soon ceased to exist) and 
 built a new and really central group which called itself 
 the "National Center," and entered into negotiations 
 with the Allied diplomatists (especially Mr. Noulens). 
 At the same time individual members of democratic 
 and socialist parties formed a bloc called the "Union 
 for Russia's Regeneration," which also entered into 
 official negotiations with the Allies for restoring an 
 Allied front in Russia. They even proposed to the 
 Allies the plan for a military campaign on Russian ter- 
 ritory, with the participation of the Allied armies, 
 against the Bolsheviks. In June both groups received 
 from Mr. Noulens a "verbal note" in which, among 
 other things, was communicated the Allied decision 
 to send military forces sufficiently numerous hi order 
 that the struggle might be successfully carried on from 
 the very beginning and a regular anti-Bolshevist army 
 evolve from the small partisan detachments. I must 
 add that all three political groups (reactionary, central 
 and democratic) had connections with respective groups 
 of officers ready to start on an open struggle. As I have 
 already mentioned, that struggle was universally con- 
 sidered to be a continuation a new chapter of the 
 World War, and nobody thought that it might be 
 construed as "intervention." The Bolshevist-German
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 131 
 
 alliance was an accomplished fact; German and Aus- 
 trian prisoners of war were being organized in detach- 
 ments and receiving arms and munitions from the 
 Allied stores. Under such conditions, Allied help to 
 the anti-Bolshevist Russian forces appeared quite 
 natural. 
 
 Unfortunately, the germs of future misunderstand- 
 ings were already in existence both between different 
 Russian political organizations and between the Rus- 
 sians and the Allies. The "Union for Russia's Regen- 
 eration" insisted on a collective form of a future central 
 power: a "Directory of five or, at least, three members." 
 The conservative wing wished to have at the head of 
 the anti-Bolshevist movement a single person, a mili- 
 tary dictator with unlimited powers. There was also 
 no unity of opinion concerning the part to be played 
 by the .Constituent Assembly. The "Union" agreed 
 that this Assembly, which had been elected after the 
 November overthrow, under the influence of the Bol- 
 sheviks, and which included up to 40 per cent, of the 
 Bolsheviks, could not be considered, after its dissolu- 
 tion by the Bolsheviks in January, 1918, as a legal 
 exponent of the sovereign power of the people. But at 
 the same time the "Union" was against its complete 
 suppression. The moderate wing found, to the con- 
 trary, that the Constituent Assembly could no longer 
 function as an institution, for any purpose whatever. 
 The note of Mr. Noulens tried to conciliate both views 
 and it proposed a compromise. The Constituent As- 
 sembly should meet only for two or three days, in order 
 to sanction the newly-formed Government, to work out 
 an electoral law for elections to a new Constituent 
 Assembly, and then dissolve. The same note admitted 
 that the new Government ought to be formed of three
 
 132 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 members (i. e., it accepted the form of a "directory"). 
 Both political organizations, which formally declared 
 themselves pro-Ally, the "National Center" and "the 
 Union for Russia's Regeneration," decided at the end 
 of May to accept that scheme, and they even selected 
 the three members, and substitutes for them, repre- 
 senting the military command and two political coali- 
 tions. General Alexeiev and his candidate. General 
 Boldyrev, especially acceptable to the socialists, were 
 chosen to represent the former element. Mr. Avxentiev 
 was to represent the "Union," and I, or, in my place, 
 Mr. N. I. Astrov or, as his substitute, Mr. V. Vino- 
 gradov, the Cadet member of the Duma, had to repre- 
 sent the "National Center." I purposely mention all 
 these details, in order that the readers may better un- 
 derstand further developments and complications. 
 
 Another source of misunderstanding, no less seri- 
 ous than the difference of opinion between the Rus- 
 sian political coalitions, was the difference of views 
 and aims of the Allies from those of the Russians. 
 The Allied intervention, as the American Gov- 
 ernment stated it (see Chapter X), was intended 
 rather to "make use of Russia," than "to serve her." 
 The Allied promises to send sufficiently numer- 
 ous armies in order to at once assure the anti-Bolshevist 
 success could not possibly be kept. But the Allied 
 representatives in Russia made the Russian political 
 and military organizations believe it. Their immedi- 
 ate aim was achieved. Serious disturbances and upris- 
 ings took place in June, July and August, in provincial 
 towns surrounding Moscow : Ribbinsk, Vladimir, Yaros- 
 lavl and Murom. It was promised that the detach- 
 ments of the Allied troops, having landed in the North, 
 in Murmansk and Archangel, would come on time to
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 133 
 
 their relief via Vologda, where the Allied diplomatic 
 representatives had settled after the conclusion of the 
 Brest-Litovsk peace (March). As was to be expected, 
 the promised help did not come. 1 The revolts in Rib- 
 binsk and Vladimir were stifled at once. Those in 
 Murom and Yaroslavl succeeded, but issued in useless 
 bloodshed. Yaroslavl held out for eleven full days, but 
 finally fell, battered by the heavy artillery of the Bol- 
 sheviks. Whole quarters of that old Russian city were 
 in ruins, heaps of dead bodies lay in the streets, and the 
 population blamed the Allies for having broken their 
 pledge. 
 
 However, the Allies decided, instead of their own 
 armies, to make use of the Czecho-Slovak detachments, 
 which had been formed of war prisoners belonging to 
 that friendly Slav nation and had fought in the ranks 
 of the Russian Army against their Austrian oppressors. 
 They were ordered in February, 1918, to leave Russia 
 and to go to the French front. At the moment when 
 an "Eastern Front" was planned, this seemed very 
 strange: the Czecho-Slovaks (and the Serbs) were prac- 
 tically the only Allied troops who were on the spot and 
 could have been a real factor in the struggle. "Why 
 send these troops out of Russia," Ambassador Francis 
 was wondering on March 30, 1918, "if an army is 
 forming to resist the Germans?" "It would seem a 
 foolish waste of time, money and tonnage to send 
 troops around the world to get to the French front," 
 Mr. Raymond Robbins had surmised a day before. 
 The Czecho-Slovaks in the meantime were slowly mov- 
 
 ir The original operations of French and British troops in Mur- 
 mansk took place in April, on the supposition of cooperation with 
 the Bolsheviks against the Germans. But by the middle of July the 
 Allied forces occupied the whole of the Murman coast and moved 
 southwards, via Kem, Soroki, Sumskiposad on the road to Onega.
 
 134 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ing to the East on their way to Vladivostok. They had 
 reached the Volga and Cheliabinsk. At Cheliabinsk, 
 on May 26, the Czecho-Slovak "rebellion" began. They 
 occupied the'railroad station and the city, took'up arms, 
 removed and arrested the Bolshevist authorities. They 
 were ordered to disarm but disobeyed the order and 
 fired on the Bolshevist forces. On June 4, the four 
 Allied powers declared that they would consider the 
 disarming of the Czecho-Slovaks as a hostile act. At 
 the same time a decisive encounter took place between 
 the Czecho-Slovaks and the Reds in Penza and at the 
 Rtischevo station. 
 
 The war was thus formally begun, and immediately 
 the Russian working men and the officers' organizations, 
 controlled by the Social-Revolutionary Party, joined 
 hands with the Czecho-Slovaks on their approach to 
 Samara (June 8). A "Committee of Members of the 
 All-Russian Constituent Assembly" was formed on the 
 same day and a decision was reached to organize a new 
 "People's Army" on the basis of voluntary enlistment. 
 The Cossacks of Orenburg and the Urals joined the 
 Czecho-Slovaks and the People's Army. Altogether 
 they did not number many men and they were poorly 
 armed. But they showed great enthusiasm and ca- 
 pacity for self-sacrifice. The Commandant Alphonse 
 Gurnet, the French military adviser, was in Samara 
 and it was his idea that a "Volga front" should be built, 
 extending from Kazan to Samara, in the hope that they 
 would soon be relieved by the Allies coming from the 
 (non-existent) "Northern Front," near Vologda, The 
 task was almost impossible to accomplish. But after 
 a very strenuous effort which cost heavy losses in men, 
 Simbirsk was taken (July 22) and after Simbirsk, 
 Kazan (August 7), under new promises of Captain
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 135 
 
 Borde, that the Allied army would join the anti-Bol- 
 shevist force by way of Viatka. For thirty-four days 
 the Czechs and the People's Army held Kazan, while 
 the working men of the Ishevsk Mines captured Sara- 
 pul and Elabuga, and proceeded towards Perm. Final 
 success seemed to be assured, if only the Allies could 
 come in time. But they could not and, what is still 
 worse, did not intend to. On September 10, the small 
 number of exhausted defenders gave up Kazan. In 
 October the anti-Bolshevik troops had to leave Samara, 
 and the "Volga front" was definitely broken up. 
 
 They now accused the Allies of having tied them up 
 to a scheme of campaign based on consciously unrealiz- 
 able promises. "If we had only known," Col. V. I. 
 Lebedev says, 1 "that the 50,000 Japanese and American 
 soldiers who disembarked at Vladivostok did not intend 
 to come to our help in the immediate future and that 
 the holding of our front would be left to us and the 
 Czechs, it is quite possible that instead of trying to 
 open a way to Vladivostok and to build a front 4,700 
 miles long and 500 miles wide, we would have concen- 
 trated our forces on the Volga front and moved on to 
 Moscow right after the capture of Kazan, in July 
 or August. . . . We would have had enough troops 
 for the advance on Moscow if we had not had to defend 
 the Volga front while awaiting the arrival of the Allies." 
 I leave it to the military authorities to decide whether 
 the author is right or not. At any rate, his words 
 express the state of mind of the anti-Bolsheviks after 
 their first disappointment in the Allied help. A char- 
 
 x "The Russian Democracy in its Struggle Against the Bolshevist 
 Tyranny" (Published by the Russian Information Bureau, Wool- 
 worth Building, New York). Col. V. I. Lebedev was one of the 
 chief military commanders in that campaign of June-September, 
 1918.
 
 136 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 acteristic feature of that first stage of the anti-Bolshe- 
 vist armed struggle is that it is quite impossible to 
 apply to it the terms "intervention" or "reaction." The 
 movement was genuinely national and thoroughly 
 democratic. This is also the only movement of that 
 kind that developed from within Russia of course, 
 with the aid of foreign (Czecho-Slovak) disciplined 
 troops which secured a temporary success. This stage 
 is unjustly forgotten, and that is why I especially 
 wished to recall it in this short outline. 
 
 In the following stages the struggle passes from cen- 
 tral Russia to the outskirts: to southern and southeast- 
 ern Russia, on the one side, and to Siberia on the other. 
 This geographical division of areas proved as fatal to 
 the success of the anti-Bolshevist struggle, as the differ- 
 ences of political opinion and the inefficiency of the 
 Allied help. 
 
 The advantages and the drawbacks of the two differ- 
 ent theaters of military offensive against Moscow seem 
 to be quite clear at the first glance on the ma-p. Here 
 were the rich provinces of Southern Russia, the Russian 
 granary, densely settled, with easy access to the Rus- 
 sian center, through a railway net starting from the 
 best harbors of the Black Sea and converging at Mos- 
 cow. It is true that access to the Black Sea through 
 the Dardanelles was closed to the Allies until the armi- 
 stice (Nov. 11, 1918). But actual intervention de- 
 veloped after that date. On the other hand, there were 
 the three harbors most remote from Moscow, Mur- 
 mansk and Archangel in the North of Russia, Vladi- 
 vostok in the Far East. They could have been easily 
 controlled by the Allied fleets, but they were most 
 inappropriate starting points for operations on land. 
 They were connected with the interior by single rail-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 137 
 
 way tracks passing through deserts very scantily peo- 
 pled and possessing no local resources. Sufficient sup- 
 plies could not be secured at such enormous distances 
 from the base, with the constant danger of the railway 
 lines being cut at the rear by the enemy's partisans. 
 Again, it was quite natural that these ports should 
 have been occupied by the Allies during the war time, 
 but it was only by force of inertia that they still con- 
 tinued to use them for the new schemes of intervention 
 after the armistice. As a result the attention of the 
 Allies was persistently concentrated on Siberia and 
 Archangel, while the greatest hope of military success 
 lay with the operations in Southern Russia, Whatever 
 was the reason of that aberration, lack of knowledge 
 and understanding, lack of sympathy with the under- 
 taking, short-sighted selfishness, a blind game of chance, 
 the result was bound to be a failure. 
 
 Let us now come back to the anti-Bolshevist activ- 
 ities in Southern Russia. They developed directly after 
 the Bolshevist victory in Petrograd and in Moscow, 
 in November, 1917, and they were quite independent 
 from the anti-Bolshevist movement in the interior of 
 Russia. In the very first weeks after -the overthrow, 
 in November and December, 1917, the defeated politi- 
 cal and military groups that wished to pursue an open 
 struggle against the Bolsheviks were gathering in the 
 land of the Don Cossacks, in their capital, Novocher- 
 kassk, and in the large commercial city of Rostov at 
 the mouth of the Don River. General Alexeiev, the 
 former Commander-in-Chief, had come, and he worked 
 out the first plans for building a Volunteer Army. I 
 personally took part in his first negotiations for help 
 with the British, French and American representatives. 
 I must add that at that time no help was given, except
 
 138 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 from France through Rumania. A little later on, Gen- 
 eral Kornilov liberated himself from his seclusion at 
 Bykhov, in which he had been kept by the Provisional 
 Government after his unsuccessful uprising against 
 Kerensky (see Chapter II). He came to Novocher- 
 kassk accompanied by his fellow generals, imprisoned 
 with him, Denikin, Markov and others. At once two 
 centers of influence were formed, as there was a good 
 deal of difference between Alexeiev and Kornilov. 
 General Alexeiev, a wise old man, very cautious in his 
 plans, with broad views and great experience, was 
 capable of appreciating the whole political situation 
 and not only the military side of it. He understood 
 perfectly that as things stood, a military movement 
 against the Bolsheviks had to be based on a political 
 platform capable of uniting all political groups, repub- 
 lican and monarchist, radical and conservative. He 
 also saw the importance of basing the political pro- 
 gram on the recognition of the leading principles of 
 the March Revolution of 1917. The task was easier 
 then than it has become since, as the recollections were 
 very fresh in everybody's mind as to the part Gen. 
 Alexeiev and other military leaders had played in the 
 initial success of that Revolution. However incensed 
 the officers might have been against Kerensky's policy 
 towards the Army, they still were able to discriminate 
 between a man's personal faults and the great ideas 
 he represented. To be sure there were people at Novo- 
 cherkassk who already were filled up with white rage 
 and hatred against the Revolution as such. But these 
 people for a time kept silent. Their hero was Kornilov. 
 But Kornilov still called himself a republican and was 
 not fit to become the center of an openly reactionary 
 movement. First and foremost, he was a soldier, in-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 139 
 
 trepid, daring in enterprise, rash in decisions, despising 
 politicians and politics, but naive enough to succumb 
 to the chance influence of some haphazard adviser 
 clever enough to flatter the General's ambition and to 
 suggest a scheme which would be taken up as his own 
 and executed with iron will. A "lion's heart but a 
 sheep's head," as Kornilov was disparagingly charac- 
 terized by one of his competitor-generals, he was just 
 a contrast to Alexeiev, and they intensely disliked each 
 other. General Kornilov, who had enjoyed the confi- 
 dence of his mates at the Bykhov seclusion, gradually 
 took the precedence, while General Alexeiev was re- 
 moved to the second place. This was the origin of 
 the prevailing influence of the military elements over 
 the civil and political ones, in the policy and tactics 
 of the Volunteer Army. From the very beginning the 
 Generals did not understand that it was guerrilla war- 
 fare they had to carry on, and that the first condition 
 for its success was to attend first and foremost to the 
 interests of the population which was to be liberated. 
 The great majority of them were satisfied to find them- 
 selves again, after the severe experiences of the revolu- 
 tionary period, in their own sphere of an army organ- 
 ization built on the customary pattern, with its old 
 discipline restored. They at once started building huge 
 staffs each with a numerous personnel, the traditional 
 red tape, etc. They did not see that they had almost 
 no regular soldiers under their command, but only a 
 few hundred young officers and "cadets" who like them- 
 selves had fled away from the Bolsheviks and, in their 
 youthful enthusiasm, were ready to play the part of 
 soldiers and, accordingly, to undergo soldiers' priva- 
 tions. 
 The situation was the more complicated by the fact
 
 140 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 that the few "Volunteers" with the many Generals at 
 their head were practically guests in a territory which 
 did not at all desire to take their orders. It was the 
 land of the Don Cossacks. It would be a great mistake 
 to associate that name with the old reputation of the 
 Cossacks as being the most reactionary defenders of 
 the Tsars. The Cossack region belongs to the most 
 democratic parts of Russia. The rank and file Cos- 
 sacks still constitute the most influential social layer 
 here and possess their landed property in common. 
 They have preserved their military organization and 
 since the Revolution they have restored the old custom 
 of periodically electing their "Ataman," who is the head 
 of the executive power but is responsible before the 
 Cossack "Krug," a largely democratic popular assembly 
 which meets at irregular intervals. The Don Cossacks 
 are Great Russians and, with all their love for local 
 autonomy, they are stalwart partisans of Russian unity. 
 A part of the Kuban Cossacks are Little Russians (the 
 Ukrainians) and they are more inclined to separatism. 
 The Cossack strivings for autonomy and the lack of a 
 local aristocracy of big landowners (the few who were 
 there were forced to leave their estates under the Rev- 
 olution) had for quite a time brought the Cossacks in 
 contact with the Russian liberals and made them abhor 
 the former Tsarist centralization. They now wavered 
 between social radicalism and political moderation. 
 Their younger generation, just coming from the disor- 
 ganized Russian front, partly grew pro-Bolshevist, but 
 they found themselves at variance with their fathers, 
 mothers and wives, who had remained in their "stanit- 
 sas" (the name of the .Cossack large village). The is- 
 sue was uncertain and everything depended on the re- 
 sult of that internal moral struggle. The appearance
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 141 
 
 of the Volunteer Army under these conditions was 
 looked upon askance. Radical groups of the population 
 considered them as intruders and potential reaction- 
 aries. Moderate groups did not dare to take up their 
 defense openly. The first Ataman elected, the chival- 
 rous General Kaledin, was a warm partisan of the 
 Kornilov movement, but he was also a thoroughly 
 democratic representative of his region. He most will- 
 ingly gave hospitality to the "White Generals" and 
 their Volunteers, and he tried to help them enlist as 
 many Cossacks as he could. But here he met with the 
 radical evolution of mind in the midst of the Cossacks 
 and he soon lost confidence in his own authority. The 
 moral tragedy of that noble character was that of the 
 whole of Russia. On the one side there was the neces- 
 sity of building a strong military power to save Russia; 
 on the other the fact of democratic tendencies of the 
 population, evolving into Bolshevism and decidedly 
 opposed to the mission .of the Volunteer Army. 
 
 Under such conditions, the position of some 300 
 young officers gathered at Novocherkassk and Rostov, 
 in the midst of a population which was partly indiffer- 
 ent and partly openly hostile, soon became untenable. 
 Early in December, 1917, they had a chance to prove 
 their usefulness to the population, by stifling a Bol- 
 shevist uprising in Rostov. By January, 1918, they 
 numbered about 3,000. But their very success drew 
 the attention of tne Bolsheviks to them, and a Red 
 Army numbering about 100,000 gradually surrounded 
 Rostov. The population positively did not wish to 
 enlist and to help. It was no use to fight on. On 
 February 23, 1918, the "Volunteer Army" began its 
 famous retreat to the Steppes. A few days before, Ata- 
 man Kaledin had committed suicide in his palace at
 
 142 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Novocherkassk. The Bolsheviks were approaching. 
 They took possession of the Don with their usual se- 
 verities. 
 
 Two months later, at the end of April, 1918, the 
 "Volunteers" came back covered with laurels but 
 without Kornilov. Their first campaign, the so-called 
 "Icy Campaign," has remained in the recollection of its 
 participants as a glorious and heroic effort. And, in- 
 deed, it was the period of high-spirited enthusiasm for 
 the cause in that small group of glowing patriots who, 
 without any prospects for the future, misunderstood 
 and repudiated by the surrounding majority, still risked 
 their lives for their country and, although accustomed 
 to civilized comfort, did not resent any strain, privation 
 and suffering. However, they were few, these heroes 
 who came back alive from the "Icy Campaign." They 
 were about one thousand. A full third of the army* 
 had perished during those two months of incessant 
 fighting. General Kornilov was killed by a bomb on 
 March 31, during the attempt to besiege and to take 
 Ekaterinodar, the Kuban capital. The whole under- 
 taking was hopeless and reckless in its substance. The 
 first thing that the young General Denikin did, when 
 he took up the command, was to have these worn-out 
 young officers, who served as soldiers, seated on the 
 cars requisitioned from the population and brought 
 back to the Don. The greatest positive result of the 
 retreat from Rostov was to preserve the nucleus of an 
 anti-Bolshevist army up to the moment when the coun- 
 try could use it. 1 
 
 And, indeed, circumstances and the psychology of 
 
 1 The description of the "Icy Campaign" is given in a leaflet by 
 Prince P. M. Volkonsky: "The Volunteer Army of Alexeiev and 
 Denikin"; No. 7, Russian Liberation Committee, London, 1919.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 143 
 
 the population had completely changed by April. In 
 the first place, the whole Black Sea coast and the whole 
 of the Ukraine was now taken by the Germans, who 
 had driven the Bolsheviks far to the north. In the 
 second place, the Cossacks of the Don and of the Ku- 
 ban now knew what Bolshevism was. A universal 
 uprising took place in April in the Cossack "stanitsas" 
 and the Bolshevist elements were exterminated with 
 the greatest embitterment. Returning Volunteer Army 
 men were now greeted as liberators. The Cossacks 
 were ready to join the ranks, and in June, 1918, the 
 Volunteer Army was four times stronger than it had 
 been in March. It numbered up to 12,000. By the 
 middle of July, thanks to its junction with the Kuban 
 Cossacks and a regular mobilization in the "stanitsas," 
 the Army had become a force of 30,000 men. By Oc- 
 tober, 1918, it had gradually increased to about 100,000 
 men, extended over a front of about 200 miles. This 
 was practically a Cossack army as the Cossacks con- 
 stituted up to 80 per cent, of it. Ekaterinodar was 
 finally taken from the Bolsheviks on August 2. It now 
 became the capital of the Volunteer Army. The pos- 
 session of the port of Ekaterinodar, Novorossiisk, 
 opened the road to the sea, and the Volunteer Army was 
 able to get into touch with the Allies. Unfortunately, 
 the health of General Alexeiev had been definitely 
 shaken by the "Icy Campaign" and on September 25, 
 he died. The Supreme Command of the army passed 
 entirely to General Denikin. In questions touching 
 politics and civil administration he consulted the "Spe- 
 cial Council attached to the Commander-in-Chief," 
 which, however, had no power to decide and to legis- 
 late by itself. The principle of military dictatorship 
 was fully preserved and all attempts at a "constitu-
 
 144 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tional" division of powers were relentlessly checked. 
 Relations with the Kuban hosts soon became very much 
 strained, as it was exceedingly difficult to draw the 
 line between the "Volunteer" organization which 
 claimed to be a nucleus of an "All-Russian" power but 
 had only a few strips of territories (Stavropol and 
 Chernomorsk) under its direct control, and the Kuban 
 or the Don local administrations which wished to pre- 
 serve as much as possible of their de facto independence. 
 These were the germs of the coming difficulties, and 
 in both questions of the "All-Russian" and the autono- 
 mous local administration the leaders of the Volun- 
 teer Army were already drifting from the only possible 
 and really unbiased attitude that might have kept 
 them in harmony with the political ideas and social 
 forces promoted by the March Revolution of 1917. 
 
 The military side of their success in the Northern 
 Caucasus was closely connected with the general situa- 
 tion in Southern Russia in 1918, a fact which they al- 
 most completely overlooked. But this time they had 
 their excuse in their "pro-Ally" orientation. The Cau- 
 casus was separated from the Bolsheviks with two large 
 regions which were now free : the Don Cossacks' region 
 and the Ukraine. But both had been liberated with the 
 aid of the Germans. German military authorities sat 
 in Kiev and in Rostov. Austro-German garrisons, 
 whose numbers varied from 600,000 to 150,000 were 
 keeping all Southern Russia and the Crimea in order. 
 At the same time, a national Ukrainian Government 
 had been built with the German help in Kiev, under 
 the "Hetman" Skoropadsky. The Austrian idea of 
 detaching the Ukraine from Russia had been taken up 
 by Germany. Skoropadsky, a Russian General and 
 formerly a good Russian patriot, had been induced to
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 145 
 
 play the extremely complicated game of Ukrainian in- 
 dependence, while every alley was left open as to the 
 future of the newly built State. Russia, Bolshevist or 
 National, Germany, Austria, several Ukrainian parties, 
 they all had their own policies which were thoroughly 
 inconsistent with that hope of becoming the head of 
 a new dynasty with which Skoropadsky's ambition was 
 nurtured. In the Ukraine the Germans were trying to 
 lay their hands on the economic resources of the coun- 
 try. In the neighboring Don region they were satis- 
 fied with a very loose control over Ataman Krasnov's 
 activities. On certain conditions they supplied him 
 with arms and ammunition, part of which he was selling 
 to the Volunteer Army. A kind of matter-of-fact mili- 
 tary cooperation against the Bolsheviks existed between 
 the Germans, Skoropadsky, Krasnov and Alexeiev- 
 Denikin. I personally tried to transform it into a sys- 
 tematic common offensive. My correspondence with 
 General Alexeiev to that effect was recently published. 
 The German military authorities in Kiev were also in- 
 terested in that scheme of overthrowing the Bolsheviks, 
 but they were unwilling or powerless to change the 
 German general policy towards Russia. On their part, 
 the Volunteer Army looked at the activity of Skoro- 
 padsky and Krasnov as traitorous towards the Allies, 
 and the anti-Bolshevist movement inside Russia was, 
 as we have seen, closely associated with the Allies. 
 Under such conditions, the Germans dropped the idea 
 of a rapprochement with Alexeiev, and proceeded to 
 build in the Ukraine, in Pskov and in Astrakhan the 
 nuclei of new Russian anti-Bolshevist armies, formed 
 of the most reactionary elements. It is difficult to say 
 what the outcome of such beginnings might have been, 
 because very soon the Germans were defeated and asked
 
 146 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 for an armistice. The second chance to liberate Russia 
 from the South thus came to naught. 
 
 The Russian political parties working in the Ukraine, 
 the Don and the Caucasus then decided to make direct 
 representations to the Allies. All the political groups 
 already mentioned, the more advanced "Union for the 
 Resurrection of Russia," the "National Center" which 
 was especially influential at Denikin's headquarters, 
 and the conservative groups newly reconstructed in 
 Kiev, sent their mission to the Allied representatives in 
 Rumania and, later on (December, 1918), via Constan- 
 tinople, to Paris and London. The leading idea was 
 to save Southern Russia after the armistice from a new 
 invasion of the Bolsheviks. It seemed natural, before 
 embarking on the liberation of Central Russia, at least 
 to preserve such important parts of Russia as already 
 were free from the calamity with which they were now 
 menaced. The aim of the intervention which was be- 
 ginning on the Volga and in Siberia could also be bet- 
 ter attained and at less effort and expense if Southern 
 Russia were used as a starting point. The armistice 
 agreement foresaw the right of the Allied forces to come 
 and to take the place of the retreating Germans. What 
 had been easy for the latter to keep order in the 
 Ukraine would have been still easier for the victorious 
 Allies. Without a shot, the best part of Russia could 
 have been thus preserved in order, and a chance given 
 for the formation in the South of a real national army. 
 Anti-Bolshevist Russia, in such a case, would have been 
 able to cope with the Bolsheviks with her own forces, 
 without any military intervention. 
 
 We (I was a member of that mission) were success- 
 ful in our negotiations in Rumania, in the Balkans and 
 in Constantinople. A few divisions were ready to be
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 147 
 
 sent to Southern Russia via Salonica, and there were 
 ships enough to transport them to Russian harbors. 
 But no sanction was given to these schemes in Paris 
 and in London. The motives leaked out at a discus- 
 sion between the heads of the Allied Governments in 
 Paris, a few weeks later (Jan. 16, 1919). Both Mr. 
 Lloyd George and President Wilson had received in- 
 formation from their experts that the Allied troops in 
 Europe were unwilling to stay there longer, that 
 troubles had already occurred amongst the Canadians 
 and other troops. "If the British tried to send any 
 more troops there would be mutiny," Mr. Lloyd George 
 concluded. The 150,000 men we asked for (the request 
 was also supported by General Franchet d'Esperey 
 and by M. Scavenius) was declared to be an insufficient 
 number. Mr. Lloyd George thought that at least 400,- 
 000 were required. His general view was that "the 
 mere idea of crushing Bolshevism by a military force 
 was pure madness." On a false report that the Bol- 
 sheviks were ready to come to terms, he proposed to 
 "summon these people to Paris . . . somewhat in the 
 way that the Roman Empire summoned the chiefs of 
 outlying tributary States to render an account of their 
 actions." In his February speech before the Commons 
 Mr. Lloyd George used another simile, equally humili- 
 ating: He compared the fighting "factions" in Russia 
 with the turbulent tribes on the Northwestern frontier 
 of India which had to be brought to reason by some 
 Commissioner, "to avoid the costly expedition." A 
 little more knowledge in the matter would have shown 
 that the only means to avoid the really costly expedi- 
 tions which followed was to accept the advice that was 
 rejected. With its rejection the third chance to help 
 Russia to her speedy recovery was left unused. Di-
 
 148 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 rectly afterwards the Ukraine was actually occupied by 
 the Bolsheviks. 
 
 We now come to the year 1919, the period of a be- 
 lated but real Allied intervention in the anti-Bolshevist 
 struggle. This time it was not small groups of par- 
 tisans, but large and disciplined armies which were 
 fighting against the Soviets. Munitions and arms, at 
 least at the end of that period, were also not lacking. 
 But there was also a Red Army on the Bolsheviks' 
 side, while on the side of the anti-Bolsheviks there was 
 the damaging policy of reaction. The whole psychol- 
 ogy of the situation was now different from that of 
 1918. 
 
 It was in Siberia that the conflict between the two 
 wings of the anti-Bolshevist parties broke out in the 
 open. In Southern Russia the conflict also existed, 
 in a latent stage, but owing to the authority of Gen. 
 Alexeiev and Gen. Denikin the reactionary extremists 
 were kept well under control. In Siberia, the attitudes 
 of the reactionary officers and the old regime officials, 
 on the one side, and of the socialistic parties which 
 were predominant in the self-governing bodies on the 
 other, were so mutually uncompromising that clash was 
 bound to come at the first encounter. The situation 
 was complicated by the fact that there, as well as in 
 Southern Russia, there existed a strong antagonism 
 between the local autonomous strivings and the "All- 
 Russian" program of liberation brought to Siberia by 
 both the socialist and reactionary parties. Local Si- 
 berian patriotism turned, in the first place, against the 
 socialist "All-Russian" Government, and afterwards 
 against the non-socialist Government of Kolchak, 
 which was equally "All-Russian," not Siberian. Ac- 
 cordingly, the local opposition changed color or,
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 149 
 
 rather, at different stages it originated from different 
 groups. It was conservative against the socialists, and 
 radical against Kolchak. Last, but not least, there 
 was one more influential factor in Siberia: the Czecho- 
 slovaks who played here, at the side of the Russian 
 anti-Bolsheviks, the part played by the Cossacks in 
 Southern Russia, at the side of the Volunteer Army. 
 
 They also formed the backbone of the anti-Bolshevist 
 forces, and their cooperation or abstention decided mili- 
 tary success or failure. The Czecho-Slovaks were much 
 more dissatisfied with the reactionary policy of the 
 anti-Bolshevist leaders than the Cossacks, and in a 
 much more decisive way they took sides with the radi- 
 cal anti-Bolsheviks. Moreover, they felt much more 
 free to stay or to go, as the fate of their country did 
 not depend on the issue of the struggle. The Cossacks 
 also regularly became homesick and preferred to leave, 
 when they had to fight outside their own territories, 
 but they were unable to separate their own cause from 
 that of the liberation of Russia, while the Czechs did 
 it at the first opportunity. This parallel explains to a 
 great extent the difference in the trend of events in Si- 
 beria and in Southern Russia, while evolving practically 
 from the same elements and winding up with the same 
 results. 
 
 We noted military successes of the anti-Bolshevist 
 "People's Army" on the Volga (June- August, 1918), 
 which were due to the help of the Czecho-Slovaks, and 
 we also noted their final collapse (September-October) 
 caused by the absence of the more substantial help 
 promised by the Allies. Siberia was liberated from the 
 Bolsheviks at the beginning of that period, and it re- 
 mained anti-Bolshevist up to the end of 1919. 
 
 However, the method of liberation was here different
 
 150 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 from that on the Volga. The basic feature in common 
 was the participation of the Czecho-Slovaks who, as 
 we know, were scattered over the entire length of Si- 
 beria's railroad lines, from the Urals to Vladivostok. 
 But instead of the democratic "People's Army" organ- 
 ized by the Social-Revolutionaries from Samara, the 
 task of the overthrow was taken up by the secret organ- 
 izations of the officers who were incensed against the 
 socialists because of their part in the Revolution and 
 especially in the suppression of the Kornilov uprising. 
 Backed by the Czechs, who numbered about 40,000 men, 
 the officers' organizations, led by Colonel Grishin-Al- 
 mazov, easily set free the chief towns on the railway 
 line (June, 1918), as the Bolshevist power in Siberia 
 had not had time'to strike root in the peasant popula- 
 tion and was not supported by the burgesses. But 
 then they found that a "Government of 'autonomous 
 Siberia'^was already in existence. It had been elected 
 as early as January 26, 1918, at a secret meeting of a 
 few members of the "Siberian Regional Duma" (20 
 out of 150) in Tomsk, at the very moment when that 
 Duma was dissolved by the Bolsheviks. The composi- 
 tion of that Siberian Government was too radical for 
 the officers. But the most radical members had fled 
 from the Bolsheviks to Vladivostok, and on June 30, 
 the more moderate five (out of fifteen) proclaimed 
 themselves at Omsk a legal Siberian Government pos- 
 sessing sovereign power over the whole Siberian terri- 
 tory. This was the first coup d'etat, which, however, 
 did not quite satisfy the officers, as the five ministers 
 were still under suspicion of sharing socialistic views. 
 However, the bourgeois groups approved the decisively 
 anti-Bolshevist decrees of the new Government, while 
 the socialists were placated by the Government's prom-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 151 
 
 ise to convoke the "Regional Duma," Social-Revolu- 
 tionary in its majority, for a new session on August 15. 
 
 There were now two anti-Bolshevist Governments: 
 that of Samara, which insisted on its being recognized 
 as "All-Russian" and as basing its power on the Con- 
 stituent Assembly of 1917, and that of Omsk, which 
 swore allegiance to the white-green banner of the "in- 
 dependent" (or, at least, autonomous) Siberia and did 
 not wish its power limited even by that of the Siberian 
 "Regional Duma." 
 
 The Czecho-Slovaks insisted on the building of one, 
 single All-Russian Government. Under their pressure, 
 after two preliminary conferences in Chaliabinsk, on 
 15-16 July and on August 23, the representatives of 
 all the local Governments and all the political groups 
 met in September in Ufa. The Social-Revolutionaries 
 were in the majority (more than 100 out of 200), but 
 it was decided that all resolutions should be adopted 
 unanimously. It was just the moment when the Volga 
 front was definitely crumbling, and the Czecho-Slovaks 
 threatened to leave the front and Siberia if there should 
 be no agreement. A compromise was finally reached, 
 and a Provisional All-Russian Government elected on 
 September 23, 1918, partly formed of the candidates 
 chosen by the political groups in May in Moscow. 1 
 Omsk was selected as the seat of government, and until 
 January 1, 1919, when the Constituent Assembly was 
 supposed to meet, the "Directory" was invested with 
 the supreme power. 
 
 But two days before, on September 20, a second coup 
 d'etat had been carried out in Omsk by the reactionary 
 
 1 N. D. Avxentiev; N. I. Astrov (substitute, V. Vinogradov) ; Gen. 
 V. Boldyrev (substitute, Gen. Alexeiev) ; N. V. Chaikovsky (substi- 
 tute, Zenzinov), and Mr. Vologodsky (the Siberian Premier). Vino- 
 gradov and Zenzinov took the places of the absent two.
 
 152 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 officers, in order to "save the country from the per- 
 nicious influence of the socialist ministers." The Si- 
 berian ministers suspected of extremism had just come 
 to Omsk from the Far East. Two of them were ar- 
 rested, and the third (Novosselov) was killed by the 
 officers. The Regional Duma was dissolved. This 
 time the Czecho-Slovaks decided to intervene on the 
 side of the socialists, and they arrested the acting Min- 
 ister of the Interior. The conflict was solved by a 
 compromise, pending the arrival in Omsk of the All- 
 Russian "Directory" chosen in Ufa. 
 
 The Provisional Government arrived on October 9. 
 They found an extremely heated atmosphere. Lengthy 
 negotiations ensued between the "supreme power" just 
 recognized, and the Siberian ministers. The Directory 
 made all the concessions that proved necessary: they 
 guaranteed the Siberian autonomy, promised a peaceful 
 self-dissolution of the Regional Duma, nominated nine 
 former ministers (out of 14) to take part in the new 
 cabinet. Among the newly-nominated ministers was 
 Admiral Kolchak. Avxentiev expected to be soon rec- 
 ognized by the Allies. . . . 
 
 The military group now decided to prepare for a 
 third coup d'etat. The candidate for a dictatorship 
 was ready in the person of Kolchak. The last meas- 
 ure to take was to show Kolchak, who had recently 
 come to Omsk from the East, to his army. He went 
 to the front and came back on November 16. In the 
 night of Nov. 18, Avxentiev and his colleagues in the 
 Directory were arrested by the officers. It is now 
 known that the British military attache, Gen. Knox, 
 then in Omsk, approved of the overthrow. The Coun- 
 cil of Ministers endorsed the accomplished fact. After 
 a short and embarrassed discussion all decided for a
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 153 
 
 dictatorship and against the "Directory" as the form 
 of government, and all voted for Kolchak, as the "Su- 
 preme Ruler." 
 
 A year 'later, in his deposition before the Bolshevist 
 tribunal which sentenced him to death, Admiral Kol- 
 chak recognized that the coup d'etat of Nov. 18, 1918, 
 was a political mistake. One might add that the mis- 
 take was not his own, and that it was much more than 
 a mistake. The events in Siberia which are just de- 
 scribed make it clear why Russia could not be liber- 
 ated by the anti-Bolshevist forces. Both socialists and 
 non-socialists had not yet fully learned their lessons. 
 The mistakes of 1917 were not yet forgotten and for- 
 given to the socialists. The non-socialists were just 
 committing their own mistakes, and thus the cause for 
 which they fought was doomed to lose. Moreover, with 
 the coup d'etat of November 18 a turning-point was 
 reached after which even that kind of very imperfect 
 cooperation that had existed between the two anti- 
 Bolshevist groups since November 7, 1917, definitely 
 broke down. The military element was left to itself 
 and has made itself an exponent of social groups and 
 tendencies of the old regime. The socialist element has 
 not yet detached itself from its extremist connections. 
 Between the two extremes, the right wing of the So- 
 cial-Revolutionaries and the left wing of the Constitu- 
 tional-Democrats, i.e., the very elements that were 
 united in the "All-Russian" Government of Avxentiev, 
 might have been able to form a democratic center. 
 But these elements were as yet few and powerless to 
 combat the prejudices of their opponents on both ex- 
 treme wings of public opinion. The Allied representa- 
 tives might also bring the help, but they did not know 
 again, as had been the case in 1917, where to find that
 
 154 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 center. In May, 1918, M. Albert Thomas had helped 
 to enthrone Kerensky. In November, 1918, Gen. Knox 
 ousted Avxentiev. A coalition had been formed when 
 it was dangerous for the success of the Revolution. It 
 was now destroyed just at the tune when it was vital 
 for the liberation of Russia. 
 
 Who was Kolchak? I came to know the man in 
 1908, under characteristic circumstances. I was a mem- 
 ber of the democratic opposition in the Third Duma, 
 and he was a young and brilliant naval officer, fearless, 
 learned and deeply patriotic. He fought for a program 
 of reconstruction of the Russian fleet, which had been 
 destroyed at Tsushima, and, quite exceptionally in his 
 position, he was not afraid to address himself to the 
 group of deputies then considered to be most dangerous 
 revolutionaries by the Government. Like General 
 Alexeiev, he was among the first to recognize the March 
 Revolution of 1917, as Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Russian Black Sea Fleet. Like Denikin, he struggled 
 as long as possible against the dissolution of the na- 
 tional armed forces and he did not wish to serve the 
 government of Kerensky, who was generally accused 
 of being responsible for that dissolution. Hence his 
 hatred against the Social-Revolutionaries. 
 
 The group of officers which sought for a dictator had 
 singled him out to play the part which a little later 
 Kornilov was induced to play so unsuccessfully. Kol- 
 chak's sense of duty and readiness for self-sacrifice 
 might have impelled him to listen to their appeal, but 
 there was something in him which did not permit him 
 to accept. He followed the advice of some political 
 friends to save himself for the future and left for 
 America on a special invitation. His appearance in the 
 Far East is surely connected with the decision of the
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 155 
 
 Allies to intervene, and he was doomed to pass through 
 all the vicissitudes of that intervention, which here 
 showed itself at its worst. At the very beginning of it 
 Kolchak repudiated being a weapon of Japan, unlike 
 Semenov (see Chapter X), and he returned from East- 
 ern Siberia to Tokio. He was ready to fight the enemy 
 under the British in Mesopotamia, but on his way there 
 he received a new call and came back to Western Siberia 
 in the Autumn of 1918 when intervention had become 
 a general (as opposed to purely Japanese) Allied un- 
 dertaking. I am rather inclined to think that'he knew 
 what was being prepared for him by General Knox 
 (who had met him in August, 1918, in Tokio) and by 
 the reactionary officers for November 18. A man of 
 vioble character and heart, he was, however, a fresh- 
 man in politics and thus bound to depend on other 
 people's opinions for arriving at the most important 
 and responsible political decisions. He had no per- 
 sonal ambition and there was not a jot of the dictator 
 in him. The reputation of an "iron will" did not at all 
 correspond with his real nature, extremely sensitive and 
 refined. But he felt it his duty to play in all conscience 
 the part he was given, and he patiently wore his mask. 
 Like his southern colleague, Denikin, he was unable to 
 make use of his strongest side, his military knowledge 
 and talent. The daily business of a supreme ruler was 
 so cumbersome and the details of it were so new to 
 both that their complete attention was absorbed, and 
 the real direction of affairs, concerning the civil admin- 
 istration as well as concerning military operations, 
 gradually slipped out of their hands. Kolchak, as he 
 grew aware of it, became extremely nervous, and he 
 vainly tried to supply with outbursts of wrath which 
 became more and more frequent what was lacking in
 
 156 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 steady design and in firmness of will and purpose. 
 Denikin, more disciplined and equilibrated, tried to 
 remain equal to the task, and he submitted to the in- 
 evitable and fatal in his situation with equanimity and 
 even with a certain sense of humor. But the result was 
 the same: a growing contrast between claim and 
 achievement, the showy display of a resuscitated 
 "All-Russian" Government and an extremely poor re- 
 ality upon which it was artificially built. This also 
 explains why both political structures, which seemed 
 so solid for a few moments, crumpled so rapidly and 
 so completely to the very foundations. 
 
 On the face of it, the Omsk Government looked so 
 firmly established indeed that most of its members and 
 adherents at once felt transported to their customary 
 atmosphere of a normal statehood and acted accord- 
 ingly. The "Supreme Ruler" was surrounded with the 
 attributes of power. A brilliant diplomatic corps of 
 the Allied Powers made people forget that as yet there 
 had been no recognition extended to that Government. 
 The whole set of former State institutions functioned 
 according to the former State Law : legislation, finance, 
 trade, justice, administration, each of these branches 
 had its own organ, provided with a numerous person- 
 nel of former experienced functionaries and specialists. 
 They were even much more numerous than ordinarily, 
 even for an "All-Russian" scale, as there were so many 
 refugees gathered from everywhere in that small pro- 
 vincial town, with no "society" at all, except some local 
 tradesmen. There was also a regular army formed 
 partly of volunteer, partly of conscripted soldiers, with 
 more officers at the rear than there were at the front. 
 The army began to win its first victories : on December 
 23, 1918, Perm was taken; on March 14, 1919, Ufa was
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 157 
 
 taken back from the Bolsheviks. The official and the 
 semi-official press was enthusiastic about these military 
 successes, and some people began to speak of Moscow. 
 The only doubt was whether Moscow should be taken 
 from the North, with Archangel's help, or from the 
 South, with Denikin's help. There were even some 
 moments in September, 1919, when military successes 
 in Siberia coincided with similar successes on other 
 fronts in the South, in the West, in the North of 
 Russia. The final solution seemed to be approaching. 
 Drafts of laws were being prepared in- a number of 
 different ministerial boards, "on an All-Russian scale." 
 They were being discussed, and revised, and discussed 
 again . . . 
 
 What was the reverse, the actual state of things? It 
 consisted, in the first place, in the fact that the power 
 of the Omsk Government did not go farther than the 
 town of Omsk. The large masses, the peasant pop^ula- 
 tion remained quite indifferent towards the new power. 
 One of the Kolchak Ministers, Mr. Guins, made a trip 
 to a village 250 miles from Omsk. "What about the 
 Bolsheviks?" he asked a peasant. "Well, what did they 
 do to us?" was the answer. "They just came here like 
 you, and also came to my house, because it is the pret- 
 tiest, and they wore rifles, like you." "Have you heard 
 something of Kolchak?" Mr. Guins asked an- old Cos- 
 sack. "No, nothing. He is probably an Englishman?" 
 the old man asked. The peasants' answers, according 
 to a Siberian newspaper inquiry, may be summed up 
 by the following statement: "We cannot judge about 
 parties. Let come what will, if only we can get more 
 land and pay less taxes. Old men and women are 
 afraid of the Bolsheviks, but the young ones approve 
 of the Bolsheviks because they ended the war." "It is
 
 158 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 time to finish the war," the peasants repeated at a 
 meeting. "It is not good to make war without end." 
 
 But that was just what the new power was doing. 
 Its only contact with the population was on the cause 
 of war. Conscriptions and requisitions were inevitable. 
 The peasants were quite willing to comply, but not 
 "without end." They grew especially unwilling when 
 they came to know that it was not a "Siberian" but 
 an "All-Russian" Government which was forcing them 
 to serve and to pay, and that the struggle was going 
 on somewhere on the other side of the Urals. An "All- 
 Russian" war was more than Siberia could afford. And 
 from the very beginning of Kolchak's power military 
 coercion was the only means to carry on the war. But 
 military coercion definitely deprived- the Government 
 of the sympathies of the population, and issued in peas- 
 ant uprisings which the military authorities stifled with 
 great severity. The population, which did not yet know 
 the Bolshevist regime, decided that Bolshevism was 
 better. 
 
 Mr. Guins, whom* I have just quoted, repeats for us a 
 conversation with Admiral Kolchak which makes es- 
 pecially clear that fatal vicious circle. "I am the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief," Kolchak said, "and my aim is a 
 military one : to break the Red Army. Civil war must 
 be pitiless. One of us must shoot the other. That is 
 why I think that all your civil legislation is useless. 
 However good will be our laws, if we fail, they will 
 shoot us." "But just in order not to fail we must 
 secure order and good administration," the Minister 
 answered. "The people may not be interested in par- 
 liaments and republics, but they are interested in the 
 personalities in possession of power who are in close 
 touch with them. We must cooperate with new men.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 159 
 
 Your chancelleries do nothave any initiative and base 
 themselves on old laws, instead of adapting themselves 
 to new conditions. Your generals are abolishing the 
 local civil authorities and popular self-government. 
 We cannot succeed if we do not inspire the people and 
 do not build a political point d'appui. Do you not feel 
 that the people around us are indifferent to us and look 
 at us, your ministers, as something temporary and sec- 
 ondary? That is why we have been unable to create 
 a support for you in the country, to build a 'peasant' 
 defense in the provinces, a 'peasant' parliament in the 
 center. Since the overthrow of November 18, 1918, 
 the power is centered in the military circles and the 
 civil administration has been absorbed "by you and by 
 your generals, who have taken upon themselves too 
 much responsibility. Our struggle against the Bol- 
 sheviks has become too much impregnated with coun- 
 ter-revolution." "You are right," Kolchak answered, 
 "the spirit of the country must be aroused, but I do 
 not believe in conferences and discussions. I can be- 
 lieve in tanks, which I never succeed in getting from 
 our dear Allies; I believe in a loan, which might 
 straighten our finance; in manufactured goods which 
 could cheer up the village. But where can I get them 
 from? If I only could improve the sanitary situation 
 of the army! . . . Do you not know that certain de- 
 tachments are just like moving hospitals? No laws 
 and no reforms can help if we suffer new defeats. It 
 is not laws but men that matter. What can you do 
 when you are surrounded with thieves, or cowards, or 
 ignorants? We build with bad stuff. Everything is 
 rotten. The degree of general pollution simply amazes 
 me. And the ministers, well, they live on their paper 
 work. It would help us much more if instead of pre-
 
 160 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 paring drafts of laws they would shoot five or six 
 scoundrelly militiamen or a couple of speculators. But 
 nobody wants to make use of his power." "All right, 
 let me order that the military censors be made subordi- 
 nate to the governors of provinces?" "No, by no 
 means ; I am Supreme Commander, and I am responsi- 
 ble for everything. I cannot change the 'Regulation 
 for field administration of the Army' and the respective 
 construction of power; the experience and the genius 
 of ages is embodied in it." 1 
 
 The conflict between the psychology of the "new 
 men" and the "genius of ages" was really tragic. The 
 rift between the military leaders and officials of the old 
 generation on the one side, and the political parties and 
 the population on the other, had been steadily increas- 
 ing since November 18, 1918. The Social-Revolution- 
 aries who were mostly in the majority in the local Zem- 
 stvos and Dumas (County Councils and Municipalities, 
 reflected under the Revolution on the basis of universal 
 suffrage) declared war on the Kolchak Government. 
 On the other hand, Kolchak's generals considered as 
 revolutionary even such modest consultative assemblies 
 as were legally formed to discuss questions of finance, 
 economy and the electoral law. The central bloc of 
 moderate socialist and liberal groups, which tried to 
 give Kolchak the support.of public opinion, made some 
 attempts to compromise, but was never taken in earn- 
 est and finally fell to pieces. As long as there was some 
 success at the front, compromise with public opinion 
 seemed immaterial. When the period of defeats came, 
 no compromise was possible any more. 
 
 1 G. K. Guins' book on "Siberia, the Allies and Kolchak" was pub- 
 lished in Pekin, 1921, in two volumes in Russian. It contains a great 
 deal of first-hand material.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 161 
 
 General Knox explains the military defeat of the 
 Kolchak forces by the fact that "things were taken out 
 of Kolchak's hands." He wished to proceed slowly and 
 "gradually to work up the recruits to the necessary level 
 of efficiency." Such was also the view of the organizer 
 of the Siberian Army, Grishin-Almazov. But on his 
 coming to power Kolchak found that "the Siberian 
 Government had already ordered a mobilization of 
 80,000 recruits." Grishin-Almazov was dismissed by 
 one of the plots arranged by the officers' organization 
 as early as September 5, 1918. Under his successor, 
 Ivanov-Renov, the old army regime was reestablished, 
 and the army had become an independent factor before 
 Kolchak appeared. The "dictator," obviously, could 
 not dictate to such as put him in power, and, I quote 
 again Gen. Knox' authoritative statement, the recruits 
 "were called up where there was insufficient barrack ac- 
 commodation, clothing and trained instructors. They 
 were sent to the front half trained. Thus our task 
 was half lost before we began." The severities of the 
 winter campaign did the rest. The only moments of en- 
 thusiasm and success reached at the front were con- 
 nected with the activity of the democratic Ural army, 
 formed of some tens of thousands of working men from 
 the Ishevsk and Votkinsk mining concerns. This was 
 also the only army that did not dissolve and pass over 
 to the Bolsheviks when the general retreat began in 
 October, 1919. 
 
 With the retreat, the attitude of the Allies changed 
 at once. It is known that at the end of May, 1919, 
 the question of Kolchak's recognition was formally 
 raised. It was reduced to the mere promise "to assist 
 Admiral Kolchak and his associates with munitions, 
 supplies and food, to establish themselves as the Gov-
 
 162 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ernment of All-Russia" on certain conditions formu- 
 lated by the "Big Four" in their note to Kolchak on 
 May 26. Kolchak stood the test, and his answer of 
 June 5 was declared by the Allies, on June 12, "to be 
 in the main, in accord with the proposal" they made 
 to him, "and to contain satisfactory assurances," as to 
 his democratic intentions. The recognition was ex- 
 pected to come, but there was one more "test" to pass 
 through, a test of arms. If this did not prove satis- 
 factory, no more aid was to come from the Allies. "Kol- 
 chak is not strong enough for us to support him," was 
 now the view of the Allies. All requests for help at this 
 critical moment were politely declined. The Czecho- 
 slovaks finally declared (November 13, 1919) that they 
 could not bear further responsibility for the "burning 
 of villages, the killing of peaceful Russian citizens by 
 the hundreds, the shooting of representatives of democ- 
 racy without trial, on the mere suspicion of political 
 unreliability," which had become familiar occurrences 
 under the military rule of Kolchak. They wished "im- 
 mediately to go home." At the same time, uprisings in 
 the villages had become universal, and the Social-Revo- 
 lutionary groups had already in October discussed the 
 overthrow of the Government. A new political organi- 
 zation was formed in Irkutsk, under the name of the 
 "Political Center," which united the Central Committee 
 of the Social-Revolutionaries, the Social-Democrats 
 "Mensheviks," the Zemstvo boards and professional 
 unions. The Irkutsk Duma on November 26 made their 
 political platform clear by demanding a purely socialist 
 government based on the Zemstvos and Dumas and 
 on the class organizations of workingmen and peas- 
 ants. 
 
 I cannot describe in detail the tragic agony of the
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 163 
 
 Kolchak Government. In fact, it was no more a Gov- 
 ernment, as it left Omsk on November 10, 1919. As 
 the Czechs took the railroad for themselves, the evacua- 
 tion became exceedingly difficult. Kolchak was lost 
 in his train, between Omsk and Irkutsk. He was de- 
 tached from his Government, which asked him by wire 
 first for substantial concessions, then for his resigna- 
 tion, until it gradually melted away itself. He was also 
 cut off from the remnants of his army, which was 
 forced to start on an "icy campaign" of retreat through 
 snow and wind, at the side of the railway. We shall 
 meet again with these brave Ishevsk and Volkinsk 
 workingmen with such of them as remained alive 
 in the Far East, where their valiant leader, General 
 Kappel, tried to conduct them. (See Chapter X.) 
 
 Round Irkutsk the iron ring of rebellion was gradu- 
 ally tightening. On December 24, the uprising broke 
 out in the city itself. The Czechs were practically OL< 
 the side of the revolutionaries, and the Allied represent- 
 atives only formally neutral. They finally proposed to 
 Kolchak's Minister to surrender to the "Political Cen- 
 ter," as it had "nothing in common with the Bolshe- 
 viks." The negotiations came to nothing, as the "Po- 
 litical Center" did not want to guarantee safe passage 
 to Kolchak, his functionaries and his retreating army. 
 On January 5, 1920, a manifesto of the "Political Cen- 
 ter" announced that "the power of the dictator, Kol- 
 chak, who carried the war against the people, has been 
 overthrown by the will of the insurgent people and 
 army." Admiral Kolchak was declared an "enemy of 
 the people," and the Czechs, with the silent consent of 
 the French General Janin, extradited him to the new 
 Irkutsk power. After 17 days of existence that power 
 in its turn surrendered to the Soviet of Workmen's,
 
 164 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. On the approach of 
 Kappel's army to Irkutsk, on February 7, Admiral 
 Kolchak and his last Premier, Victor Pepelayev, were 
 shot by the Bolsheviks, after a mock-trial. 
 
 Conditions were much more favorable for the libera- 
 tion of Russia from the southern part of it than from 
 Siberia. It was much easier for the population to un- 
 derstand it as an "All-Russian" task and to become in- 
 terested in it. As the burdens of being under the Bol- 
 shevist regime were already known from personal ex- 
 perience in Russia proper, and especially in central 
 parts of it the population was much more ready to 
 welcome the liberators. Both economic means and 
 human material for building and sustaining large armies 
 were far more readily obtainable than had been the case 
 in Siberia. There was no ground for complaints about 
 lack of leading men, which had generally served as an 
 excuse for the Siberian failure. All specialties, all 
 capacities, all political groups were liberally repre- 
 sented among the refugees, and they all were happy 
 to serve the cause. Within Russia itself there had also 
 remained a plentiful supply of assistants of every 
 kind. The elements of statehood were much more 
 deeply rooted in the minds and in the habits of the 
 population of Southern Russia. The Allied countries 
 of Europe were close at hand. The interstate and inter- 
 national interest of restored peace and solidarity, moral, 
 economic, financial, was much more immediately felt. 
 Why was it then that even here, in spite of better 
 means and richer resources, the process of liberation 
 also failed? 
 
 The reasons were the same as they were in Siberia. 
 To begin with the personality of the leader, of course, 
 General A. J. Denikin was a stronger and better bal-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 165 
 
 anced man than Kolchak: a "soldier" also, but more 
 apt to understand the political aspect of the situation. 
 However, he is quite right in his autocharacterization, 
 when he says: "To me the Army is almost identical 
 with all my life. There are so many recollections, dear 
 and never-to-be-forgotten, which are connected with 
 it; everything is so tied up and interlaced into one 
 thread made of swiftly flown days of sorrow and joy, 
 hundreds of dear tombs, buried dreams and unextin- 
 guished hopes." 1 
 
 At Ekaterinodar and Rostov, the "Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia" (this 
 was in 1919 a new title for the former "Volunteer 
 Army," now formed to a large extent of conscripts) was 
 still under the spell of these recollections. He sur- 
 rounded himself with his fellow-generals of the Bykhov 
 prison and of the "icy campaign," most of whom were 
 much more narrow-minded than he, while the friends 
 of these friends were connected with the reactionary 
 groups of officers. The civil administration was repre- 
 sented by the "Special Council" mentioned above: an 
 intermediate institution between a Council of Minis- 
 ters and a small deliberate assembly. Personally Gen- 
 eral Denikin sympathized with the tendencies of its 
 liberal wing, represented by some members of the 
 "Cadet" Party, and the "Cadets" (Constitutional-Dem- 
 ocrats) were sometimes made responsible for his policy. 
 But they were only four in the "Special Council" as 
 against the twenty-three members of the conservative 
 wing. The Council was presided over and controlled 
 
 1 General Denikin's Memoirs ("Sketches of Russia's Troubled 
 Times") are being published in Russian in Paris (Pavolozky, pub- 
 lisher). It shows the author as a very talented writer. Thus far two 
 parts of the first volume have been published, finishing with the 
 imprisonment at Berdichev, after the Kornilov uprising.
 
 166 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 by a general whose ideas belonged to the past (Gen. 
 Abram Dragomirov). With a kind of good-humored 
 optimism Gen. Denikin kept in balance the discordant 
 elements in his Council, the members of which all rec- 
 ognized his moral authority. But the result was that 
 the army was left to do what it wished, and there was 
 a complete lack of any political program. According to 
 Gen. Denikin's ideas this was to be a "transitional" pe- 
 riod, during which all substantial questions were to be 
 left open, until the "constructive period" set in with 
 the liberation of Russia and with the opening of a "Na- 
 tional" Assembly (Gen. Denikin tried to avoid using 
 the term "Constituent Assembly" which was the Rus- 
 sian name for Constitutional Convention). If that 
 time should bring with it a struggle between the politi- 
 cal parties for constructive issues, Gen. Denikin had 
 often declared, he would not take any part in it, but 
 after Russia's liberation would play Cincinnatus and 
 "plant cabbage." 
 
 However, in the second part of 1919 that kind of 
 program proved quite insufficient. The liberated terri- 
 tory was speedily expanding. At the end of September 
 it represented a large quadrangle limited by Kiev, 
 Odessa, Novorossiisk, Stavropol, Tsaritsin, with the tri- 
 angle of Kiev, Orel, Tsaritsin on its top. But for a long 
 time there was no Minister of Interior among Denikin's 
 "councilors." The civilians felt it extremely difficult 
 to combine their administration with the matter-of-fact 
 predominance of the military rule. The generals were 
 glad to be left free for as long a time as possible. The 
 result was that the army was demoralized and the pop- 
 ulation extremely disaffected. There was at least one 
 question the solution of which could not be possibly 
 postponed: the agrarian question. Committee after
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 167 
 
 committee was appointed by the "Special Council" to 
 prepare for its solution. Their work was more than 
 once cancelled by Gen. Denikin. And here it appeared 
 for the first time just how dangerous was that easy- 
 going method of neglecting urgent political demands 
 and public opinion. The Commander-in-Chief found 
 himself encircled by a group of influential landowners 
 and ensnared by their ideology. The progressive mem- 
 bers of the Council gave him unsatisfactory advice, and 
 all his attempts to break the resistance of the gentry 
 resulted in complicated compromises where plain and 
 decisive solutions were needed to make the peasants 
 confident and willing to help. 
 
 An uncompromising position was taken by Denikin 
 himself and by his advisers on the question of the Cos- 
 sacks' autonomy. "Russia united and undivided" was 
 understood by them in a sense which made "federa- 
 tion" appear almost a treacherous idea, while a part 
 of the Kuban Cossacks were already preaching com- 
 plete independence. Protracted negotiations fostered 
 ill feeling on both sides. The hatred of the Kuban Cos- 
 sacks towards Denikin grew especially strong when one 
 of the separatist Kuban leaders was murdered by the 
 reactionary officers, and another sentenced and hanged 
 by one of the generals on the accusation of high trea- 
 son. One can imagine how it reflected itself in the 
 state of mind of the Cossacks who were fighting at the 
 front, far from their native land. 
 
 At the same time, the reactionary officers considered 
 Gen. Denikin too much of a "Cadet." His head of 
 the Staff, Gen. Romanovsky, was especially hated, be- 
 cause he refused to restore to the officers of the old 
 army their pre-revolutionary distinctions and to revive 
 the old guard organization. They were also indignant
 
 168 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 because of Denikin's decision to leave the question of 
 monarchy open until the Constituent Assembly's de- 
 vision. The situation had become particularly strained 
 when, after the loss of Kiev and Odessa, new groups 
 of politicians and officers came to Ekaterinodar and 
 Rostov, who were both monarchist and pro-German. 
 The anti-Ally feeling was speedily growing as a result 
 of the half-hearted policy of the Allies, and the pro- 
 nounced pro-Germanism of the newcomers found the 
 ground prepared. The sympathies of the officers soon 
 began to turn to a man who while hi Kiev had given 
 proofs of his monarchist and pro-German tendencies. 
 It was General Wrangel, a very gifted military leader, 
 whose ties with the army were tightening in the same 
 degree as Denikin's reputation was falling down. The 
 reactionary officers finally were ready to resort to their 
 usual means of plotting and killing. "If I shall be 
 killed," Gen. Denikin used to say, "it will be by the 
 Right ones (the reactionaries)." 
 
 How did all this affect the process of the liberation 
 of Russia? The results of the chaos in the civil ad- 
 ministration, the high-handed deeds of the demoralized 
 army, the complete neglect of the interests of the liber- 
 ated population, the predominant influence of the for- 
 mer privileged class of landlords, the elimination of the 
 democratic parties influential among the popular 
 masses, the growing suspicion on the part of the Cos- 
 sacks, all this proved fatal to the hope of final success. 
 
 The state of mind of the population in the Bolshevist 
 part of Russia was more favorable to Denikin's offen- 
 sive than ever, and the population was certainly more 
 inclined to help the liberators than either the popula- 
 tion in Southern Russia or in Siberia, which latter had 
 not yet experienced the evils of the Bolshevist regime.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 169 
 
 All the consequences of that regime which are de- 
 scribed in Chapter VII began to make themselves felt 
 in 1919, and especially in the second part of it, and the 
 population had lost patience. The people in the towns 
 lacked food, and there was no personal safety. The 
 peasants had stopped sowing and selling grain and 
 wanted their new acquisitions of land to be legally 
 acknowledged. The Red Army did not wish to fight 
 and its ranks were being deserted. Finance, industry, 
 the food and fuel supply, and the means of transporta- 
 tion had reached an unprecedented state of break-down. 
 The Soviet powers were making spasmodic efforts to 
 wade through the crisis. Requisitions, mobilizations, 
 prosecutions by the Che-Ka seemed to have reached 
 the limit, and all classes of the population, intellect- 
 uals, workingmen, soldiers, peasants had been brought 
 to the point of despair. The idea was wide-spread that 
 the Bolsheviks would soon be overthrown. 1 
 
 The "White Army" of Gen. Denikin was met with 
 enthusiasm. The intellectuals and the cooperative 
 workers, who for the most part belonged to moderate 
 socialistic parties, discussed the question whether they 
 must immediately offer their services to the liberation 
 or wait until called upon "as only the propertied classes 
 had been appealed to." Red officers were quite pre- 
 pared to go over and to join their former comrades of 
 the old Russian Army. The soldiers found it useless 
 to fight on as "all the country is waiting for the down- 
 fall of the Bolsheviks." The peasants met the "White" 
 detachments on their knees, and the bells were rung 
 
 1 See a secret report on the state of the Bolshevist part of Russia 
 in October, 1919, written by a close observer who worked for two 
 years in a provincial professional union and lived for five months 
 hidden among the peasants in the zone of military operations. Pub- 
 lished in "The New Russia," Vol. I, No. 7, 8 and 9. London, 1920.
 
 170 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 in their honor in the village belfries. However, all this 
 did not last long. 
 
 The "White Army" was no longer what it had been 
 at the time of the "icy campaign" of February, 1918. 
 Most of the young enthusiasts of the first hour had 
 sacrificed their lives in the incessant battles. The new- 
 comers who joined the army at the tune of its growing 
 success were often moved by less idealistic considera- 
 tions. They had no scruples against making up for 
 their mockingly low salaries by speculating with army 
 supplies or even by looting the population. Plunder, 
 not only by individuals, but by entire units, became 
 almost a profession. Hundreds of railway cars were 
 packed with spoils which impeded the regiments in 
 their movements and finally caused them to look upon 
 retreat as a means for transferring their looted goods 
 to the rear. The Cossacks, who formed the majority of 
 the army, were especially known for that. Bribery, 
 drunken orgies, and every kind of violence became cus- 
 tomary, especially in the large cities and among the 
 chief commanders. The "White Army" gave no quarter 
 to the "Red" officers and very soon it was noticed that 
 the "Red" command had become by far more efficient 
 than it had been before. The people also changed their 
 mind, and several months after the triumphal recep- 
 tions no "White" officer could sever himself from his 
 detachment, even for a short time, without the risk of 
 being tracked and assassinated by the inhabitants. 
 
 The disaffection towards the officers and soldiers was 
 extended to the civil administrators, who followed the 
 army. The population often learned, first with aston- 
 ishment and then with indignation, the names of those 
 officials, who were those known to them from pre- 
 revolutionary times as the worst type of local satraps.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 171 
 
 They had only increased now the amount of their 
 bribes and had changed the methods of collecting them. 
 That was, indeed, a very telling symptom of the restora- 
 tion of the old regime. After a short while the popula- 
 tion forgot the horrors of Bolshevism and began to say, 
 "This is worse than the Bolsheviks." 
 
 But this is not all. Former landowners were also 
 coming back with the army. Each one endeavored 
 to return to his own former estate, which had been 
 taken by the peasants. They were escorted by a spe- 
 cial militia called the "State Guard." If the landlord 
 was a kindly man he was content with coming to an 
 amicable arrangement with the peasants, which the 
 latter sometimes quite willingly accepted. Occasion- 
 ally, the landlord was intent on revenge for the mis- 
 treatment or murder of some members of his family by 
 the peasants. His return was then coupled with re- 
 lentless reprisals, which naturally were bound to lead 
 to further retribution on the part of the peasants. Such 
 happenings, of course, were much more apt to impress 
 the masses than sophisticated schemes and prospects 
 for some future solution of the agrarian question. Un- 
 fortunately, the landlord was permitted, according to 
 these schemes, to collect one-fifth of the crops from the 
 peasants. This was enough for the peasant to come 
 to the conclusion that the estates of the nobles would 
 be taken from him by the new power. It was a much 
 more serious menace than the ineffective scheme of 
 "socialization" of the land, according to the communist 
 program. 
 
 The disappointment was universal, and a new sort of 
 peasant movement appeared: the so-called "Green" 
 armies. The "Greens" declared themselves neutral be- 
 tween the "Reds" and the "Whites." They were the
 
 172 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 "Greens" because they wandered about in the green 
 forests. The original idea was to stop the civil war by 
 armed resistance and to preserve the village from the 
 lootings of both the "Reds" and the "Whites." Gradu- 
 ally, many of the "Greens" became actual bandits, a 
 new scourge for the village. But the peasants still pre- 
 ferred them to both the Reds and the Whites. The 
 "Green" movement began in the Caucasus, but it soon 
 spread to Denikin's rear, hi the Ukraine, and one of its 
 leaders, the notorious Makhno, for a time threatened 
 to raid Rostov. 
 
 The intellectuals, moderate socialists, cooperators, 
 all were mercilessly confounded by the "Whites" with 
 the Bolsheviks. Everything which went beyond the 
 incomplete spectrum of extremely tame political group- 
 ings permitted to exist openly at the seats of the "White 
 armies," was considered by the "Whites" to be pro-Bol- 
 shevist. The Crimean Government, composed of 
 "Cadets," who wished to remain democratic, became 
 suspected of extremism. The Zemstvos and the Mu- 
 nicipalities were reflected on the basis of a revised elec- 
 toral law, and, as the socialist parties in most places 
 abstained from electioneering, conservative elements 
 took the place of the former radical majority. These 
 and similar methods served to alienate the sympathy 
 of the popular masses from Denikin's Government. 
 
 All these drawbacks and shortcomings explain why 
 Denikin's armies were becoming steadily weaker as they 
 were coming nearer to Moscow. There were, of course, 
 strategic reasons which partly account for the failure. 
 Under the normal conditions of a regular war such a 
 speedy advance without reserves and without securing 
 the rear would hardly be considered wise. But this 
 was a civil war, and in a civil war everything depends
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 173 
 
 on the state of mind of the population living under the 
 competing systems of government. We have seen how 
 favorable that state of mind was for the liberators and 
 how much it changed in the process of liberation owing 
 to the utterly bad tactics of the "White" armies. The 
 point is that the bad tactics was not at all incidental. 
 It was so closely connected with the political attitude 
 of the liberators and with the social composition of the 
 leading elements, that no individual will could bring 
 about any substantial change in the situation. Deni- 
 kin's failure, as I have said, was not his own. It was 
 the crucial test for such remainders of the old Russia as 
 had gathered round his banners: people for whom Deni- 
 kin himself was almost a revolutionary. For any clear- 
 thinking political observer that last experiment defi- 
 nitely proved that this method of liberating Russia 
 from the Bolsheviks must never again be resorted to. 
 It was so self-evident, indeed, that Denikin himself, 
 at the last hour, tried to change his tactics completely. 
 In about three months (October-December, 1919) all 
 the territory between Orel and the Don River was lost. 
 On Christmas Novocherkassk was taken by the Bol- 
 sheviks ; on the next day, December 26, Rostov shared 
 its fate. Out of the 200,000 fighting at the front before 
 October, 1 only 10,00 of the Volunteer Army, 40,000 of 
 the Don Army and 6,000-7,000 of the Caucasian Army 
 (Kubans) remained. Denikin had to go back to 
 Ekaterinodar not as a conqueror, but almost as a sup- 
 plicant. He agreed to limit his power by creating a 
 "South-Russian" Government, and he made every con- 
 cession desired by the Kuban Cossack Assembly. It 
 was too late and neither side believed the other. The 
 
 1 There were 700,000 "eaters" in the army, but only 200,000 
 "fighters" at the front.
 
 174 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 only result of Denikin's concessions to the Cossacks 
 was that the reactionary officers definitely decided to 
 hand over the power to Gen. Wrangel. Wrangel's 
 scheme was to forsake the Cossacks entirely and to re- 
 treat to the Southwest, to the Crimea and to Odessa, 
 where he planned to arm German colonists. Denikin 
 retreated to the, South, to Ekaterinodar and Novoros- 
 siisk. He profited by the delay of two months (No- 
 vorossiisk was evacuated on March 12-14) in order to 
 prepare a new base for the retreating army in the 
 Crimea. Neither he nor his new Government had any 
 power left. Denikin finally decided to resign. In com- 
 pliance with the general desire of the army, he nomi- 
 nated Gen. Wrangel his successor and an hour later left 
 for London (March 22). 
 
 At the same time with Kolchak's and Denikin's at- 
 tempts to liberate Russia a third attempt was liqui- 
 dated, that of General Yudenich. Aided by the British 
 and, through their mediation, by the Esthonians, Gen- 
 eral Yudenich had prepared for a military raid on 
 Petrograd, with an army which was one-tenth the size 
 of Denikin's army (20,000 "fighters," out of the 70,- 
 000 "eaters"). In a few days, however, Yudenich 's 
 offensive, which was very clumsily executed, was 
 checked by Trotsky (October 10-25, 1919). The 
 whole episode had no importance in the general 
 scheme of the anti-Bolshevist struggle, Yudenich's 
 raid could only have succeeded if Denikin had 
 come from Orel to Moscow and Kolchak from the 
 Urals to the Volga. But, here too, the anti-Bolshe- 
 vist military movement revealed the same features, 
 which are familiar to us, with the addition of some 
 others peculiar to the local surroundings in the Baltic 
 region. The contrast between a showy display of lib-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 175 
 
 eralism by the Government and the reactionary dis- 
 position of the army was here especially emphasized, 
 because the Government, the "Northwestern," had been 
 specially created at the British order, while the great 
 part of the army had been drilled by the Germans. On 
 August 11, 1919, General March had actually ordered 
 a group of Russian politicians in Reval to build, in 
 forty minutes, a "democratic" Government and to im- 
 mediately recognize the independence of Esthonia and 
 to summon at once a sort of National Assembly at 
 Pskov or at Dorpat-Yuryev. The dependence of Gen- 
 eral Yudenich upon that Government was purely fic- 
 titious. As soon as he got one million pounds sterling 
 from Kolchak he felt free to act as he liked, and he 
 decided to formally dissolve his "democratic" Govern- 
 ment as soon as he should take Petrograd. Some 
 officers connected with the former secret police pre- 
 pared a list of people to be murdered in Petrograd, at 
 the moment of its occupation. Two Russian detach- 
 ments, organized by German reactionary generals, were 
 expected to take part in the operations of the "North- 
 western Army": Prince Lieven's division and General 
 Bermont-Avalov's corps. Both were controlled by Gen. 
 Ludendorff's subordinates, Gen. von der Goltz and Gen. 
 Bischoff. At the decisive moment Gen. Bermont's 
 corps, instead of helping Yudenich, occupied Riga, the 
 seat of the Latvian Government (October 9), which at 
 once made the Esthonians change their attitude. It 
 also caused the British fleet to change its plan, and, in- 
 stead of bombarding Kronstadt, rapidly to steam off 
 and to bombard Riga. The lack of decision and of 
 unity of command, and the disappointment of the popu- 
 lation did the rest. Yudenich fled away, the "North- 
 western" Government evaporated, the retreating sol-
 
 176 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 diers and officers were disarmed by the Esthonians, 
 and the remaining funds mysteriously disappeared. 
 The enthusiasm with which the Petrograd working- 
 men seemed to be inspired in warding off Yudenich's 
 attack might have served as a new warning to the peo- 
 ple who asserted that the task of liberation was easy 
 and that it could be solved by mere military operations 
 from outside. It was again the "spirit" of the popula- 
 tion that decided. 
 
 The natural end of the armed "White" movement 
 seemed to come with the downfall of the three centers 
 of it in Siberia, Southern Russia and in the North- 
 western border States of Finland, Esthonia and Latvia. 
 Under dissimilar local surroundings the basic causes of 
 failure, as we have seen, were always the same, that is, 
 inherent in the movement itself. The chief drawback 
 was that it was the formerly privileged groups of the 
 population, disinherited by the Revolution, which took 
 the lead and were eager to stay at the helm, to the 
 exclusion of the rest of the population and of all the 
 really democratic political parties. They could steer 
 only into the old channel because they knew of no 
 other. But, the trend of actual life could not be di- 
 verted to that channel of old Russia. 
 
 However, the end had not yet come. The armed 
 struggle continued for fully eight months more (March 
 22-November 14, 1920), under the leadership of Gen- 
 eral Wrangel. On March 20 the British Admiral de 
 Robeck had proposed to Denikin that he stop the civil 
 war and accept Britain's mediation, under the threat 
 that all further aid would be withdrawn. On August 
 12 the French Government decided to recognize 
 Wrangel's government in the Crimea as the de facto 
 government of Southern Russia, "after having taken
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 177 
 
 into consideration the military successes and growing 
 strength of Wrangel's government as well as his assur- 
 ances as to the democratic character of his internal 
 politics." Later on in the year, on October 20, when 
 the necessity of diverting the Bolshevist army from the 
 Polish front to Wrangel's front had passed, the French 
 Government became less credulous as to Wrangel's as- 
 surances, and the French High Commissioner at Wran- 
 gel's headquarters, Count de Martel, warned him about 
 the incongruity of his sayings and doings and insisted 
 on necessary changes of policy. These three moments 
 determine the curve of Wrangel's rise and fall in the 
 eyes of the Allied diplomacy. 
 
 Of all the prominent leaders of the "White" armies 
 Wrangel was the only one who was ambitious and had 
 a personal taste for power. He was also clever enough 
 to see the obstacles in the way to power. He had no 
 desire to repeat Denikin's mistakes and was quite de- 
 cided about taking the right path, without discriminat- 
 ing between the political parties or programs. In the 
 first place, he knew too well that no success was possible 
 as long as the army was demoralized. That was his 
 chief point against Denikin and many well-meaning 
 people who supported his claim to Denikin's place were 
 moved by the consideration that Wrangel was the only 
 man who could reestablish discipline in the army. And 
 indeed, in a few weeks Wrangel succeeded in raising the 
 spirit of the army and in restoring its confidence. How- 
 ever, the secret of his success was soon brought out in 
 strong relief. It was the spirit of caste with which 
 the army was now imbued, and the solidarity of crime 
 and lawlessness had taken the place of military disci- 
 pline. The prevailing influence rested in a group of 
 young officers, to whom everything was permitted.
 
 178 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 They tolerated only such superiors as shut their eyes 
 to their debauched conduct and simply refused to rec- 
 ognize such nominations as did not please them. A 
 civilian was to them a nonentity. As a matter of fact 
 no civil administration existed. The only courts of 
 justice that still existed, the military courts, were com- 
 pletely disregarded if the culprit belonged to the privi- 
 leged caste, and they were forced to sanction hangings 
 and shootings, if the privileged ones condescended to 
 put their victims before the tribunals. It was only 
 natural that when this army went on an offensive, loot- 
 ing and robbing of the population at once became uni- 
 versal. A regiment on the march looked, according to 
 a witness, something like a "gypsies' camp." The 
 whole detachment consisted of 200 to 300 armed men 
 or 500 to 600 at the utmost. Behind them for long 
 miles there followed a train of wagons loaded with fur- 
 niture, chickens, porkers and a great many women. 
 The population soon began to ignore the mobiliza- 
 tions: certain cantons of the Malitopol district, e.g., 
 instead of 1,000 gave six to ten men. Gen. Wrangel 
 ordered that property of the relatives of the deserters 
 be confiscated, and the "punitive expeditions" were 
 thus practically free to loot the whole population. 
 
 Now, there was another idea which had become 
 axiomatic: the land was to be left with the peasants, 
 in order not to repeat the mistake of Denikin's agrarian 
 legislation. Gen Wrangel was ready to .straighten it 
 out. But, here again, he was unable to carry out a 
 really democratic solution. His idea of democracy, 
 and he was supported in it by the former Tsarist Min- 
 ister, Krivoshayin, was that of old Russia. The peas- 
 ants, according to this idea, want the Tsar, the supreme 
 "Master-Owner" (the Russian word "Khozyain" im-
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 179 
 
 plies both meanings), and do not need the "Cadets" or 
 intellectuals. If left alone, face to face with the 
 squires, they will easily agree and work hand in glove, 
 from their villages and cantons upwards to the Con- 
 stituent Assembly. This was again that "betting on 
 the grey (the peasant)" which falsified the agrarian 
 and the electoral reforms of the time of the Dumas. 
 According to Gen. Wrangel, Gen. Denikin's mistake 
 had been his reliance on the "Cadet" agrarian pro- 
 gram. The "Cadets" and the "National Center" 
 even the tame "Cadets" of Denikin's period were now 
 to be ignored. Krivoshayin's influence was paramount. 
 
 Consequently, the agrarian regulations of May 25, 
 1920, were full of loopholes and tricks to restore what- 
 ever possible from the landed estates of the gentry. 
 The size of plots, the way of remunerating the former 
 owners was left to the "Land Councils" in the town- 
 ships, and the influence of the squires on the decisions 
 of these "Land Councils" can be measured by the great 
 size of the estates restored to the former possessors. 
 Under the peculiar conditions of land ownership in the 
 Crimea, the reform did not provoke open resistance. 
 But outside of the Crimea word soon spread that Gen- 
 eral Wrangel was an enemy of the peasants, and the 
 name "Krivoshayin" was enough to persuade them that 
 this was true. The peasants boycotted Wrangel's 
 agrarian regulations and waited for some new power 
 to come to their rescue. 
 
 A third point whereat Wrangel earnestly wished to 
 improve upon Denikin was the question of autonomy 
 or federation. The very use of the word "federation" 
 had been strictly forbidden under Denikin. It was now 
 made use of by Wrangel's advisers. But, again, the 
 choice of advisers and executors was dictated by Wran-
 
 180 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 gel's political connections. To improve the relations 
 with the nationalities and with the Cossack territories 
 a man was chosen who was as much suspected of favor- 
 ing centralism, as Krivoshayin was of landlordism. It 
 was Mr. P. B. Struve, the well-known protagonist of 
 Russian and even of "Great-Russian" nationalism. So 
 far as the Cossacks were concerned, the result was the 
 sham agreement with the "State formations of the Don, 
 Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan territories" of August 4, 
 1920, which the atamans were ordered to sign hi 
 twenty-four hours, in order to "demonstrate their union 
 with Wrangel before Europe." The document met with 
 protests outside the Crimea as it was by far worse 
 than Denikin's draft-constitution which had been re- 
 jected by the Cossacks. Some amendments were intro- 
 duced, but they remained on paper. An agreement 
 with the Ukraine was as essential for Wrangel's mili- 
 tary schemes as that with the Cossacks. On September 
 23 Gen. Wrangel consented to receive a delegation 
 from one of the moderate Ukrainian federalist groups 
 ("the Ukrainian National Committee in Paris"). The 
 official statement sent out by Mr. Struve after that in- 
 terview was as follows: "Prompted by the desire to 
 unite all the anti-Bolshevik forces, Gen. Wrangel is 
 ready to support the development of national demo- 
 cratic forces on the same lines as proclaimed by the 
 agreement with the Cossack regions. Gen. Wrangel 
 does not admit the possibility of allying himself with 
 any separatist movement." Even for the "federalists" 
 such a statement was hardly satisfactory. Mr. Struve's 
 idea was to negotiate with the military units fighting 
 against the Bolsheviks, and to avoid rapprochement 
 with the political organizations that backed them. But 
 under the conditions obtaining no such negotiations
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 181 
 
 with Pavlenko, to the exclusion of Petlura, the sepa- 
 ratist; or with Balakhovich and Permikin, to the ex- 
 clusion of Savinkov, the "vassal" of the Poles could 
 fructify. As a matter of fact, nothing came of the 
 negotiations. 
 
 A formula was found by the partisans of WrangeFs 
 policy which very well emphasizes its political mean- 
 ing. It was the "left (i.e., liberal) policy carried out 
 by the right (e.g., conservative) hands." We know of 
 examples of a "right" policy carried out successfully 
 by the "left" hands; such was, e.g., the policy of Lloyd 
 George or Briand. We have also precedents of con- 
 servative cabinets carrying out liberal programs in 
 earnest, to take the wind from the sails of their politi- 
 cal opponents. Gen. WrangeFs policy was unlike 
 either. It was a clumsy attempt to cheat the world 
 with liberal catchwords for the benefit of a small group 
 who were over-confident that they alone knew the real 
 Russia, the Russia of illiterate peasants ruled by be- 
 nevolent squires, with methods of patriarchal compul- 
 sion. 
 
 However, the very basis of WrangeFs power was too 
 shaky and uncertain, for this last variation of the 
 "White" policy to materialize. A few days before his 
 nomination to Denikin's post Gen. Wrangel had told 
 his friends that the situation was desperate. He did 
 not wish to negotiate with the Bolsheviks, as had been 
 proposed by the British, but he at once started on prep- 
 arations for the evacuation of the Crimea. That idea 
 of an evacuation bound to come, sooner or later, stuck 
 at the back of his head, and it explains many things in 
 his conduct, as a military leader. His first offensive 
 move in the immediate neighborhood of the Crimea 
 was explained to the world as caused by the necessity
 
 182 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 to secure food from a grain producing region. But his 
 further schemes of attack were all risky and reckless, 
 while the only defensive scheme, fortifying the 
 Crimean Isthmus, which might have made his last 
 refuge an impregnable fortress, was utterly neglected. 
 In July and in August Gen. Wrangel tried to start an 
 uprising of the Don Cossacks and at the same time to 
 take possession of the mouth of the Dnieper. The only 
 result was enormous losses of men and the seizure by 
 the Reds of a very important passage across the Dnie- 
 per at Kahovka. The second scheme was to transfer 
 the military base back to the Caucasus and to prepare 
 for it by an uprising in the Kuban Valley. A landing 
 took place on August 13 and a serious uprising began 
 in the neighboring "stanitsas." But as soon as the 
 Cossacks saw the high-handed way in which Wrangel's 
 generals were treating them, the movement fell flat at 
 once and the population saved themselves, their cattle, 
 their horses, their carriages, their foodstuffs by hiding 
 from mobilization and requisition. It was the same 
 passive resistance as shown by the population of the 
 Taurida Province (the Crimea and neighboring dis- 
 tricts) . In a couple of weeks the operation was liqui- 
 dated. The third scheme of attack, which began on 
 September 12, was directed straight to the North. The 
 moment was favorable, as the Red Army had suffered 
 defeats at the hands of the Poles. All the Russian anti- 
 Bolshevist armed groups on Polish territory and the 
 remainders of the "Northwestern" Russian detachments 
 (see above) were ready to recognize Wrangel. He pro- 
 posed, in Paris, a scheme for a concerted action with the 
 Poles on Kiev. But the Bolsheviks prevented that 
 action by proposing peace to Poland, with territorial 
 and financial concessions.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 183 
 
 It was in order to turn all the Red forces against 
 Wrangel that Mr. Joffe, the Bolshevist plenipotentiary, 
 capitulated at Riga and consented to the annexation 
 by the Poles of a stretch of Russian territory one hun- 
 dred miles wide, to the east of the so-called Curzon 
 Line, which later almost coincided with the ethno- 
 graphic frontier and had been proposed by the League 
 of Nations in July- December, 1919. On the occasion 
 of the Riga Treaty, the French diplomacy forsook 
 Wrangel, and Mr. Lloyd George in a speech at Lland- 
 udno made one of his recurrent declarations that he 
 wanted peace with the Bolsheviks as a condition of gen- 
 eral peace in Europe. Thenceforth, Gen. Wrangel was 
 lost. His desperate attempt to outflank the Bolsheviks 
 at Kahovka by acting from the rear, from behind the 
 Dnieper (end of October) resulted in a complete rout 
 of his troops. A disorderly retreat to the Crimea be- 
 gan, and as there were no fortifications on the Isthmus, 
 the Red troops immediately penetrated into the Cri- 
 mean peninsula. The second week of November 
 (8-14) was the last of the Government of South Russia. 
 Evacuation was practically the only operation success- 
 fully performed by Wrangel, because it was the only 
 movement well prepared for in advance. That is also 
 why the last stage of defense was so much neglected 
 and the last bit of anti-Bolshevist territory so easily 
 left behind. 
 
 "We have no other territory, except the Crimea," 
 Gen. Wrangel announced openly on November 10, 
 1920. "The Government has no means to help the 
 evacuated, either on their way or in the future. No 
 foreign power has given its consent to receive them. 
 Their fate is completely unknown." 
 
 Disregarding that warning, people fled for their
 
 184 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 lives, panic-stricken. Fully 135,000 went to Constan- 
 tinople, without food and drink, in 136 packed ships, 
 where they were forced to stay for weeks before they 
 were permitted to land. Tens of thousands of others 
 who were left in the Crimea were shot by the Bolshe- 
 viks. Contagious diseases and utter misery was the 
 lot of many who saved themselves. Such as survived 
 were morally dead. Dead was the "White" idea, 
 the "White dream," as one of the "dreamers," Mr. 
 Shulghin, now called it. But Mr. Shulghin was right 
 when he added that it was not in Constantinople that 
 the "White dream" was dispelled. It died when the 
 lower instincts of looting and enriching oneself at the 
 expense of the population, when drunken orgies alter- 
 nating with the cruelties of the "WTiite terror" took the 
 place of heroism and of the patriotic enthusiasm of the 
 first hour. It was then that the "WTiite" idea was 
 definitely rejected by the masses and the military men 
 became a caste, isolated in their own country and hav- 
 ing no choice but to flee and to emigrate. They re- 
 mained isolated even among the flood of refugees, and, 
 as they still stuck to their privileges in the midst of 
 the general suffering, the rank and file refugees were 
 heard to say: "Whatever you think of the Bolsheviks, 
 you must agree that they have rendered one great 
 service to the Russian people: they have thrown out 
 of Russia all those dregs, all that rot." 1 
 
 The truth is that the appearance of Gen. WrangePs 
 army abroad (he counted them as 70,000 out 
 of 135,000 refugees) finally split the Russian emi- 
 grants into two camps. The democratic groups de- 
 fended the view that the whole system of struggle 
 against the Bolsheviks had to be changed and the 
 
 *G. Rakovski, "The End of the Whites" (in Russian) Prague, 1921.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 185 
 
 "White movement" definitely discontinued. They 
 held that the last traces of Wrangel's power had to be 
 abolished, his army demobilized and turned into regu- 
 lar refugees who would be free to earn their living. 
 There was a strong movement within Wrangel's army 
 itself to break free from the fetters of Wrangel's disci- 
 pline and to go. But it met with the deliberate resolve 
 on the part of Wrangel's generals to keep the men to- 
 gether by methods of violence. The White terror of 
 a Kutepov or of a Turkul was now applied to the 
 camps at Gallipoli, Lemnos, etc., where the disarmed 
 officers and soldiers were kept like prisoners. The idea 
 was that the "living force" must be preserved up to the 
 moment when it would be needed for some new armed 
 struggle against the Reds. Gen. Wrangel had decided 
 to preserve his power until that time, and he even 
 formed (April 5, 1921) a kind of government, the "Rus- 
 sian Council." In vain did France inform him as early 
 as November 30, 1920, that she considered his gov- 
 ernment as non-existent and that his army, according 
 to international law, must be disarmed and disbanded. 
 Gen. Wrangel still clung to the phantom and stubbornly 
 continued his game, appealing to Russian patriotism 
 and treating as traitors every one who did not agree 
 with him. France repeatedly warned him that some 
 day the feeding of the emigres must be discontinued. 
 From January, 1921, the French Government had to 
 prolong the rationing of Wrangel's camps to February, 
 from February to April, from April to May. They 
 even tried to enforce the return of Wrangel's Cossacks 
 to Soviet Russia. (Some 11,000 actually returned.) 
 Finally it was decided to transfer the remainder of the 
 troops, with other refugees, to Serbia and Bulgaria. In 
 the autumn, 1921, that process was consummated and
 
 186 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Wrangel with his generals had to leave Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 Unfortunately, even this may not yet be the end of 
 Gen. Wrangel's game. We have seen how, gradually, 
 a selection of the most reactionary elements took place, 
 and these elements have remained faithful to Wrangel. 
 This was a natural starting point for a systematic and 
 well-organized political propaganda, hi order to make 
 of the rest of Wrangel's forces a ready weapon for a 
 monarchist restoration hi Russia. In Bulgaria, and 
 especially in Serbia, the work of sustaining the refugees 
 is kept well hi the hands of Wrangel's commanders and 
 other reactionary agents, who make use of their power 
 for enlisting the refugees in monarchist and reactionary 
 organizations. Their political activity is supported by 
 reactionary centers in Budapest, Munich and Berlin. 
 The branches of the monarchist organizations are 
 widely spread in Europe (Paris, Prague) and 
 even hi this'country. 1 The former "Germanophilism" 
 of Wrangel and of the Russian reactionary elements 
 seems to have helped them in binding connections with 
 the German monarchists. I have already mentioned 
 that since 1918 attempts were made by German mili- 
 tarist groups to organize monarchist armies in Russia, 
 and we noted the activities of some of these armies on 
 the Northwestern frontiers. Since Yudenich's defeat 
 
 *0n my landing in New York, in October, 1921, I was kindly 
 favored with a leaflet entitled: "Miliukoff the Traitor. His Po- 
 litical Record" New York City, October, 1921, signed by the ''Rus- 
 sian National Society," "Association Unity of Russia," ''Union of 
 Russian Peasants in America and Canada," "Union of Russian Mon- 
 archists in America" and "Russian Brotherhood in Galicia." I was 
 told that there are few members in these "Unions" and always the 
 same. The leadership seems to belong to Mr. Brasol. Archbishop 
 Platon addressed a monarchist petition to President Harding but 
 did not seem to receive a satisfactory reply.
 
 ANTI-BOLSHEVIST RUSSIA 187 
 
 certain elements of these armed detachments are still 
 in existence and are controlled from Berlin. 
 
 However, if that were all there is to anti-Bolshevist 
 Russia, the Bolsheviks might feel on sure gound. The 
 more the anti-Bolshevist movement was becoming re- 
 actionary and monarchist, the more it had to rely on 
 foreign help and intervention, and, as a consequence, 
 the more it helped the Bolsheviks. A feeling of patriot- 
 ism evolved within Russia and especially in the ranks 
 of the Red army, which was used adroitly by the Bol- 
 shevist power to rest their authority on a moral basis. 
 If the reactionary emigrants were to take the place of 
 the reactionary "White" armies, the ties would be en- 
 tirely broken between emigration and Russia. 
 
 Fortunately, this is not the case. In the measure as 
 reaction was unmasking itself, the liberal elements 
 among the emigrants had to take sides. A nucleus of 
 democratic groups was formed as early as January, 
 1921, at a conference of the Members of the All-Rus- 
 sian Constituent Assembly, which met at Paris. Ele- 
 ments of former political parties are regrouping them- 
 selves around that nucleus. Their political faith is: 
 Democracy and a federated Republic in a Russia that 
 has grown politically conscious through the process of 
 its revolution. It is this program, not that of reac- 
 tion and monarchist restoration, which is hailed by the 
 anti-Bolshevist elements in Russia itself. The issue 
 which is now being fought out is not between Bol- 
 shevism and reaction. It is between Bolshevism and 
 democracy. To keep that issue clear is the task of 
 Russian liberalism abroad.
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM. 
 
 We have seen the origin of Bolshevism and we now 
 know its aims, both in internal and in external policy. 
 We know that in their internal policy the Bolsheviks 
 never intended to introduce real communism in Russia 
 and were satisfied with "State Capitalism," for which 
 they are even ready to substitute "State Control," if 
 only they can get a new lease of life at the price of 
 this concession. We also know that their chief interest 
 has been centered in their foreign policy, as their only 
 aim has always been to bring about a world revolution. 
 
 What is the result of the long experiment which has 
 lasted for four full years? The Utopian dreams have 
 gradually receded to the background, while realistic 
 tactics has been becoming an aim for and in itself. The 
 achievement of the World Revolution has had to be 
 postponed. Now the Bolsheviks are reaching the point 
 when in one way or another they will be forced 
 formally to repudiate their experiment in "incomplete" 
 communism. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" 
 will be the last thing they will concede, and this is 
 practically the only thing they really achieved if you 
 pass over "the proletariat" part of it and explain the 
 "dictatorship" as a survival of old autocratic methods, 
 in their crudest medieval form, of a rule by direct vio- 
 lence. 
 
 188
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 189 
 
 Of course, the Bolsheviks themselves explain their 
 utter failure by that unforeseen circumstance that the 
 world proletariat was too slow to follow their example. 
 No communist State, they argue, can exist in the midst 
 of the capitalist States. With the same reason some 
 sectarians finally admitted that no "sons of God" can 
 carry on their paradisic existence among the "sons of 
 evil." The argument is poor because it begs the ques- 
 tion, whether sons of God can exist at all in this world 
 of sin. 
 
 The real explanation of the Bolshevist failure is, of 
 course, much simpler than that. No human society 
 that consumes without producing can exist. Bol- 
 shevism has only succeeded in building a huge machine 
 of bureaucracy and warfare while at the same time it 
 has destroyed all incentive for industry and trade and 
 has had to live on the natural produce of an equally 
 ruined agriculture. History knows one single instance 
 of a similar experiment. It was the late Roman Em- 
 pire where "the number of such as spend finally be- 
 came larger than the number of such as produce" and 
 which could only continue its frail existence on the ob- 
 ligatory work of a conquered people. This has now 
 become the fate of the "Republic of workmen and 
 peasants." Of course, the result was bound to be the 
 same: a gradual decay of highly developed forms of 
 State and a return to the medieval or even to the tribal 
 stage of life. Of course, there is another side to this 
 process : that of a new growth, and we shall come back 
 to it. But so far as the Bolshevist experiment is con- 
 cerned, we now must analyze its process of degenera- 
 tion and disintegration, in order to understand what 
 must be its natural end. 
 
 The first sign of decay is reflected in Russian de-
 
 190 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 mography. The Russian nation belongs to that group 
 of younger nations whose birth rate has not yet under- 
 gone the checking influence of urban civilization. Rus- 
 sia headed the world's list in births and, unfortunately, 
 also hi the mortality of her children. In the fifteen 
 years from the census of 1897 to 1912 Russia's popula- 
 tion increased by 42.8 millions, i.e., at the rate of 2.8 
 millions a year. The following figures will show how 
 that state of things was changed first by the war and 
 then by the Bolshevist rule: 
 
 (Per 1000) 1900-1909 1917 1919 
 
 Births 46.1 39.4 13.0 
 
 Deaths . 29.4 25.4 74.9 
 
 + 16.7 + 14.0 61.9 
 
 That is, instead of an increase of 1.7=1.4 per cent, of 
 the population, we have the distressing fact of an an- 
 nual decrease of 6 per cent. 
 
 A Russian economist, Mr. S. Maslov, who has just 
 escaped from Soviet Russia, gives the following figures 
 showing the movement of the population in the twelve 
 provinces of the old Russian center, which has espe- 
 cially suffered from Bolshevism. 
 
 Urban Rural 
 
 Population Population Total 
 
 1916 6,779,482 18,416,496 25.195,978 
 
 1920 3,851.487 18.375.031 22,226,518 
 
 2.927,995 41,465 2,969,460 
 (43.2 per cent.) (0.2 per cent.) 
 
 It is also interesting to note the change in the com- 
 position of the population by sexes, unfavorable to the
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 191 
 
 towns and favorable to -the villages (in the same twelve 
 provinces) : 
 
 Urban Population Rural Population 
 
 (Male) (Female) (Male) (Female) 
 
 1897 134.5 100 
 
 1916 73.6 100 
 
 1920 83.5 100 77.0 100 
 
 The disintegration began from the head, the indus- 
 trial population of the towns. The city population was 
 in general comparatively small in Russia, but its num- 
 ber was increasing: from 4 millions in 1897 to 6.8 mil- 
 lions in 1916 in the 12 provinces mentioned (in all 
 Russia the proportion of the city population increased 
 for the same period from 12.9 per cent, to 17.5 per 
 cent.). Now, in 1920 the figure fell to 3.8 millions, 
 i.e., less than it was in 1897. The facts of gradual de- 
 terioration and final destruction of buildings in the 
 towns, of decay of municipal enterprises, such as water- 
 works, sewerages, lighting systems, tramways, etc., are 
 too well-known to be dwelt upon. Let us turn to the 
 state of industry in Bolshevist Russia. 
 
 Fuel can be called the key-production which deter- 
 mines the state of industry. In Russia the "starvation 
 minimum" for fuel, absolutely necessary to keep up 
 production and life in the country, is considered to be 
 10 to '11 million cubic "sagens" (1 cu. sagen=343 cubic 
 feet). Here are the figures showing the total amount 
 of fuel in the country. 
 
 1916 1917 1918 1919 
 Millions cu. "sagens" 17. 13. 0.9 0.7 
 
 After 1918 Soviet Russia was cut off from its coal 
 and petroleum supply by the civil war, and it was only
 
 192 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 in the Spring, 1920, that it entered into possession of 
 the respective territories. It was thus left without its 
 starvation minimum. Population, industry, transpor- 
 tation suffered greatly from the lack of fuel, as can be 
 seen from the following figures showing fuel used in 
 millions of cu. "sagens" : 
 
 1916 1917 1918 1919 
 Population (heating, water, 
 
 light) 2.8 3. 2.9 1.5 
 
 Industry 5.2 4. 3.2 2.1 
 
 Transportation 9. 6. 3. 3.3 
 
 In 1920, after the defeat of Gen. Denikin, the amount 
 of fuel was expected to rise to 13.3 million cubic "sa- 
 gens." Coal, oil, timber was again under the control 
 of Moscow. But, owing to general conditions, the out- 
 put had decreased too much in the meantime to satisfy 
 even the "starvation minimum." It was a little better 
 in 1921, as one can see by the output of coal for six 
 months of 1921 as compared with the same period of 
 1920 (thousands of poods) : 
 
 January June 
 
 1920 1921 
 
 Donetz Basin 116 157 
 
 Moscow Basin 16 22 
 
 Urals 28 34 
 
 Siberia 27 37 
 
 Turkestan . , . 3 
 
 187 253 
 
 But it is still very far from normal production (Don- 
 etz in 1913753). 
 The production of iron has fared no better. The
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 193 
 
 total amount of metal required by industry for 1919 
 was 113 million poods. But only 37 millions could be 
 provided, i.e., about 30 per cent. The actual amount 
 of iron used, however, was only one-half of it, 15 per 
 cent. The reason was the diminution of productivity, 
 which was no more than 10 or even 5 per cent, in the 
 best factories. The chief work of the metallurgic trust 
 "Gomza" which unified in the hands of the State 614 
 nationalized concerns (out of the whole number of 
 1191), was the construction of locomotives and of roll- 
 ing stock. Only one-fifth or one-seventh of the pro- 
 gram of construction was accomplished. If com- 
 pared with 1914, the productivity of the Maltsev fac- 
 tory, one of the best, was decreasing at the following 
 rate: 
 
 1914 1915 1916 . 1917 1918 1919 
 100. 56.5 44.7 35.2 12. 7. 
 
 Attempts were made in 1920 to stop the fall in the 
 productivity of labor, but in 1921 it again resumed its 
 downward course. In the Auerbach Mine in the Urals, 
 e.g., the average output of ore per workman was (in 
 poods) : 
 
 Dec. 1920 Jan. 1921 Feb. 1921 Mar. 1921 
 234 162 186 132 
 
 The production of pig-iron fell in the interval from 
 1913-1920 from 257,398 thousand poods to 6,133 thou- 
 sand poods, i.e., to 2.4 per cent. 
 
 Let us take another important trust of the State: the 
 sugar trust. The decline in production is here charac- 
 terized by the following figures:
 
 194 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 
 Area sown with sug. 
 
 beet (thous. dessi- 
 
 atines) 697 682 613 539 411 387 180 
 
 Output of sugar 
 
 (million poods) . . 105 91 73 56 20 5 6 
 
 The production of flax was one of the most impor- 
 tant features of Russia's foreign trade. One-third of 
 the output was exported. But the peasants stopped 
 sowing flax, in the first place, because they had to sell 
 it at fixed prices, which were too low, and in the second 
 place, because they needed grain and preferred to sow 
 cereals. If compared with 1913 the area under flax 
 was especially reduced. If we take the figure for 1913 
 (li/2 million dessiatines) as 100, the following figures 
 will be: 
 
 1913 1916 1919 1920 
 100 85 35 19 
 
 As a result, instead of the 35-40 millions of poods of 
 the pre-war crops of flax, there were 13-10 millions 
 reaped after the war, while in 1919 and 1920 the crops 
 were 5 and 2 millions. That ancient branch of Rus- 
 sia's production and industry is thus entirely ruined. 
 
 It has been no better with the other branch of the 
 textile industry, which was particularly important in 
 Russia's industrial history and formed the backbone 
 of the Russian rich "bourgeoisie," the cotton industry. 
 Just before the war we succeeded in growing our own 
 cotton in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and home- 
 grown cotton was gradually substituted for the Ameri- 
 can, Egyptian, East Indian and Persian. The Russian 
 cotton industry occupied the fourth place in the world 
 production (after Great Britain, the United States and
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 195 
 
 Germany). It was all destroyed under the Bolsheviks. 
 The area under cotton in Turkestan speedily decreased 
 as a result of the disorganization of transport, decline 
 of industry, high prices of grain and low prices of cot- 
 ton. The figures are as follows (taking for 100 the fig- 
 ure for 1916, 553,761 dessiatines) : 
 
 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 
 100 66 14 15 19 
 
 The slight improvement in the cotton crop acreage 
 was not reflected in improvement of the industry 
 owing to the very inefficient system of purchase and 
 distribution of raw cotton by the "Glavnotextil." The 
 nationalized concerns represented (in 1919) a total of 
 6.9 million spindles and 162 thousand weaving looms. 
 Their yearly requirements in raw materials amounted 
 to 18 million poods of cotton and to 14 million poods 
 of yarn. What did they obtain from the Central 
 Board? About 4.7 per cent, of their requirements. 
 The Centrotextil set 1,320 thousand spindles (i.e., 19 
 per cent.) and 53 thousand weaving looms (32 per 
 cent.) to work. But after 8 months 300 thousand 
 spindles (4 per cent.) and 18 thousand weaving looms 
 were actually working (11 per cent.). 93 concerns 
 were closed during 1918-1919, and the remaining ones 
 worked only a part of the week. In 1920 the factories 
 received about 14 per cent, of their requirements (2 
 million poods of 16 million), but proved unable to cope 
 even with this quantity. The output fell to about 4.3 
 per cent, of that of pre-revolutionary times. The 
 program "maximum" for 1921 (198 concerns with 5 
 million spindles and 120 thousand weaving looms) ne- 
 cessitated a consumption of 11.5 million poods of cot-
 
 196 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ton, while no more than 6.5 million were to be found 
 in Turkestan. Under the conditions of general decay 
 it was hardly possible to achieve even the program 
 "minimum" (103 concerns, 2 million spindles, 48.5 
 thousand looms, with an output of 4 million poods of 
 yarn and 646 million arshins of cotton goods). 
 
 Under such conditions of decaying industry what 
 could be the position of the working class, the "pro- 
 letarians"? We know that their initial role of masters 
 of the situation was gradually changed. Few of the 
 rank and file succeeded in passing from the "Factory 
 Committees of Workmen" to the newly built "Cen- 
 tral" and "Principal" boards (see Chap. III). They 
 were there in the minority: in 1918 in 12 "central" 
 trusts there were 162 workingmen to the 231 commis- 
 sars, former owners and managers, specialists and en- 
 gineers to whom the real direction was now intrusted. 
 The administration of separate concerns was also given 
 over to responsible directors, who were subordinated 
 to the central boards, while the workmen's committees 
 were abolished. 
 
 For a time it seemed as if the workingmen were 
 being remunerated by an extremely speedy increase 
 of their wages. But very soon great disappointment 
 ensued. The adjustment of wages could not keep pace 
 with the increase in the market prices of foodstuffs and 
 commodities. Wages were doubled before the end of 
 1917, but market prices went up sevenfold. Up to 
 the end of 1918 wages were increased from 12 to 20 
 times, compared with November, 1917. But during 
 the same period the price of bread increased 19 times, 
 the price of manufactured goods 20 to 22 tunes, soap 
 and shoes 25 times, etc. In the middle of 1918 an in- 
 quiry was made in Moscow into the budgets of 2,173
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 197 
 
 workingmen occupied in 238 factories. The result 
 was to show that more than a half (56 per cent.) re- 
 ceived less than 500 rubles a month, while the other 
 44 per cent, received from 500 to 1,000 rubles. Neither 
 group could live on the wages alone: they had to cover 
 about one- third of their budget (34.5 per cent.) by 
 spending their savings (17.8 per cent.), getting loans 
 (9.3), selling objects of their property (2.2), etc. They 
 had to economize on all items of their budget (dwell- 
 ing-places, clothes, drugs, cultural needs, etc.) in order 
 to buy food. That item which before the war made up 
 from one-third to one-half of the workmen's budget 
 (34 to 45 per cent.), had now increased to three-fourths 
 of the whole (72-75 per cent.). It follows that the 
 wages was now barely sufficient to cover the expenses 
 for food. But as a matter of fact it was not sufficient 
 even for that. The same inquiry made it clear that 
 the workingmen could buy only 11.5 per cent, of their 
 supply of food (8.1 of the whole budget) for prices fixed 
 by the Government (by the ration cards). The re- 
 maining 88.5 per cent. (62.8 of the whole budget) had 
 to be bought in the free market, for speedily growing 
 prices. What could they get there? The Petrograd 
 statisticians evaluated the minimum nutriment to be 
 3,580 calories a day. That figure was reduced to 1,850 
 calories in the autumn of 1919. Now, in 1918 the work- 
 ing men received only 6.8 per cent, of that "famine ra- 
 tion" (245 calories) for fixed prices, and had to spend, 
 according to the market prices, about 1,200 rubles for 
 the remaining 93.2 per cent, or if they could not be 
 undernourished. In 1919 an inquiry covering 44 con- 
 cerns with 73,000 workmen in Moscow showed that 
 more than a half of them received from 10 to 20 per 
 cent, of the diminished minimum of calories (i.e., 185 to
 
 198 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 370), while the largest quantity distributed did not sur- 
 pass 28 per cent. (518). It was a little better in the 
 grain producing regions: 790 calories was distributed by 
 card rations in the Volga basin, 853 in the Urals and 
 1,557 in Western Siberia. 
 
 The workingmen had to supply the rest, as I have 
 said, from the free market. But was there a free mar- 
 ket in "communist" Russia? Of course, it did not 
 exist on paper. But, as an inevitable correction of the 
 paper legislation, it continued to exist in life. Every- 
 thing was sold and bought hi the free market, but as 
 the dealers had to run the risk of official raids and 
 requisition, and as they also had to adjust their prices 
 to the speedily falling value of a depreciated currency, 
 the prices grew enormously. Before the War (1914) 
 a daily food ration, evaluated at 2,700 calories (which 
 is midway between the two "starvation rations" men- 
 tioned above) cost in Moscow fourteen copecks. Its 
 price in January, 1920, was 798 rubles, 50 copecks, 
 i.e., 5,703 times as much (in Siberia it was 95 rubles, 
 70 copecks, i.e., 683 tunes as much: these are the two 
 limits between which prices fluctuated in the different 
 provinces of Russia). How could a workingman afford 
 to cover that increasing difference between what he 
 received and what he had to have for his minimum 
 expenses? * He went to the free market, but he could 
 not go there with empty hands, and his salary as well 
 
 'The last data about the situation are given in a report of the 
 Medical Director of the American Relief Administration, dated 
 November, 1921. It shows that the situation is changing from bad 
 to worse. 
 
 "Prices, especially of food, are rising apace and the ruble de- 
 creasing in value; the exchange rate was 68,000 for $1.00 on our ar- 
 rival in September, and is now over 200,000 ; and unofficially as much 
 as 300,000 per dollar is being paid. Considering that 600,000 rubles 
 is an average salary, even in Moscow, and that flour costs 16,000
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 199 
 
 as his savings were far from sufficient. He had to help 
 himself. He did it, in the full measure of the political 
 influence which he still possessed as the "hero of the 
 revolution." 
 
 In order to produce official evidence of how he did 
 it, let me quote from a statement based on the investi- 
 gation conducted by the Bolshevist Interdepartmental 
 Commission. "We assert," the official Red organ, The 
 Economic Life, says, "that the abundance of goods of 
 all kinds which exists now on the 'speculation' market 
 has for its source only the warehouses of Soviet Russia, 
 from which these goods are supplied there in a crim- 
 inal fashion. It is we, ourselves, who feed 'Sukhar- 
 evka' (a market place in Moscow which became the 
 chief center of free trading) with the goods it sells 
 and render useless our struggle against the village ex- 
 ploiters who supply foodstuffs to the Sukharevka in 
 exchange for our own cloth, metal goods, etc." 
 
 Stealing and selling of "nationalized" goods stolen 
 from the Government on the free market has become 
 quite a custom in Russia. Nobody thinks it dishonest. 
 Workingmen occupied in concerns which produce 
 goods for sale, employees at the Soviet warehouses and 
 stores of supplies, and the lower class of the Soviet 
 bourgeoisie steal in order to save themselves from 
 starvation. The latter are an exceedingly numerous 
 clan, as every one who does not produce is obliged to 
 
 rubles per pound, meat 18.000 rubles per pound, sugar 50,000 rubles 
 per pound, butter 50,000 to 60,000 rubles per pound and milk 10,000 
 rubles per pint, it is quite obvious that food shortage and misery 
 extends beyond the actual starvation zones. Persons in cities and 
 towns increase their resources by selling in the market, or privately, 
 anything saleable which they may have in their homes; in fact 
 streets about the markets are crowded with persons offering for sale 
 their household effects; ornaments, bonnets, toys, jewelry, overcoats, 
 carpets, furs and what not, limited to the provinces."
 
 200 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 fill up the ranks of the Bolshevist bureaucracy. Be- 
 fore the Bolshevist usurpation (1917) employees and 
 clerks formed from 10 to 20 per cent, of the number of 
 workingmen in the Moscow region. At a later date, 
 under the regime of nationalization, the Bolshevist 
 economic journal counted 2,000,000 employees to the 
 3,135,000 workingmen, i.e., 63 per cent. 
 
 However, bringing the manufactured goods from the 
 stores to the free market is only one-half of the task. 
 The other is to bring to the same market foodstuffs 
 from the village. The workingmen undertook also 
 that other part of the task. A special profession of 
 middleman between the town and the village was 
 founded: the so-called "bagmen" or "sack-bearers." 
 They carried flour and vegetables from the village, to 
 sell or for their own use. The profession was not with- 
 out danger as the workmen had to leave their factories, 
 which they did mostly on the pretext of illness, while 
 the peasants had to sell their produce in a clandestine 
 way as they were forbidden to sell anything before pay- 
 ing the assessed amount of foodstuffs. To block the 
 free exchange between the village and town special 
 "stop detachments" were formed, which intercepted 
 the peasants and the "bagmen" at the railway stations 
 and in their vicinity. But the men of the "stop de- 
 tachments" were themselves no better and they often 
 acted as an organization for helping, not checking, the 
 speculators." "For a bribe in money, alcohol or sub- 
 stitute liquor," the Petrograd Pravda says (Dec., 
 1919), "they not only permit the 'speculators' to bring 
 in their products but even help them. At railroad sta- 
 tions one can often see these 'guardians of the law' 
 carrying a bag with flour or other food products on their
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 201 
 
 shoulders, pushing the passengers aside, and followed 
 by the 'speculators' in whose pay they are and whose 
 contraband they carry." 
 
 Thus, there was much more behind that barter of 
 foodstuffs for manufactured goods than the mere wish 
 of a customer to sell and to buy. A substitute for a 
 free trade apparatus appeared in the persons of 
 small tradesmen, peddlers or other men of energy 
 and initiative. Two types of real "speculators" 
 appeared which soon became the nouveaux riches 
 of the communist society. One type was that 
 of a market dealer in goods who knew where to 
 find the buyer and the seller, who was himself buying 
 private ownings from the helpless "bourgeoisie" for 
 ridiculous prices, who received commissions and soon 
 turned into a millionaire. He would then transform his 
 money into more solid property, gold, jewelry, foreign 
 currency. Sometimes such a "speculator" became the 
 victim of the agents of the "Che-Ka," who extorted 
 from him his "unearned increment." But they were 
 too many, thousands and tens of thousands, to be thor- 
 oughly wiped out. The second type was that of a 
 "speculator" of a higher rank. He would receive orders 
 from the Government and travel, with regular permits 
 granted by the Soviet institutions, in a separate car. 
 He would buy some 20 poods of a merchandise for the 
 Government, and 200 for himself and store them in 
 his privileged car. He would buy saccharin in Moscow 
 for 50,000 a kilo and would sell it at Tomsk for 1,500,- 
 000 ; or he would buy dried fruits and rice in Tashkent 
 fifty-six times cheaper than he would sell these staples 
 in Samara; he would buy wheat flour in Tashkent for 
 40,000 a pood and sell it in Samara for 200,000; he
 
 202 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 would buy butter in Omsk for 6,000 a pound and sell in 
 Tomsk for 12,000.* These privileged speculators be- 
 long to the higher Soviet bourgeoisie, the so-called 
 "Sov-boors" who now rent nationalized concerns and 
 take contracts from the Government. They are re- 
 cruited from engineers, lawyers, former high officials, 
 the middle or even upper bourgeoisie. Of course, they 
 must know how to bribe influential Soviet officials and 
 commissars. Some of the latter have regular shares in 
 the organized speculative business. The socialist prin- 
 ciple (see Chap. Ill) "he who does not work, neither 
 shall he eat" has become transformed in Russia into a 
 more popular saying: "He who does not speculate, 
 does not eat." Speculation indeed is universal, and 
 people help each other to evade detection by the au- 
 thorities. This is the substitute for free economic 
 initiative. Naturam expellas jurca, tamen usque 
 recurret. 
 
 The new Soviet bourgeoisie the only social layer 
 which enjoys life in Russia were, of course, mostly 
 left unmolested. But a series of restrictive measures 
 were taken against the workingmen. As a result of 
 small wages and shortage of food, they were leaving 
 their factories in numbers. Some of them became "bag- 
 men," some entered the ranks of the Red bureaucracy 
 or served in the Red Army. Such as had preserved 
 some connection with the villages settled in the coun- 
 try. Instead of the 9,200,000 "proletarians," num- 
 bered in that social group in 1897, only 4,775,000 re- 
 mained, according to the official statistics for 1921. In 
 January, 1918, the official number of men in the nine- 
 teen principal industries represented at the All-Rus- 
 
 1 These facts are given in a personal letter by a Russian who has 
 just escaped from Siberia.
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 203 
 
 sian Congress of Professional Unions was 2,532,000. 
 But two years later Trotsky stated that in all the im- 
 portant branches of industry there were not much over 
 one million on the list. The number of actual workers 
 was only about 800,000. At the same time the Com- 
 mittee on Universal Compulsory Labor estimated the 
 labor shortage as 230,000 of skilled and over 2,000,000 
 of unskilled labor. From September, 1919, to February, 
 1920, thirty-eight factories and foundries working for 
 "national defense" asked for 39,145 skilled working- 
 men. But only 27 per cent, of the number required 
 (10,158) could be supplied. In March and April, 1920, 
 the absences in railway workshops and factories were 
 more than 80 per cent. All these were the so-called 
 "shock-industries," particularly important for the Bol- 
 shevist Government. 
 
 This could not be tolerated. Commissary Lomov in 
 June, 1919, declared that as things stood, "proletarian 
 principles must be put aside and the services of private 
 capitalistic apparatus made use of." As early as March, 
 1919, this was also the advice of Mr. Krassin. The Bol- 
 sheviks followed it so successfully that not only the 
 "communistic" principles were thrown overboard, but 
 even such acquisitions as had been won by labor in its 
 struggle against capital under the autocracy, and which 
 formed the substance of the former Factory Laws, were 
 entirely lost under the "dictatorship of the proletariat." 
 
 They began by reintroducing the system of piece- 
 work wages, which had been abolished by the Pro- 
 visional Government. They added to it the system 
 of premiums for increased productivity. Of course, 
 that "capitalistic" device had its usual consequence. 
 In March, 1919, Mr. Rykov, the President of the Su- 
 preme Council of National Economy, declared that in
 
 204 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 certain concerns the productivity had increased by 30 
 per cent. In 1919 the surplus wages paid under the 
 piece-work system as compared with daily salaries was 
 estimated for 12 concerns in Petrograd as 68.3 per 
 cent. 
 
 Other "capitalistic" methods were also revived. It 
 was permitted to arrange for overtime work according 
 to "internal regulations" of the factories, without the 
 sanction of the Unions. Then a supplementary hour's 
 work was introduced as a "voluntary" contribution of 
 the workingmen. It was also on the "voluntary" 
 basis that the workmen were supposed to agree to a 
 full day's work on Saturday. Finally, the Bolshevist 
 power proceeded to legislate, and it introduced by de- 
 crees the ten, eleven and even twelve hour day in rail- 
 way work-shops and in concerns working for the Red 
 Army. Thus, gradually they paved the way for a sys- 
 tem of compulsion of labor. The system of premiums 
 for increased productivity was supplemented by the 
 system of penalties for idleness and absence from work. 
 These are the very words of the Decree of May 10, 
 1920: 
 
 (a) For the first day of absence during a month 15 per 
 cent, of the monthly premium is deducted, for the second 
 day 25 per cent., for the third day 60 per cent. 
 
 (b) Besides this, the work left incomplete during the 
 absences must be made up for after the working hours and 
 during holidays. In this case the workman may be put to 
 any kind of work irrespective of his specialty and will be 
 paid according to the normal scale without premiums or ad- 
 ditions established for overtime work. 
 
 (c) In cases of absence for more than three days in a 
 month the guilty will be charged with the crime of "sabot- 
 age" and prosecuted by disciplinary tribunals.
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 205 
 
 The pre-revolutionary Factory Laws did not permit 
 the fining of workingmen more than three rubles or 
 six days' wages for bad work or for absence, on the con- 
 dition that the whole sum should not be more than a 
 third of his earnings at the moment when the fine is 
 imposed. 
 
 But the climax was reached when the Bolsheviks de- 
 cided to militarize labor. The idea was suggested by 
 three circumstances. In the first place, compulsory 
 labor service had existed from the very beginning of the 
 communist regime. But it was chiefly applied to the 
 "bourgeoisie" and the intellectuals with the obvious 
 aim to "break the will" and to degrade the former 
 "parasitic" class. The "bourgeois" were forced to re- 
 move human refuse, to pave and clean the streets, to 
 unload the coal, to drain the marshes, etc. Now the 
 same principle was to be extended from the "unproduc- 
 tive" or "privileged" groups to the whole population 
 on the ground of State necessity. The second circum- 
 stance which suggested the militarization of labor was 
 the necessity of demobilizing the Red Army after the 
 defeat of the "White" armies. The original idea of Mr. 
 Trotsky was to make use of the demobilized army for 
 the purpose of introducing a unified system of econ- 
 omy "in every branch of the economic life of the coun- 
 try, agriculture, industry, transportation." "The 
 masses," he explained to the Ninth Congress of the 
 Russian Communist Party, "should be in a position to 
 be moved about, sent and ordered from place to place 
 in exactly the same way as soldiers. . . . Without this 
 we cannot speak seriously of any organization of in- 
 dustry on a new basis in the present day conditions of 
 disorganization and starvation."
 
 206 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 However, soon Mr. Trotsky changed his mind as to 
 a continued existence of the Red Army. The "first 
 Labor Army," transformed from the Third Red Army 
 in January, 1920, instead of being demobilized, was 
 only temporarily given such work as wood-cutting and 
 gathering, loading, etc. The result was ridiculous. 
 Only one-tenth of the army of 150,000 was actually at 
 work, and the productivity of their unskilled labor was 
 thirty times less than the standard of 1916. Trotsky 
 went on ordering new conscriptions and increasing his 
 army on the pretext of new dangers menacing the Re- 
 public of workingmen from the "rapacious imperial- 
 ists" all over the world. 
 
 There remained the third reason for militarizing 
 labor "desertion of work" which was increasing from 
 the beginning of 1920 at a menacing rate. The "strug- 
 gle with labor desertion" was formally sanctioned by 
 the Ninth Congress in April, 1920. Methods of "mili- 
 tarization" were to be preserved in that struggle. As 
 Trotsky stated, it was more than an analogy (with the 
 army discipline). "No other social organization has 
 ever considered itself justified in subordinating the will 
 of the citizens to such an extent as the army." It was 
 no more the "political will of the intelligentsia" that 
 was now to be "broken" (Trotsky's utterings in Janu- 
 ary, 1919) but the will of the "backward element" of 
 the proletarian masses. 
 
 Accordingly, a decree was published in the spring, 
 1920, which incorporated the whole population into 
 special labor armies. A "General Committee" ("Glav- 
 komtrude") is at the head of the new centralized or- 
 ganization and local committees in the provinces 
 ("Komtrude") are affiliated with it. The "Glavkom- 
 trude" began by evaluating the whole number of labor
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 207 
 
 requirements for 1920 at 131,895 skilled and 1,809,037 
 unskilled workingmen. (See above.) It had then to 
 proceed to mobilization, and extremely severe measures 
 of punishment were announced at the end of May for 
 evasion of labor conscription. Even persons "guilty of 
 aiding or giving refuge to labor deserters" were to be 
 punished by "fines or by partial or complete confisca- 
 tion of their property," by imprisonment or even by 
 trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The special 
 "Revolutionary Council of Labor" ("Revsovtrude") 
 was empowered to send the enlisted workingmen to 
 wherever it desired, without discrimination of training, 
 in the order of their registration. 
 
 During 1920 the process of mobilization was pursued, 
 rather fitfully and with very poor results, all over Rus- 
 sia. The new organization seems to have met with 
 passive resistance on the part of the proletariat. A very 
 small part of the scheme for "distribution of labor" in 
 1920 was accomplished. For the first trimester of 
 1920 only 11,359 workingmen were distributed in 25 
 provinces for railroad service. The seven largest metal- 
 lurgical foundries, working for railroad repair which is 
 badly needed for the transport, asked the new organi- 
 zation during the second half of 1920 for 14,571 men. 
 13,383 were ordered to go, but 8,442 of them simply 
 disappeared, and they only got 4,941. In Petrograd 
 itself, at the end of 1920, 27,629 were ordered to report 
 for wood-cutting. Only 2,967, i.e., less than 11 per 
 cent, actually reported. The amount of work expected 
 from them was 321,530 cubic sagens of wood and 1,147,- 
 970 logs. The work actually accomplished was 77,298 
 cubic sagens of wood and 57,020 logs, i.e., 24 per cent, 
 and 7 per cent. 
 
 This was the best answer to Trotsky's assertion that
 
 208 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 "the statement that free labor namely freely em- 
 ployed labor produces more than labor under compul- 
 sion is correct only when applied to feudalist and bour- 
 geois." The working class now practically felt much 
 worse that under the "bourgeois order." The resolu- 
 tion of Petrograd workers of September 5, 1920, reads: 
 "We feel as if we were hard labor convicts where every- 
 thing but our feeding has been made subject to iron 
 rules. We have become lost as human beings, and have 
 been turned into slaves." 
 
 As a result of that state of mind, a wave of strikes 
 passed over Soviet Russia in 1920. Strikes have been 
 called in 77 per cent, of the large and middle-sized 
 works. In nationalized undertakings strikes were con- 
 tinuous and 90 per cent, of them were called in just 
 such factories. This is the statement of the Bolshe- 
 vist board of statistics of the Commissariat of Labor. 
 
 If such was the policy of the Bolsheviks toward a 
 class which they claimed to represent, one may imagine 
 what it was concerning that other class to which the 
 great majority (85 per cent.) of the population be- 
 longed, the class of farmers which was classified as 
 "petty bourgeoisie" and, accordingly, a potential enemy. 
 
 Under normal conditions of economic life the free 
 play of exchange served as a basis for regular inter- 
 course between the town and village. This normal rela- 
 tion was now greatly disrupted, since the State had 
 taken up the task of organizing the whole system of 
 production, distribution and consumption. Neither 
 the task of providing the town with foodstuffs nor the 
 task of providing the village with manufactured goods 
 could be even approximately solved by the Bolshevist 
 Government. The result of that wholly ineffective 
 mediation was bound to be disastrous both for the
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 209 
 
 town and the village. Far from being able to cope with 
 the complicated functions of a "State Capitalism," 
 the Bolshevist State proved unable to perform the 
 more elementary functions of the formerly existing 
 State for which it had substituted itself. We have 
 seen how it destroyed industry, and we shall see how 
 agriculture was destroyed. But before we come to it 
 we must dwell somewhat upon the havoc it played with 
 its own finances. It is especially in that branch that 
 the resources of a modern State were completely de- 
 stroyed by the new possessors of the State power and, 
 as a result, the whole structure has crumbled down 
 to the bottom. 
 
 The Bolsheviks came to power with the most san- 
 guine and naive hopes as to the use to be made of the 
 financial reserves stored by the "greedy" bourgeoisie, 
 especially after their war-time "predatory profits." 
 Their first financial scheme was thus to take from the 
 "bourgeoisie" as much money as they could get out 
 under the menace of terror. By a decree of October 30, 
 1918, they ordered "an extraordinary revolutionary tax 
 to be collected only once." They expected to get from 
 the "bourgeoisie" the sum of 10 billion rubles: a part 
 of the "enormous gains won by unrestrained war specu- 
 lation." Unfortunately for the Soviets, these 10 bil- 
 lions could never be paid. 
 
 The sum total of the yearly national income in pre- 
 war Russia was estimated to amount to 15 billions. 
 Less than one-fifth of that sum, i.e., 2.6 billions, could 
 be collected as income tax, under ordinary conditions. 
 There were in Russia only 30,000 taxpayers who were 
 in possession of a yearly income above 10,000 rubles. 
 They had to pay 60 per cent, of the sum assessed. As 
 may be seen from these figures, Russia was very poor
 
 210 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 as compared with the other "bourgeois" nations. More- 
 over, just these 30,000 well-to-do people or as many 
 of them as had remained within Bolshevist Russia 
 had already suffered from every kind of confiscations 
 and requisitions. It was thus natural that by the mid- 
 dle of 1919 only iy 2 billion w 7 as actually paid. The 
 Bolsheviks were finally forced to recognize that their 
 great confiscation tax had utterly failed. 
 
 Another attempt to grab the "bourgeois capital" 
 was made by laying hands on their open accounts in 
 'the banks. This idea was as naive as the former one. 
 Two billions of the "capitalist" money had been found 
 in the banks on December 15, 1917. On May 1, 1918, 
 this money had been confiscated, with the exception 
 of 33 millions. 
 
 The third device was to put into the budget for 1919 
 the revenue of all the nationalized industry, commerce, 
 ways of communications, former State monopolies, 
 which amounted to about 13.5 billions. This was a 
 great item: full two-thirds of the evaluated income. 
 But they forgot that the State had taken upon itself 
 the ungrateful task of running all these concerns. Just 
 how unprofitable it was can be shown by the follow- 
 ing figures. The "Centrotextil" (see above) advanced 
 for the second part of 1918. on account of products 
 to be received, 1,348,716,000 rubles. The value of 
 goods received to secure this advance was up to Janu- 
 ary 1, 1919, only 143,716,000 rubles, i.e., about 10 
 per cent, of its advance. They expected to receive for 
 goods issued for consumption during the first half of 
 1919 1,503 millions. The sum actually received was 
 55 millions, i.e., 3.5 per cent. The railways, which in 
 1916 gave a net profit of 140 million rubles, after their 
 nationalization worked at a loss of 8 billions in 1918.
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 211 
 
 The estimated expense for running railroads, national- 
 ized concerns and supplying the workers amounted for 
 1919 to 24.1 billions, i.e., the expected income of 13.5 
 billions turned into the big deficit of 10.6 billions. The 
 reality was much worse than the estimates: the final 
 deficit was 33.9 billions, and in 1920 it amounted to 
 315.6 billions. 
 
 What was to be done? Indirect taxation was gen- 
 erally objected to by socialists. But the Bolsheviks 
 not only preserved all the former indirect taxes, they 
 extended indirect taxation to all possible articles of con- 
 sumption, and they thus were able to add to the former 
 income of a quarter of a billion eight times as much : 
 2*4 billions in all. Compared with their enormous ex- 
 penses it was still a trifle. 
 
 The only source left was to print paper money. It 
 was rather queer for the people who had repeatedly 
 promised to abolish money altogether. But they had 
 to do it. That was the only way to cover their colossal 
 deficits which were growing in geometrical progression. 
 Of course, *paper money in its turn increased the nomi- 
 nal figures of expenditures. The balance of revenue 
 and disbursements was as follows : 1 
 
 1918 1919 1920 
 
 Revenue (in billions) 15.6 49. 159. 
 
 Expenditures (in billions) 46.9 215.4 1,215.2 
 
 (Expenditures in gold value) 0.89 0.76 0.68 
 
 Deficit 31.3 166.4 1,056.2 
 
 (Deficit in per cent, of expenditures) 66.6 77.3 86.9 
 
 We see that two-thirds of the budget for 1918, more 
 than three-fourths for 1919 and almost nine-tenths 
 
 *I take these figures from M. Maslov's remarkable articles in the 
 Paris Posledniya Novosti (The Last News) a Russian daily paper.
 
 212 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 for 1920 were to be covered with paper money. Infla- 
 tion of currency had already become conspicuous dur- 
 ing the war time. Before the Revolution of 1917, 272 
 million rubles had been printed monthly. The Provi- 
 sional Government increased that figure to almost four 
 times: up to one billion. The Bolshevist Government 
 in 1918-1919 printed six times as much as the Pro- 
 visional Government six billions monthly. In 1920 
 the monthly emission of paper money rose to thirty- 
 eight times (38 l /2 billions). 
 
 The quantity of paper money in circulation increased 
 accordingly. 
 
 War time (1914-16) about 10 billions 
 
 March Revolution (1917) 19 
 
 The Bolshevist Revolution: 
 
 1918 and 1919 " 175 
 
 End of 1920 ' 1000 
 
 We know that the consequence was an exorbitant and 
 rapid rise of prices in speedily increasing proportion. 
 No adjustments of wages or salaries, however frequent, 
 could keep pace with the fall of the paper currency. At 
 the beginning the Government tried to standardize 
 prices. But it had proved difficult even under the 
 Provisional Governments of 1917. In August, 1917, 
 fixed prices for grain were to be increased in order to 
 impel the peasants to deliver their grain. Under the 
 Bolsheviks fixed prices were preserved, but as early 
 as January, 1918, fixed prices for grain lost at least 
 half their value when compared with prices quoted 
 for other articles of prime necessity. 
 
 Henceforth the peasant preferred to sell in the free 
 market, for actual, not for fixed prices. But it meant 
 selling to private purchasers, not to the Government.
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 213 
 
 At the beginning paper money was willingly received, 
 and soon the peasants became millionaires. They 
 could no more count their rubles. They kept them 
 in bundles, weighed them and it became customary to 
 say: "We have so many pounds or poods of rubles." 
 But then they saw that their paper wealth was rapidly 
 depreciating. They changed their minds and asked 
 for manufactured goods. There were some stores of 
 these preserved from former years, but they were soon 
 distributed. The farmers could have no more iron, 
 cloth, shoes, matches, etc. They had to be satisfied 
 with what the burgesses were bringing them from the 
 town : furniture, rugs, gramophones, pianos, etc. They 
 hoarded all that, but finally they had enough of it, 
 and at the same time the "bourgeoisie" had little left 
 to sell. 
 
 Of course, the Bolsheviks did not care about the 
 "bourgeoisie." But the Red Army and the Red bu- 
 reaucracy had to be fed and paid in kind. In some 
 way or other the Bolshevist Government had to provide 
 for that. Otherwise the very basis of its existence 
 would be shattered. 
 
 The Bolshevist Government had inherited from the 
 Provisional Government the grain monopoly, which 
 had been introduced in April, 1917, in order to secure 
 supplies for the Army. The Bolsheviks preserved it 
 as it fitted perfectly into their scheme of nationalizing 
 the whole system of the national economy. This was 
 just "State Capitalism." But there was that question 
 of fixed prices for which the peasant was unwilling to 
 sell. For instance, in the fertile province of Kursk in 
 1918 there was grain enough to be sold at a price of 
 $17.00 or $19.50 the pood (36 Ibs.). But the peasants 
 refused to deal at the fixed price of $8.75, i.e., at half
 
 214 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the price. As a result, food was sold to the "bagmen" 
 or to the Cooperatives, but not to the Government. 
 The number of carloads of grain actually sent off from 
 the provinces to the central Government was decreas- 
 ing at a speedy rate. Here are some figures to illus- 
 trate the situation: 
 
 Carloads Carloads actu- Per cent, of 
 
 Provinces Ordered ally sent off orders executed 
 
 Voronezh 1,000 2 0.2 
 
 Viatka 1,300 14 1.07 
 
 Kazan 400 2 0.5 
 
 Kursk 500 7 1.4 
 
 Orel 300 8 2.67 
 
 Tambov 675 98 14.51 
 
 The whole quantity of food supplies (flour, rye, 
 wheat, barley, oats and peas) arriving in Petrograd in 
 1917 and 1918 varied as follows (in tons) : 
 
 January-March April-June July -September 
 
 1917 24,626 24,165 20,438 
 
 1918 12,001 5,388 2,241 
 
 The situation was becoming so menacing that the 
 Bolshevist power decided to resort, here too, to meth- 
 ods of compulsion. They were twofold. Free trade, 
 through "bagmen," was to be precluded. Grain was to 
 be registered in the villages and delivered to the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The former measure had been taken as early as Feb- 
 ruary 19, 1918, in the shape of a "compulsory regula- 
 tion" introducing "stop detachments" at each large rail- 
 way station, to confiscate provisions carried by the 
 passengers. The practice of these "stop detachments" 
 was confined to looting, and the requisitioned goods
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 215 
 
 of every kind were mostly distributed among them- 
 selves. But to a certain extent the "bagmen's" trade in 
 its primitive form was actually reduced and it took the 
 professionally organized form of which we have already 
 spoken. (See above.) The prohibition only increased 
 "speculation" and the further growth of prices. 
 
 The latter measure was taken by a Decree of May 
 14, 1918. 1 The Decree was a fierce attack upon "the 
 village bourgeoisie," which "remains stubbornly deaf 
 and indifferent to the wailings of starving workmen 
 and peasant poverty, and does not bring the grain to 
 the collecting points," while selling it "at home at 
 fabulous prices to grain speculators." The Bolsheviks 
 decided that "the answer to the violence of grain-owners 
 towards the starving poor must be violence towards the 
 bourgeoisie." "Not a pood should remain in the hands 
 of those holding the grain, except the quantity needed 
 for sowing the fields and provisioning the families until 
 the new harvest." The amount to be retained was 
 exceedingly low: 432 Ibs. of flour and 648 Ibs. of po- 
 tatoes. The Russian peasants under normal conditions 
 need almost double that quantity, as bread and potatoes 
 form practically their sole sustenance. In order to 
 "compel each grain-owner to declare the surplus," the 
 workingmen and the poor peasants were invited "to 
 unite at once for a merciless struggle against the grain- 
 hoarders," and the powers of the People's Food Com- 
 missioner were extended so as to override all local food 
 bodies and to use armed forces in cases of resistance. 
 
 The Government thus entered the stage of class war 
 between the town and the village. A "crusade" against 
 
 1 The full text of this symptomatic decree is published in Mr. John 
 Spargo's book: "The Greatest Failure in All History," Harper, 1920, 
 New York and London.
 
 216 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the village bourgeoisie was formally declared by a de- 
 cision of the All-Russian Executive Committee. The 
 Soviets of Moscow and Petrograd were ordered in June 
 "to mobilize 10,000 workers, to arm them and to equip 
 them for a campaign for the conquest of wheat from 
 the rapacious and the monopolists." 
 
 The "rapacious," the "tight-fisted" village dealers and 
 "profiteers" as a matter of fact were the great majority 
 in the Russian village. The Bolshevist emissaries met 
 with the most decided and stubborn resistance. When 
 they appeared in the village they were often beaten 
 half-dead, hunted like wild animals, killed and torn 
 to pieces by the infuriated crowd. That is why the 
 order was to "equip for a campaign" full detachments 
 of workingmen. Such detachments were really formed. 
 In June, 1918, the "Food Army" consisted of about 
 3,000 bayonets. In December it had grown to 36,500 
 men. But the Bolsheviks themselves in their report 
 on the work of that Food Army had to avow that "in 
 the course of its work (i.e., during four months) it 
 has lost 7,309 men killed, wounded, etc.," i.e., one- 
 fifth of its number. 
 
 The more important point for the Bolsheviks was 
 that, although the amount of grain collected increased 
 a little owing to the activity of these requisitioning 
 detachments, they had to be fed on it first, and the 
 amount of supplies that reached the cities continued 
 to decrease. In fact it was never as low as just at 
 that time (see above figures for July-September, 1918 
 for Petrograd). If the civil war was to bear any real 
 fruit, it obviously had to be transferred to the village 
 itself, and not be brought to it from the outside. And 
 so it was decided. The "poor peasants" had to join the 
 workingmen.
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 217 
 
 On June 11, 1918, a decree was issued establishing the 
 "Pauper Committees" (or "the Committees of the 
 Poor") in every village. Only such as were supporting 
 the Bolshevist authority were elected to the commit- 
 tees, and mostly they were the worst elements in the 
 community: the least thrifty, sometimes criminals. 
 Outsiders, as "chance visitors," were permitted to be 
 elected together with the "local residents." The "Pau- 
 per Committees" were given great power, and one can 
 easily imagine how much lawlessness and mutual ha- 
 tred was introduced into the Russian village by this 
 new form of the rule by the "conscious minority." It 
 can also be easily understood why it was just the Pauper 
 Committees which made the farmers closely acquainted 
 with the methods of the Bolshevist compulsion and 
 provoked a series of uprisings. The "paupers" were, 
 of course, the first to suffer from these uprisings. But 
 then, detachments of Red soldiers, chiefly aliens, were 
 sent to punish the rebels, and the uprisings were regu- 
 larly stifled. However, one result of this new form of 
 civil war appeared as early as the autumn of 1918. The 
 peasants reduced the area of their autumn sowing. 
 "Why should we sow?" they are reported to have said. 
 "If one is permitted to take away grain from others, 
 without doing any work, well, we had better remain 
 without grain, and be classed as poor." 
 
 The Decree of May 14, 1918, started with the sup- 
 position that "in the producing provinces of Russia 
 there were large reserves of grain of the harvests of 
 1918 and 1917 not yet even threshed." The Decree 
 of October 30, 1918, still tried to persuade the "paupers" 
 that the well-to-do peasants had "surpluses" of grain, 
 because the land was not yet partitioned in equal lots 
 and they possessed better and larger lots than the
 
 218 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 others. The reason is not good, as the well-to-do peas- 
 ants who formed the great majority just possessed the 
 average lots. But the fact of there being reserves of 
 grain in 1918 is probable. It is also true that the at- 
 tempts of the Government to lay its hand on these 
 reserves failed utterly. Lenin himself avowed that no 
 more than 28 million poods in the first half of 1918 
 and 67 million poods in the second half could be col- 
 lected by the Governmental agencies as a result of the 
 Bolshevist food policy. The Bolsheviks had to recog- 
 nize their mistakes and change their methods. 
 
 A new term now appeared in the official decrees of 
 1919: "the middle peasantry." Both Lenin and Trot- 
 sky in their letters published in February, 1919, agreed 
 that there was a "third group" in the village, between 
 the "tight-fists" and the "paupers," "with its one wing 
 adjoining the proletariat, with its other merging with 
 the bourgeoisie." Lenin wished to believe that they 
 "were not the enemies of the Soviet Government," while 
 Trotsky desired to persuade them that the Soviet Gov- 
 ernment "does not compel and never intends to compel 
 the middle peasantry to change to the communistic 
 forms of land tilling." 
 
 Obviously, the peasant uprisings of the autumn of 
 1918, had duly impressed the Bolshevist leaders. In 
 the same autumn an official order was published which 
 tried to conciliate the "middle peasantry." It was 
 recognized that "in many cases the interests of the 
 middle peasantry were violated." As the "village pau- 
 pers" were considered by the population to be "an in- 
 strument of repression against the rest of the rural 
 population," it was explained that, on the contrary, 
 the pauper committees were "revolutionary organs of 
 the whole of the peasantry against the former land-
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 219 
 
 owners, the rich 'tight-fists/ the merchants and the 
 priests." This classification, of course, was also far 
 from being definite. Lenin, in his speech at the Con- 
 gress of the Communist Party, in April, 1919, went 
 further. He said: "Even with respect to the rich 
 peasant we do not speak with the same determination 
 as with regard to the bourgeoisie. We do not say: 
 absolute expropriation of the rich peasantry. We say: 
 the suppression of the resistance of the peasantry. . . . 
 This is not complete expropriation ! " At the same time 
 Lenin counseled his comrades to moderation. "We 
 cannot expect the middle peasant to come over to our 
 side immediately." "We have learned how to over- 
 throw the bourgeoisie and suppress it. ... We have 
 not yet learned how to regulate our relations with the 
 millions of the middle peasants and how to win their 
 confidence. . . . We must live in peace with the mid- 
 dle peasantry. The middle peasantry in a communistic 
 society will be on our side only if we lighten and im- 
 prove its economic conditions. . . . First help him, and 
 then you will secure his confidence." 
 
 Accordingly, new tactics were resorted to in the 
 villages. Lenin's idea was to try the Cooperative ap- 
 paratus now, and it was so decided by the Congress. 
 By a Decree of August 8, 1918, the consumers' Cooper- 
 atives (about 20,000 organizations uniting about 7,000,- 
 000 consumers) had been made use of as semi-official 
 organizations for the compulsory purchase of grain 
 from the peasants. The peasants had to bring their 
 grain to collecting-centers and receive payment for 
 it partly in money and partly in credit orders on Co- 
 operative stores in the vicinity. In March, 1919, an- 
 other decree was issued which permitted "free sales 
 of products, including foodstuffs." As a symbol of the
 
 220 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 union between the peasantry and the proletarians, Ka- 
 lenin, a peasant-Bolshevik, was elected President of the 
 Central Executive Committee, and in his address 
 (April, 1919) he preached a conscientious collection 
 of the tax in kind and depicted idyllic scenes of free 
 exchange of articles of agriculture and of home con- 
 sumption for farm and household utensils at local fairs. 
 
 The results, however, did not justify these expecta- 
 tions. By September, 1919, only 38.1 per cent, of the 
 assessed quantity of bread and fodder grain had been 
 collected (about 100 million poods) ; by January, 1921, 
 the figure was a little over 200 million poods. The 
 Government needed twice that much. 
 
 The official organ Izvestia (November 3, 1919), ex- 
 plained the lack of success by "the class war which 
 has become permanent and continuous," as well as 
 by the diffidence of the peasants. They are not yet 
 "sufficiently farsighted to be quite convinced of the 
 stability of the Soviet Power and of the inevitability of 
 socialism," and for this reason or some other they "con- 
 sider Soviet money of no value, not being able to buy 
 anything with it." The paper does not mention the 
 fact officially stated in another Red periodical that 
 the area under cultivation had already diminished for 
 that year (1919) by 13,500,000 acres in 28 provinces: 
 a further result of the slackening of incentives for 
 keeping up production on the level attained under 
 better conditions. 
 
 "The peasants conceal their bread": such was the 
 official explanation of the failure to receive the neces- 
 sary food for the Red Army and the Red officials in 
 1919. The practical conclusion was that the whole 
 flirtation with the "middle peasantry" was useless and 
 unnecessarily sentimental. The "selfish" policy of the
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 221 
 
 farmers was thus exposed and censured by Mr. Os- 
 sinsky, the Soviet economist. "In order to escape 
 requisitions, the middle peasants in many localities 
 plant grass and other crops unfit for human consump- 
 tion, instead of food grains. They make every effort 
 to reduce the area under cultivation, sowing only what 
 they require for themselves. . . . They sell whatever 
 horses they have in the autumn, attempting in that 
 way to evade labor duty, and then dispose of whatever 
 fodder they have to "speculators." 
 
 Arguments like these convinced the Food Depart- 
 ment that force must be applied to compel the peas- 
 ants to mind their interests. At the same time the 
 government decided to increase their claims from the 
 peasants. The program for 1920 was again about 400 
 millions. Unusually severe measures were to be ap- 
 plied to carry it out. (See Chap. VIII.) As a matter 
 of fact, more than the assessed amounts was requisi- 
 tioned from certain localities and, in general, the local 
 authorities did not concern themselves with the figures 
 designated. They were helped by the fact that in 1920 
 new territories, especially rich in grain, were added to 
 Bolshevist Russia, such as Southern Russia (the 
 Ukraine), the Caucasus, Siberia. Food stores were as 
 yet unexhausted in these regions, and this helped the 
 Bolsheviks through the year 1920. But this was their 
 last resource. In 1920 and 1921 they exhausted Siberia 
 in the same way as they had exhausted the original 
 territory of Bolshevist Russia in 1918 and 1919. It 
 was the same Pauper Committees in the villages, the 
 same civil war and continuous uprisings, the same sys- 
 tem of repression and extermination of the more active 
 and intellectual element, and, as a result, increased 
 assessment of grain tax and enforced requisitioning of
 
 222 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 stores. The objections of local specialists against the 
 immeasurably high assessments were explained as "sa- 
 botage" and counter-revolution. In many regions of 
 Siberia there was not enough grain left even for seeds, 
 and in 1921 the planted area was no more than 50 
 per cent, of that in 1920. The well-to-do peasants pre- 
 ferred to hide their grain rather than sow it; they pre- 
 ferred to slaughter their live stock for meat, to consume 
 their milk, butter, eggs, than to give all these to the 
 Bolsheviks. Here, as elsewhere, the Bolshevist food 
 policy "took out the soul from agricultural labor, de- 
 prived the peasant of any stimulus to work, any desire 
 for improvement and increased effort." I have sum- 
 marized here a very detailed description in a per- 
 sonal letter, and my informant adds: "What a 
 relief it might have been for starving Russia 
 these two million dessiatines left without seeds in the 
 Altaisk, Tomsk and Semipalatinsk regions, where crops 
 were satisfactory in 1921. The Volga basin would not 
 have been converted into a real dead wilderness and 
 peasants would not have died as early as August, if 
 the Soviet power had not pumped out absolutely all 
 the stores left in a region which already in 1920 had 
 suffered from great shortage of food." (See Chap. 
 VIII.) 
 
 I especially emphasize the fact of exhaustion of 
 stores in old and in newly acquired territories because 
 it partly explains the exceptionally good success of Mr. 
 Ossinsky's large program of food requisitioning in 1920. 
 The theoretical estimate, based on the yearly home 
 consumption of 664 Ibs. per head of the population, was 
 that only 108 million poods of crops would remain free, 
 to be requisitioned by the State. But as a matter of fact 
 the Commissariat of Food Supply succeeded in collect-
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 223 
 
 ing 350 millions by assessment. Moreover, it was esti- 
 mated that about 240 million poods were obtained by 
 the "bagmen." Where could the 482 millions 
 (350 + 240108) lacking be found? Mr. J. Larin, 
 the leading Bolshevist economist, answered in Mr. 
 Ossinsky's spirit: "It is clear that the peasants have 
 succeeded in cheating our statisticians to the amount 
 of 482 million poods or to about one-quarter of the 
 total amount which the population has declared to the 
 local statistical organizations as the total yield of the 
 crops (1,687 million poods, exclusive of 513 million 
 poods of seeds)/' and he confidently raised by 25 per 
 cent, the program for 1921. To which Mr. Larin's com- 
 munist opponent, Mr. Popov, who is the head of the 
 Central Statistical Department, very reasonably ob- 
 jected, that it remained to be proved whether the mys- 
 terious 482 millions really were taken from the avail- 
 able surpluses. "Was it that the Commissariat of Food 
 really took surpluses, or did it take grain according to 
 the assessment, the assessment for 1920 being fixed 
 without any regard to surpluses or to deficits? This 
 being so, all the conclusions arrived at by comrade 
 Larin fall to the ground." 
 
 We quote this learned dispute between the two 
 economists of Bolshevist Russia in order to show how 
 superficial and irresponsible were the minds by which 
 Russia was doomed to pass through the famine of 1921. 
 There can be no doubt that the 350 millions requisi- 
 tioned by the agents of the Food Department were 
 taken from the reserve stocks, which were now utterly 
 exhausted, and that the real yearly consumption for 
 1921 fell far below that tolerably good figure of 644 Ibs. 
 per head. 
 
 The gruesome fact of starving Russia, which we shall
 
 224 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 describe in the next chapter, is a convincing answer to 
 Messrs. Ossinsky and Larin's indictment of the peas- 
 ants' concealment. The Bolsheviks foresaw the dry 
 season and were unable to close their eyes to the dis- 
 aster. They were frightened not so much for Russia 
 as for their further existence. Mr. Lenin, at a new 
 congress of his party, on March 15, 1921, came out 
 with a new program of concessions. 
 
 "The situation is now this," he said. "Either we 
 must satisfy the middle peasants economically and con- 
 sent to a freedom of commodity exchange, or it will be 
 impossible to maintain the power of the proletariat in 
 Russia, in view of the slowing down of the interna- 
 tional revolution." "We know that only an under- 
 standing with the peasantry can save the social revolu- 
 tion, until the revolution is ready to break out in other 
 countries." 
 
 There followed some elementary avowals. Mr. Lenin 
 now dared openly to recognize that "the small peasant 
 has aims that are not the same as those of the worker." 
 "In Russia the industrial workers are in the minority 
 and the small farmers overwhelmingly in the majority." 
 "The transformation of the entire psychology of the 
 petty peasants is a labor that will require generations." 
 In the meantime "it is impossible to deceive a class of 
 the population and it is dangerous to go on deceiving 
 one's self. It is time to admit frankly that the peasants 
 manifestly refuse to accept proletarian dictatorship 
 any longer. . . . We must grant freer economic rela- 
 tions between the workers and peasants. As a matter 
 of fact, we have hitherto acted in a too military manner. 
 ... If some communists thought the organization of 
 a socialistic state was possible in three years, they were 
 dreamers. Freedom of economic relations means free
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 225 
 
 trade, and free trade signifies a return to capitalism. 
 Those who believe that in this Russia of peasants so- 
 cialism can be reached, simply believe in Utopia." 
 
 Far-reaching conclusions could have been drawn 
 from these new admissions. But such conclusions 
 would have implied the possibility of resigning or re- 
 nouncing the whole experiment. Far from this being 
 the case, Mr. Lenin's concessions to reality and to "capi- 
 talism" did not go beyond what he planned for 1919 
 when the danger of destruction of the agricultural basis 
 of the national economy first became universally self- 
 evident. Lenin's proposals accepted by the March 
 Congress were: 
 
 1. To replace the levy as a means of supplying the State 
 with foodstuffs, raw materials and fodder by taxation in 
 kind. 
 
 2. The amount of the tax to be estimated so as to cover 
 the minimum requirements of the army, the town workers 
 and the agricultural workers, but at the same time to be less 
 than the quantity assessed in accordance with the State levy. 
 
 3. The surplus supplies, in excess of the tax, to be freely 
 exchanged for manufactured goods, either at the local mar- 
 ket place or through the cooperative societies. 
 
 However, there were reasons enough for the peasant 
 to remain suspicious. The independence of the cooper- 
 ative societies was at that very time finally abolished 
 by the Decree of March 20, 1921. They were incor- 
 porated into the State organism and hierarchically 
 subordinated to the central institutions. Liberty of 
 initiative and enterprise on the part of the population 
 was thus definitely destroyed. Manufactured goods, of 
 course, were not to be had by paper order. Lenin ex- 
 pected "to obtain a certain part of the goods from 
 abroad" and thus to strengthen the power of the State
 
 226 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 and "to keep power more firmly in the hands of the 
 proletariat." But it took time to restore trade rela- 
 tions with foreign capitalists. Again, one could not 
 see how the change in form of assessment could bring 
 about with it the diminution of the amount of tax, 
 if the requirements of the Red Army and the bureau- 
 cracy were to be met. Poor crops did not permit the 
 Bolsheviks to diminish their "minimum" demands. 
 The "minimum" was estimated at its former figure of 
 400 million poods, namely: 
 
 For the army, the workingmen and rural 
 
 population (Bolshevist bureaucracy) 200-250 millions 
 
 For the urban population, at the mini- 
 mum ration of 400 Ibs. per head 160 millions 
 
 The tax in kind was to give 240 millions, and the rest 
 was to be obtained by exchange of goods. But they 
 themselves admitted that in 1921 the tax in kind could 
 hardly give more than 180 millions and they expected 
 to get the other part also "from import." They also 
 could not conceal from themselves that the help to 
 the starving population would amount to 60 millions 
 at least, even at half-minimum rations. All these ele- 
 ments of uncertainty left the whole scheme of the 
 new tax and free trade in suspense. 
 
 No complete picture can as yet be drawn of the re- 
 sults of the food campaign for 1921. But preliminary 
 and detached facts testify to an ominous failure in all 
 details of the program. In the first place, it was made 
 known too late in the rural districts, and a great number 
 of local committees refused their cooperation and con- 
 tinued to levy grain by force. In the second place, the 
 scheme met with suspicion and opposition on the part 
 of the population which very often looked at the tax
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 227 
 
 in kind as an addition to the former assessment, not 
 a substitute for it. The attempts of the Government 
 compulsorily to increase the planted area, on the oc- 
 casion of the spring seed failed. Sometimes the irri- 
 tated population went to the limit of burning the Gov- 
 ernment seeds. At last the central authorities yielded 
 to necessity and decided to come back to the former 
 methods of compulsion. In December Lenin ordered 
 the Executive Committee to resort to force for collect- 
 ing the arrears of the tax in kind, said to amount to 
 100 million poods. Beginning with Dec. 10, the Execu- 
 tive Committee had to work "day and night," in order 
 to finish the collection before Christmas. The most 
 energetic communist workers were "flung" into the 
 provinces and the revolutionary tribunals prepared to 
 punish the recalcitrants. 
 
 I do not know what was the result of this new effort. 
 But figures given by the Food Commissariat on Oc- 
 tober 6, 1921 (the agricultural year ends with Sep- 
 tember) were far from promising. The Commissariat 
 had collected: 
 
 Tax in kind 34.9 million poods 
 
 From the Soviet Estates 1 0.6 
 
 Return of seed loans 5.7 
 
 Sundry 4. 
 
 From the Ukraine . . 13.3 
 
 58.5 
 
 1 The "Soviet Estates" is an attempt to introduce communism into 
 agriculture. The land taken over for Soviet estates is exclusively 
 that which formerly belonged to the large landowners. Of course, 
 only a small part of that land could be given for communist or 
 collectivist experiments, as the peasants took most of it (86 per cent., 
 or 20.8 million dessiatines out of 24.1) for individual holdings. The 
 "Soviet Estates" (Sovkhoses) received about 9 per cent, of that land. 
 For 1921 the "Sovkhoses" were expected to sow over half a million
 
 228 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 As we know the total amount of the tax in kind was 
 to be 240 or at least 180 million poods, while the total 
 requirement of food for the Soviet Government was 
 about 400 millions (see above). You now see that 
 the situation had become quite tragic, and drastic 
 changes were to be introduced into the food budget 
 for the Government to be able further to sustain them- 
 selves and their chief supporters. If all could not be 
 fed by the State, a choice of the most necessary ones 
 had to be made by the Government. 
 
 We have proofs that the Bolshevist Government has 
 indeed trodden that path of self-liquidation. The Red 
 bureaucracy or rather such part of it as had filled up 
 its ranks involuntarily, in order not to starve, were the 
 first to be sacrificed. The announcement was pub- 
 lished that a full 2 l / 2 million, especially women, were 
 to be given notice. We also have the figures of a pro- 
 gram of food distribution for 1922 (October to Oc- 
 tober), covering all the persons who will receive food 
 from the State, exclusive of the Ukraine and Turkestan, 
 some special fund, and the fund of the army. This 
 
 dessiatines and to yield a surplus of over 5% million poods of grain, 
 1% million poods of groats, SVz million poods of potatoes, 7 mil- 
 lion of vegetables and a great amount of grain fodder. The figure 
 given in the text shows how small was the actual contribution. Here 
 is the picture of the "Soviet Estates" given in the official organ The 
 Economic Life of April 17, 1921. "In most of the Sovkhoses there 
 is no staff of permanent workmen, the whole work being done by 
 daily laborers, to whom the welfare of the whole enterprise is a mat- 
 ter of indifference. The work is done in a very reckless way, and 
 the worst feature is that everything that can be carried away is 
 stolen: reins, harness, sometimes even the plow, together with 
 the horse. In some cases, the Sovkhose consists of a mansion, a 
 garden, some fields, one or two cows and a horse. The manager 
 uses the horse for his pleasure rides, and the farming is done by 
 the peasants of the surrounding villages, who distribute the fields 
 among themselves, and receive in payment half of the harvest." 
 Very often also a Sovkhose consumes more than it produces and is 
 classified as "consuming" or "self-supporting."
 
 THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 229 
 
 program also shows great reductions to be made, es- 
 pecially in the civil service, and great pessimism con- 
 cerning the' resources to be drawn upon. The food 
 resources are here estimated as follows (cf. the figures 
 above) : 
 
 Food levy, return of seed loans and 
 
 charge for milling 160 million poods 
 
 From free trade 15 
 
 From the Ukraine . 57 " " 
 
 Total 232 
 
 Deducting for fodder 45 
 
 Grain and grits, total 187 
 
 The ration is based on 2,600 calories per person per 
 day. The groups of the .population which still are 
 to be cared for by the State are (the numbers of "eaters" 
 is doubled, to include the "families") : 
 
 Workingmen: Eaters 
 
 Transportation 1,800,000 
 
 Industry 2,300,000 
 
 Soviet Employees: 
 
 (in central boards) . . . 2,350,000 
 
 Children, invalids, 
 charity, prisoners. .. 925,000 
 
 Seed loans 
 
 Famine Relief 
 
 Sundries , 
 
 Yearly ration 
 (thousands of poods) 
 24,300 
 31,050 
 
 28,200 
 
 11,306.3 
 15,000 
 12,000 
 13,292.45 
 
 Total 7,375,000 
 
 135,168.75 
 
 1 Probably the rest, as compared with the figure of 187 million 
 poods of grain and grits and 45 million poods fodder, is intended 
 to a great extent to feed the Red Army. Of course, the arrears of 
 the assessed amounts were also to be taken in consideration.
 
 230 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 It is explained in the Economic Life of October 18, 
 1921, from which these figures are taken, that "the 
 number of persons supplied by the State has* diminished 
 three tunes by comparison with the preceding year. 
 Food is no longer to be supplied to the non-working 
 population and the number of workmen and employees 
 in the State institutions and enterprises has been de- 
 creased." 
 
 This is the beginning of the end. The "conscious 
 minority," after having exhausted the resources of the 
 country, limit the circle of privileged groups per- 
 mitted to share in their power and confine the func- 
 tions of the Communist State to the strict limit of run- 
 ning its own machinery. The old saying: L'etat c'est 
 moi of the King-Sun of France is now undisguisedly 
 made a motto of the King-Red-Star. If left to itself 
 the Red Star will last as long as there will be some- 
 thing to sacrifice and to sell in exchange for its further 
 existence. Its excuse will always remain the same: 
 waiting for the great World Revolution. 
 
 There are two things which can cut short that long 
 waiting. One is the changing state of mind of the 
 popular masses. We have noted the symptoms of that 
 change in this chapter. But this is the political side 
 of the question. I purposely confined myself hi this 
 chapter to the economic side, to the state of the eco- 
 nomic resources of the country. There is a limit to 
 their exhaustion, and we have seen how this limit is 
 being gradually reached. Can that limit be over- 
 stepped with impunity? Beyond it is death and de- 
 struction. Destruction and death are in Russia. The 
 ghastly summary of the four years of Soviet domina- 
 tion is the great Russian Famine of 1921.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FAMINE. 
 
 The year 1921 will be remembered as the first year 
 of the great Russian Famine. None similar to it can 
 be found in Russia's history. It is as unparalleled and 
 unprecedented as the events that caused it. 
 
 The wide extent of the disaster which has befallen 
 Russia can be seen from the map. I have purposely 
 selected this one because it represents an official state- 
 ment by the Soviet Government. It was presented by 
 Dr. Nansen at the second session of the League of Na- 
 tions at Geneva, in September, 1921, on his coming 
 back from Moscow. As the map covers only the part 
 of European Russia directly controlled by Moscow, the 
 Ukraine is not included, although it is also suffering 
 from poor crops. 
 
 The Northwestern part of Russia (No. 8) the only 
 part which has connection with the outer world, 
 through the Baltic States is also the only part which 
 had the average or normal crops of 51 poods and over 
 of cereals from a "dessiatine," i.e., 680 Ibs. per acre 
 ("pood" = about 36 Ibs.; "dessiatine" = 2.7 acres). 
 But this does not mean that this part of Russia had 
 surpluses of grain to dispose of. It is the grain-import- 
 ing region, and was never able to live on its own pro- 
 duction of cereals: If left to its own resources, its 
 population is bound to be underfed. 
 
 231
 
 232 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 The Southeastern part of Russia is its grain-produc- 
 ing and exporting region. And this region is colored 
 on the map hi black of different shades. This is the 
 famine-stricken area. The strip which includes the 
 spots numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, extends beyond the frame of 
 this map, to the Ukraine in the West and to the Asiatic 
 provinces in the East. The intensely black area desig- 
 nated by 1 is the basin of the lower Volga and Kama 
 to which all the horrors refer, as described below. The 
 crops were here less than one-tenth of the average, i.e., 
 less than 5 poods per dessiatine (68 Ibs. per acre). 
 Twice this amount is necessary for seed only. The 
 minimum annual consumption of gram on which a 
 Russian can exist (lacking other foodstuffs) is calcu- 
 lated as 13.5 poods (486 Ibs.) 
 
 The areas designated by 2 are next to the former 
 ones: their production was less than one-fifth of the 
 normal, i.e., less than ten poods (136 Ibs. per acre). 
 No. 3 and No. 4 mark areas with less than two-fifths 
 of normal crops and Nos. 5, 6, 7 less than three-fifths, 
 four-fifths and the normal. 
 
 It is exceedingly difficult to give the exact figures 
 as to just how much grain Russia lacks and must im- 
 port. However, one thing is certain and admitted by 
 the Bolsheviks in their most optimistic estimates. Rus- 
 sia cannot feed herself by her own surpluses. Even 
 if Russia's entire crop could be equally distributed 
 among the whole population of Russia, the population 
 would be put on a starvation ration. But no such 
 equal distribution was possible, in the first place, be- 
 cause such surpluses as were to be found outside the 
 famine-stricken area were badly needed by the Bol- 
 sheviks themselves, to feed their army and their of- 
 ficials. In the second place, the Bolshevist official
 
 THE FAMINE 233 
 
 sources admit that they would be unable to transport 
 the necessary grain to the starvation area. Under such 
 conditions, every region had to rely on its own resources. 
 
 The estimates of the Soviet authorities, as to the 
 total figure of food-shortage in Russia, generally opti- 
 mistic, varied considerably during the year. At the 
 end of October, the Bolshevist Central Statistical Bu- 
 reau gave the following figures which it considered as 
 definitive. The famine-stricken area covers more than 
 20,000,000 planted dessiatines, with 32,000,000 rural 
 population and 5,500,000 urban inhabitants. It com- 
 prises 41% of the entire planted area in Russia, 33% 
 of the rural population and 30% of the urban popu- 
 lation. The minimal consumption of grain is estimated 
 for the famine-stricken area as 240,000,000 poods, and 
 in the remaining part of Russia as 623,000,000 poods, 
 total 863,000,000. But production is respectively 
 123,000,000 and 566,000,000 poods, i.e., there are defi- 
 cits in both parts of Russia of 117,000,000 and 57,000,- 
 000 poods, total 174,000,000. It is considered that 
 about 60% of this amount could be (theoretically) cov- 
 ered with the surpluses of production in the Ukraine 
 and some other regions. But about 75,000,000 poods 
 or 1,250,000 tons would have to be imported into Rus- 
 sia from abroad. This last figure does not agree with 
 the 850,000 tons, as asked by the Bolsheviks, nor with 
 the 2,000,000 tons as mentioned by Mr. Nansen. As a 
 matter of fact neither can be really imported into 
 Russia. 
 
 Who is responsible for this shortage of grain and this 
 misery? The answer of the Red press is that it is due 
 to the state of exceptional dryness in the famine- 
 stricken area. From October 1, 1920, to the end of 
 June, 1921, the rainfall (including the snow) was only
 
 234 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 2.75 inches, while in the ten previous years the average 
 rainfall was five times more 14 inches. The greatest 
 part of the rain fell, moreover, before the sprouts ap- 
 peared above the surface, and there followed an ex- 
 ceptionally early thaw. 
 
 This is quite true. But it is not quite so exceptional. 
 This part of Russia is periodically exposed to dry winds 
 from, the Asiatic deserts. The moving sand of the Asi- 
 atic wilderness gradually advances in the western di- 
 rection, pushed by the winds. However, a series of 
 measures had been tried in the past by the Government 
 and by the Zemstvos in order to check this advance and 
 to paralyze the detrimental consequences of the recur- 
 rent dry seasons (which regularly last for two or three 
 years at a stretch, when they come). Perfected meth- 
 ods of modern agronomy were used, such as dry farm- 
 ing, fastening of the slopes of sandy ravines, planting 
 of trees, etc. 
 
 Not only have all these methods been discontinued 
 since the Bolshevist domination, but even the normal 
 resources of rural economy have been utterly destroyed. 
 The import of agricultural implements, which had in- 
 creased ten times for the last twenty years before the 
 war, has practically ceased, while the local manufacture 
 has been unable to supply, e.g., in plows even 10% of 
 what has had to be scrapped as outworn. The monthly 
 average of the local output of agricultural implements 
 if the figures for 1913 are taken as the hundred 
 represents catastrophic decay : 
 
 1913 1919 1920 1921 
 
 Ploughs 100 23.5 13.8 9.1 
 
 Harrows 100 9. 5.2 2.7 
 
 Reaping-machines 100 10.8 4.9 5. 
 
 Threshing-machines 100 1.1 1.5 5.
 
 Winnowing-machines 100 17.8 8. 5. 
 
 Scythes 100 124. 1012. 141. 
 
 Reaping-hooks 100 52.8 29.5 
 
 Chaff-cutters 100 37. 8.3 
 
 Another cause of deterioration of conditions in agri- 
 culture is the decrease in the number of live stock, due 
 to the lack of fodder and to the policy of requisitions 
 and assessments by the Soviet authorities. A well- 
 known Russian economist, Mr. Lositsky, writing in a 
 special Bolshevist organ states that the average con- 
 sumption of meat in Russia increased from 0.82 pood 
 per capita in 1918-19 to 0.91 in 1919-20 and 1.59 in the 
 winter of 1920-21. Cattle were slaughtered in abnor- 
 mal quantities owing to a widespread shortage of food 
 and fodder. The figures given by the official Red press 
 for December, 1920 and February, 1921, show that the 
 number of horses has been reduced by 28.6 per cent., 
 compared with the pre-war situation (Mr. Maslov 
 gives the figure of 43 per cent, for 1916-1920) ; the num- 
 ber of horned cattle up to 1920 had been reduced by 
 22 per cent. The number of sheep and pigs diminished 
 between 1916 and 1920 respectively by 29 and 40 per 
 cent, (other economists give 42 and 45 per cent.). At 
 the same time, the composition of the herds is danger- 
 ously altered, as can be seen from the following figures 
 (in per cent, of the whole) : 
 
 HORSES HORNED CATTLE 
 
 Over 1 year Under 4 Over 4 Calves 1-2 yrs. Cows Bulls 
 
 towkg. years years old over 2 
 
 Foals age years 
 
 1916 .... 10 10.2 6.8 73 29.5 17.5 46.4 1.4 
 
 1920 .... 7.4 7.2 7.4 78 20.5 8.7 68.6 0.5 
 
 The reduction in the number of young horses and
 
 236 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 horned cattle will make the replenishment of the herds 
 difficult through the coming years. 
 
 The amount of available manure diminished pro- 
 portionally to the decrease in the number of the live 
 stock. But mineral fertilizers, which were being im- 
 ported into Russia in increasing quantities (from 5.8 
 million poods in 1889 to 35.3 million poods in 1912), 
 are completely lacking while the home production is 
 too trifling to meet the requirements. The intensity of 
 cultivation has declined accordingly. 
 
 To a certain extent, the conditions created by war 
 and by revolution account for all the phenomena de- 
 scribed. But they cannot explain the continuing decay 
 of agriculture after four years of the Bolshevist regime. 
 Just how far the regime itself is responsible can be es- 
 pecially well seen from the gradual decrease of the area 
 under cultivation. The annual "Narodnoye Kho- 
 zystvo" for 1921, published by the Bolshevist "Supreme 
 Council of National Economy," gives a general picture 
 of that process which can serve us as a basis for further 
 conclusions. "The area under crops," the annual states, 
 "in 1916 was certainly reduced as compared with the 
 pre-war years. . . . The former Ministry of Agricul- 
 ture estimated its decrease in 1916 as 6 per cent, as 
 compared with the figures of 1914. . . . The Revolu- 
 tion has exerted a strong influence on the peasantry, 
 by effecting a shifting in its ranks and by giving to the 
 peasants the land of the former landowners. But the 
 agricultural production, taken by itself, in its methods 
 and results, has remained the same as before. This 
 fact is to a great extent responsible for the decrease in 
 the area actually cultivated by the peasants, which has 
 been going on since 1917. The census of 1917, which 
 was taken in conditions in which both the influence of
 
 THE FAMINE 237 
 
 the war and that of the beginning of the Revolution 
 (agrarian disturbances) had found their expression, 
 gave an area under crops almost equal to that of 1916. 
 In the 23 provinces we are comparing, taking the area 
 in 1916 as 100, we arrive at the figure 97.5 for 1917." 
 "In 1919 the area under crops was greatly reduced as 
 compared with 1917, the decrease amounting to 16.4 
 per cent. In 1920 the decrease proceeded further, and, 
 if 13 provinces may be regarded as a fair sample, the 
 coefficient of decrease reached 27.3 per cent." The de- 
 crease in the seeds for 1921 is approximately estimated 
 as 13.4 per cent, of the area of 1920. 
 
 Now, if we take the planted area of 1914, the last 
 normal year, as 100, the progressive diminution of the 
 area cultivated will express itself in the following fig- 
 ures: 
 
 1914 1916 1917 1919 1920 1921 
 100 94 91.6 74.4 58.9 51 
 
 We see that the factors of war (1916) and revolution 
 (1917) were not decisive, and that the really catas- 
 trophic change came as a result of the Bolshevist policy, 
 as described in a previous chapter (VII). The famine 
 began as early as 1919 and 1920, with the shrinking 
 of the planted area to three-fourths and two-fifths of 
 its normal size. It fell down to the half of the area 
 planted before the war in 1921. Under such a condi- 
 tion, shortage of food has become an inevitable con- 
 sequence, even if there were good crops in Russia. 
 The worst of it is that this situation is bound to last 
 as long as the causes that brought it about last. Famine 
 has become endemic in Russia. 
 
 A Russian eye-witness of Tatar descent who saw 
 the origin of the disaster at one of the places where it
 
 238 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 is at its worst, in the so-called "Tatar Republic," i.e., 
 in the Kazan Province on the Volga, thus testifies to 
 its connection with the Bolshevist policy of requisition- 
 ing grain. 1 "The cause of the poor crops is, of course, 
 an unprecedented heat and dryness. . . . But the rea- 
 son why these poor crops brought on a famine which 
 menaces the lives of millions is that in the last year 
 grain was requisitioned with unheard-of severity in the 
 Volga region, and the agents received special thanks 
 from the 'Central Committee' for having collected 170 
 per cent, of the amount assessed. ... It was a real orgy. 
 The whole area of the Tatar Republic at the time of the 
 requisition looked like a conquered country delivered as 
 booty to the victorious soldiers. Violence, looting, brib- 
 ery, orgies of drunken commissaries, night visits to 
 private houses, arrests and shots and what not were 
 daily occurrences. They left the peasants from their 
 crops of 1920 an amount of food barely sufficient to 
 sustain life until the next crops on starvation rations. 
 In fact, the peasant could feed on that grain only until 
 the spring, 1921. Even thus he had to consume a part 
 of his seed reserve, and as a result almost 40 per cent. 
 of the summer fields remained unsown. You probably 
 think that the famine began on the Volga only in 
 July or even in August. This is not true. The famine 
 has been raging with us from the very spring. It is 
 only the panics, the 'migration of peoples' that began 
 in June. At that moment the last ray of hope of get- 
 ting good crops this year was lost, wells and lakes had 
 dried up, fields and meadows transformed themselves 
 into continuous sunburnt yellow steppes, and whole 
 herds of cattle had begun to die. . . . Pictures and 
 
 *A personal letter, written at the end of September, 1921, after 
 the author thereof escaped from Bolshevist Russia.
 
 THE FAMINE 239 
 
 correspondence from the famine-stricken provinces are 
 all true, but they do not reflect the hundredth part of 
 the real horrors, and the correspondents, much honored 
 and closely observed by the Bolshevist authorities, can- 
 not discover the hidden corners and heartrending scenes 
 of actual life." 
 
 This criticism is not quite justified, as in the corre- 
 spondences of Mr. Bechhofer in the London Times, Mr. 
 Gibbs in the Chicago Tribune, and in the articles and 
 reports of Mr. Hoover's representatives and agents 
 one can find descriptions which give an adequate im- 
 pression of the Russian distress. But a Russian can 
 see the same things from a different angle and has the 
 inside view which may be lacking with a foreigner. 
 To complete the picture drawn by foreign correspond- 
 ents, let me quote from the Russian sources, and chiefly 
 from the Red papers published in Bolshevist Russia. 
 
 Here is a picture of that "migration of peoples" at 
 its initial state, when no help was forthcoming and no 
 foreign correspondents had been able to reach the suf- 
 fering regions. I quote from the same letter of my 
 Moslem witness, which was not intended for publica- 
 tion. 
 
 "As early as the end of June, 1921, the streets and squares 
 of Kazan, as well as the strip of land 4^ miles long between 
 the city and the pier, were packed by the starving crowd. 
 The police gave up all attempts to disperse them, and indeed 
 there was no place where they could go. Starving people 
 were literally lying everywhere with their children and their 
 sick: they could be shot but not removed. They lay pros- 
 trate for days, nay, for weeks. After having eaten up all 
 they had brought with them and sold put everything they 
 possessed, they besieged the Bolshevist institutions, begging 
 for food and permits to go further. After a while some of 
 them died in the same places, on the street. The remain- 
 ing ones gradually disappeared, nobody knew where. New
 
 240 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 crowds were pouring into the town, taking their places in 
 the streets, lying down, or dying, or going away in their 
 turn. A human corpse on the streets of Kazan became a 
 familiar appearance and it no longer frightened any one. 
 We stepped over them without minding it. It is only here 
 (outside Russia) that I came to my senses, and I now can- 
 not dispel that vision. It seems to me as if they were still 
 lying in the same places, men, women, children, side by side. 
 When I went out at the end of June to the pier, the meadows 
 between the river and the town presented a continuous black 
 mass of people for weeks awaiting their turn for a place on 
 the steamer. They lay days and nights in the open fields; 
 the sun burnt pitilessly, the hot wind raised clouds of dry 
 dust, and they drank water from a putrid swamp nearby. 
 ... It was an endless open-air hospital with cobblestones 
 or filthy earth beneath them, instead of beds, with rags, 
 dirty sacks and pieces of bast, instead of blankets. Most 
 of them purposely passed their time lying down, to quell 
 their pains of hunger and not to be forced to take food too 
 often. But many were unable to get up because they were 
 ill. Some had the convulsions of cholera, and such as died 
 from cholera continued to lie in then" places. 
 
 "I cannot describe the scenes of free fights, of children 
 and sick trodden down under the feet at the entrance to the 
 steamer. Many thousands pressed for places, and our 
 steamer was packed beyond its limit. It did not stop at the 
 following landing stations, as everywhere it was the same 
 crowd of thousands of people waiting and the same night- 
 mare would repeat itself. One could not move on the docks. 
 There starving people covered with rags lay even-where. 
 They ate a kind of stale black bread prepared from a mix- 
 ture of acorn and seeds of orach, roots and grass. On the 
 ninth day, when we were reaching Perm (another provincial 
 city up the Kama River), not more than twenty people 
 (besides the crew) were moving about. All the others .lay 
 in their places, like dead. Corpses were regularly thrown 
 into the water in the night tune. In Perm the picture was 
 the same: the pier, the station, the streets and squares filled 
 with a starving crowd in rags, waiting for a train to go to 
 Siberia . . . 
 
 "I recollect very well the famine of 1891. At that time
 
 THE FAMINE 241 
 
 there were no dreadful scenes and no unheard-of panics. 
 The population waited quietly for help and believed that 
 help would come. Now they do not believe anybody, they 
 are in complete despair and suspect lies and mockery every- 
 where. . . . The commissars declared in the villages that 
 other States far from sending help wish Russia to starve, 
 as they are ruled by capitalists. . . . And the peasant does 
 not expect the grain to come from anywhere." 
 
 Such was the situation in June, 1921. No local help 
 and no help in sight, either from within or from outside 
 of Russia. Under normal conditions there were store- 
 houses filled with grain in every village community. 
 Now most of these storehouses were empty. In the 
 past there were good ways of communication, good 
 crops elsewhere and good people ready to help. Now 
 the ways of communication are completely broken 
 down, crops are insufficient everywhere and no public 
 opinion is permitted to organize to work for relief inde- 
 pendently from the Bolshevist authorities. The popu- 
 lation is purposely kept in the dark and consciously 
 misled as to the feelings of the "bourgeois" world 
 towards the "proletarian" Republic. Under such condi- 
 tions, nothing could be expected, indeed, and the peas- 
 ants took to the ancient Russian recourse in times of 
 utter despair: to flight from their homes. 
 
 Of course, not all could afford it. Only such as had 
 something to sell, as still possessed a horse and a car- 
 riage, were able to take their families with them, to 
 shut the doors and the windows of their houses, and 
 to go. Where to? They did not know that them- 
 selves. They went to the East, to Siberia, the rich 
 country and the last to be exhausted. They went to the 
 Southeast, to Turkestan: they had heard that some- 
 where beyond there was an "Indian king" who might 
 help them. They went to the Northwest, to big cities,
 
 242 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 to Moscow, in the first place, because there was a 
 Government there which must know. They also went 
 to the Western frontier, to meet "the Americans" : the 
 Amecican help the only one that was not a mere illu- 
 sion and did not delude them. . . . 
 
 But it took time for the American help to come. 
 In the meantime, the "migration of peoples" con- 
 tinues. The peasants go in crowds, in long files of 
 vehicles. They fill up the roads. The same dreadful 
 scenes repeat themselves as they go. Days and weeks 
 pass, all supplies are consumed, and there is no more 
 fodder for the horse. The horse dies on the way and 
 the whole starving family is left alone in the midst of 
 that endless strip of a road that leads nowhere. The 
 father tries to find some food in the neighboring village. 
 But the local population is hostile, as their own reserves 
 are scant and it is no good to share them with new- 
 comers. The reasoning is the same as that heard by 
 Mr. Goodrich from a peasant in the Samara Province. 
 "There is not enough to keep us alive until next har- 
 vest. So if we divide up now and do not get help, we 
 shall all starve to death. It is better that some should 
 die hi order that others may live." The words of hor- 
 rible realism are followed by acts. The peasants of the 
 villages along the highways arm themselves and ward 
 off any one asking for food. The road is thus turned 
 into a solitude in the midst of densely peopled regions, 
 and the Caravan of Death is left to go its way of perdi- 
 tion. If it succeeds in reaching a provincial town, in the 
 direction of Moscow, Red soldiers wait for the starving 
 crowd ; the towns are entrenched as for a regular siege. 
 The soldiers fire at the approaching crowd. . . . 
 
 The father thus comes back helpless to the eagerly 
 waiting family. He has not found any food. The
 
 THE FAMINE 243 
 
 mother, the grandmother, the children lie flat in their 
 carriage. They are too sick to feel any emotion. Si- 
 lently, noiselessly, they die one by one, and off he goes 
 on foot and alone, from the place of his catastrophe. 
 
 The great majority, the rank and file, are too poor 
 to try their escape in flight. They remain in the village. 
 Let us go there. This is a description one of the many 
 which I take from a Bolshevist newspaper. It is the 
 Samara Province and district, the village of Semeykino, 
 in August, 1921. "It is so silent now in the Russian 
 village. There is something solemn in this sinister 
 silence. We lift our hats, as if in the presence of death. 
 And indeed, death is in the streets, death is in the ham- 
 lets. The people speak in whispers. Men and women 
 wear clean holiday shirts, and all the houses are 
 cleansed. They walk about the streets in silent medi- 
 tation, as if without protest, in fatalistic submission to 
 their fate. They are marching to the encounter with 
 death. They have even calculated the exact time when 
 death will come. 'We now feed on grass and on birch 
 tree leaves. But soon the frost will strike. By the old 
 style the grass-eating will come to an end on the 14th 
 (29) of September. There will be no leaves then. 
 Well, we may somehow hold on as late as the beginning 
 of November. But later on we all shall have to die. 
 Before Christmas every one of us will be buried in the 
 graves.' ' In the spring of 1922, Semeykino (the word 
 means "little family") will be empty. 
 
 "Where are your people?" another Bolshevist corre- 
 spondent asks his driver, as in August he enters Ivan- 
 ovka, in the Pugachov district of the Samara govern- 
 ment. "Have they all died?" The idea is suggested 
 by the abandoned houses on the outskirts, witK their 
 straw roofs torn off for fodder. "Well," the driver an-
 
 244 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 swers, "why should they walk about? They have 
 enough of walking, with that grass-eating. They 
 mostly lie down. Let us go to the church ; there will 
 be some people there." And indeed, round Father Paul, 
 the village priest, there is a small gathering. "It is 
 difficult for them to walk," he confirms; "they are, 
 as you see, all exhausted to the limit. Most of them 
 have swollen legs; they walk on sticks and they reel. 
 But to-day they have come because they have heard 
 of your coming." Maybe, help will come? "It is time 
 to help us, otherwise there will be no starving people, 
 but dying only. Two hundred have already died from 
 starvation in our village; two of them just died to- 
 day." They tell him their story. The underfeeding 
 began at Easter time (end of March). But there were 
 hopes for good crops. Week after week they were 
 waiting for rain, but in vain were all prayers. There 
 was a drought. Instead of 200 poods from a dessiatine, 
 they finally expected to collect 20 or 30. But there 
 came locusts. "Probably, God is against us." they de- 
 cided. Father Paul would know, and they asked him: 
 "Tell us, Father Paul, is this really the end? Just tell 
 us that we may know in advance." "Is it not a quiet 
 people?" the correspondent remarked. "Well, you see 
 for yourself: they are just like wet rags; you will hear 
 no sound from them." 
 
 However, they have their own way of passive pro- 
 test. Here is another church gathering in Sarapul, a 
 district town on the Kama River. The background is 
 always the same. Babies with swollen bellies, mothers 
 trying to suckle them with breasts void of milk, wom- 
 en's cries and lamentations, men clad in sacks imploring 
 for alms in vain; dead horses lying in ditches along 
 the road, in complete decomposition, full of worms.
 
 THE FAMINE 245 
 
 Doctors walk around looking perplexed, with no drugs 
 and at a loss as to what can be done. Red guards and 
 secret police agents listen to the people's talk, ill-tem- 
 pered and thrown-off the scent. Carriages filled up 
 with corpses move slowly along the streets; the thin 
 and yellow legs of the deceased shake queerly in rhythm 
 with the jerks of the wheels. A priest in surplice goes 
 among that mournful gathering and hastily performs 
 ritual ceremonies for the dying members of the com- 
 munity. The bells of the church tinkle, tremulous 
 and uncertain. On the porch a little old man with 
 scraggly beard speaks to the peasant crowd in sub- 
 dued whispers. "To death you will come, where- 
 ever you go! Yes, to death! All will die. Have 
 you ever seen how wolves run from the forest fire, 
 how bears walk about in the villages'? Well, 
 they run for their lives. Now, you, brethren, you beg- 
 gars, where do you mean to go? I say unto you: You 
 will not run away, no, not run away from death! 
 God, my Lord : Hast Thou not designated our hour? 
 Who are we to escape Thine hour, Lord? And thou, 
 O soul of man: Why dost thou toss about? Dost 
 thou not know where thy limit is laid? Fire in the 
 wood, fire in the sky, fire in the heart, fire in the hut. 
 . . . Let us burn in the fire, brethren, let us burn! 
 Comets will rise in heaven and stars will fall down to 
 earth. Void and empty has the Russian land become. 
 Let us burn in fire, brethren, let us burn!" 
 
 There is a curious parallel between this propaganda 
 of self-burning and that which was carried on at the 
 end of the XVII Century by fanatic priests among the 
 persecuted sectarians. Thousands burnt themselves in 
 their houses or on wood piles, saving their souls from 
 the life which had become unbearable. This old form
 
 246 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 of Russian passive protest has been revived. The cor- 
 respondent just quoted, while leaving Sarapul, drew at- 
 tention to an ash-heap at the side of the road. The 
 driver told him that this had been a chapel. The in- 
 habitants of a village nearby had all fled away. The 
 few that were unable to go shut themselves up in the 
 chapel and set fire to it. "People say they were singing 
 songs, namely, in the fire. . . . Probably, psalms," 
 the driver commented. Obviously, the old man on the 
 porch of the church did not preach in vain. . . . 
 
 There have been also other methods of collective 
 suicide. Sometimes, whole families have locked them- 
 selves in their houses, shut chimney and window open- 
 ings, filled the house with smoke and suffocated them- 
 selves. Sometimes mothers with children have 
 drowned themselves in rivers. My Moslem witness 
 mentions an instance of an old woman with her little 
 granddaughter. The woman wrapped herself in a 
 shroud, took her Koran and went to a minaret of a 
 mosque. After a week both corpses were found there 
 in a state of decomposition. . . . 
 
 "When will the help come? Will it not be too late? 
 Will these starving people live long enough to be able 
 to make use of it?" These questions are anxiously put 
 to every one who visits the famine-stricken area. The 
 unvarnished truth is that there is no answer to that 
 question, except that millions will die are sure to die 
 before help can be given. But "millions" is a figure, 
 and figures do not speak. Let me give you one single 
 instance to bring home the whole meaning of that 
 merciless truth. I take the picture again from a Bol- 
 shevist correspondence. We are at Samara, at the rail- 
 way station. In the first-class dining-room there is ex- 
 quisite food, everything you like to order, tasty white
 
 THE FAMINE 247 
 
 bread, steaks, pork chops, wine, ice-cream, fruits, long 
 tables covered with snow-white linen, flowers in vases 
 of crystal. But this is for the commissars and "specu- 
 lators," the nouveaux-riches. A few feet away there 
 is that human cloaca known to us, with its unbearable 
 stink of foul clothes and half-dead corpses, covered with 
 black dust and clouds of flies, one mass of filth, rags 
 and refuse. On that background, here is the picture: 
 
 "Under the very windows of our railway car starving 
 children are lying day and night, and all the day and all 
 night long you hear one single endless call: 'Give us bread, 
 little uncle!' A girl is dying just here, under nay window. 
 She is about sixteen, a good-looking girl, thin and well 
 shaped. She lies on her back, with closed eyes. Now and 
 then she opens her eyes, for a few minutes, and she stares 
 at the sky, with her immovable, deadly gaze. When in the 
 morning I get up and look out she is there, in the same pos- 
 ture, clad in black, pale-faced, with her eyes shut, with 
 arms folded on her breast. When in the evening I come 
 back, she is always there, as immovable as before. I bring 
 her bread and milk. She does not want it nay, she cannot 
 eat. I try to persuade her. She half-opens her eyes, she 
 looks at me with an absent-minded, unearthly glance. I 
 wish to lift her and to bring her into the car. It seems to 
 toe that she can still be saved. She does not say anything. 
 But she throws at me an imploring glance, as if she were 
 saying: 'Do not touch me; let me die.' This glance 
 frightens me; I flee away. I become frightened and I am 
 afraid of being left alone with the dying girl. . . . But I 
 cannot sleep. The night passes away, and it seems to me 
 as if I dreamt nightmare dreams. I want to get up. A long, 
 clear star-lit night that never ends. Shall I go out, look at 
 her? I am too much frightened. ... At daybreak I run to 
 the town in search of a doctor. Maybe I can save her. 
 After three hours of running from one hospital to another, 
 I finally find a student associated with a mission for combat- 
 ting epidemics. 'Hurry up, doctor!' We drag along to the 
 station. We have come. 'Hurry up, doctor!' We run to my
 
 248 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 car. She lies there, in the same posture, immovable, with 
 closed eyes, with thin, pale, little childish hands crossed on 
 her breast. The student bows to her, takes her hand. . . . 
 She is dead. She died about half an hour ago! ..." 
 
 It is especially children that cannot wait and fall 
 the first victims. Their mothers cannot bear their suf- 
 ferings. They kill them, they drown them in the rivers, 
 they die together in the smoke of their locked huts, or 
 they leave them alone on the streets and before the 
 doors of the Soviet institutions. In the streets of Sa- 
 mara two hundred children have been picked up daily, 
 abandoned by their parents. In the streets of the 
 town of Ufa 150 children are being picked up daily, 
 abandoned by their parents. As to the general number 
 of children starving, the following figures were given 
 by the Bolsheviks in the autumn, 1921 : 300,000 chil- 
 dren in the Chuvash Republic; 1,500,000 in the Tatar 
 Republic; over 500,000 in the Ufa Province; 800,000 in 
 the Province of Simbirsk. "According to official data, 
 there are at present (September, 1921) no less than 
 9,500,000 starving children in Russia." The figure 
 may seem exaggerated. It is at any rate exaggerated 
 for to-day, as the mortality has been too great for this 
 number of children to be still among the living. A 
 Bolshevist report published in October, 1921, at Berlin, 
 states that "the mortality in some cases is as high as 75 
 per cent. Cholera, dysentery and typhus prevail, in 
 addition to the horrors of starvation. Children's homes 
 are often characterized as "ante-chambers of death." 
 
 To take an instance, this is a description of one of 
 these children's homes in Samara (previous to Ameri- 
 can relief), by Mr. Mark Krinitsky, a Bolshevist cor- 
 respondent.
 
 THE FAMINE 249 
 
 "Alongside the wall some ten little children's bodies 
 lay on bare wooden boards without any bedding, clad 
 in skirts alone. Their glassy eyes looked mournful and 
 hopeless. Their thin hands and legs looked like sticks 
 with knots at the joints. The tightened skin of their 
 old-looking faces bore the stamp of death. A nurse 
 bowed carefully over each one hi turn to drive off the 
 greedy, sticky 'dead house' flies, sticking round their 
 immovable victims. ... It was still worse in the next 
 room. If 5 to 10 per cent, of these children will live on, 
 it will be a good result, says the superintendent of this 
 cemetery of children." 
 
 At last the help comes. But it is not sufficient to 
 satisfy everybody. It will take much time and patience 
 until experiences like the following one are no more 
 repeated. I take it from a Bolshevst periodical. The 
 correspondent writes from the station of Buzuluk, Prov- 
 ince of Samara. 
 
 "A grievous, intolerable, soul-shattering moaning. 
 Our railway-carriage is besieged on all sides. People 
 strive to clamber in at the windows and the doors. The 
 children climb up like cats, lose their hold and fall. 
 Bony hands at all apertures, accompanied by terrible, 
 inhuman cries: 'Bread, for God's sake, bread! Save 
 us, help us!' 
 
 "We attempt to give them bread, but scarcely have 
 we reached it out, when hundreds of hands clutch at 
 us, pull us this way and that, with terrible cries. We 
 try to give something to the children, but the adults 
 push them aside, striking and biting one another. 
 Their eyes, especially those of children, are unnaturally 
 bright. They no longer bear the semblance of children, 
 but of aged infants. Their dried-up skin is drawn
 
 250 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tight over their prominent bones. Their faces are 
 wrinkled, their eyes feverish. Some of them have lost 
 their voices and can only move their lips. 
 
 "The starving number hundreds, thousands. I tried 
 to arrange them in some kind of queue so as to give 
 each one something, if only a bit. But they were mad 
 with hunger and each man feared he would get nothing. 
 If they see food, the starving tear it out of your hands 
 by force. Here is an emaciated little boy of eight, so 
 weak he can scarcely stand. One of the passengers at- 
 tempts to give him an egg, when suddenly hundreds 
 like him make their appearance and with cries and 
 tears rush on the passenger, and in one moment the 
 egg is broken into atoms." 
 
 The real help has come with the A. R. A. (American 
 Relief Administration). A private organization, work- 
 ing since the armistice under the chairmanship of Mr. 
 Herbert Hoover and with the financial support of the 
 United States Government, the A. R. A. has saved the 
 lives of about 2,000,000 undernourished children hi the 
 Baltic States, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia. Austria and 
 Hungary. It was decided by Mr. Hoover and his chief 
 assistants to make use of the great experience acquired 
 by the personnel of the Administration and of the funds 
 available, to give the starving Russian children a daily 
 meal of the food value of about 800 calories. A satis- 
 factory agreement was signed at Riga with the Soviet 
 Commissary. Mr. Litvinov, as early as August 20. 1921. 
 The A. R. A. reserved for itself complete independence 
 from the Bolshevist authorities and free disposal of its 
 supplies, while the means of transportation and the 
 necessary premises for feeding were to be provided by 
 the local authorities. The first food train arrived in 
 Kazan on September 17. and others to Samara, Sim-
 
 THE FAMINE 251 
 
 birsk, Saratov followed rapidly. By November 1 over 
 202,000 children were being fed, and by December 1 
 the number had reached 750,000. The limit was to 
 be 1,200,000, which was to be reached in January, 1922. 
 By the end of 1921, 35,000 tons of food had been sent 
 from America. But now help is to be further extended, 
 including the adults, thanks to President Harding's 
 recommendation in his annual message to Congress on 
 December 6, for an appropriation to supply the A. R. A. 
 with 10,000,000 bushels of corn and 1,000,000 bushels 
 of seed grains for the famine victims in the valley of 
 the Volga. Governor James P. Goodrich, of Indiana, 
 who had just returned from a visit to the famine- 
 stricken area, told the Congress that the proposed ap- 
 propriation must be doubled, to satisfy the need. He, 
 proposed to send to Russia 20,000,000 bushels of corn 
 and 5,000,000 bushels of wheat. $20,000,000 was ap- 
 propriated by Congress on December 24, 1921. Thus 
 the limit was reached of what Mr. Hoover thought it 
 possible to transport to the starving area during the 
 next six months, taking the probable capacity of the 
 railways from the two ports of Riga and Novorossiisk 
 that were available (100,000 tons or 6,000,000 poods 
 a month). Of course, it is not the limit of Russia's 
 need, as may be concluded from a comparison with the 
 figures given above. What are the other resources, if 
 any? What can the Soviet Government do, to cope 
 with the famine? 
 
 Of course, the official version of the Bolsheviks was 
 that the "capitalistic" governments want Russia to 
 starve, and that the real help can only be given by the 
 international proletariat, directly or under their pres- 
 sure. Thus the famine could be made use of for the 
 world propaganda. But this was for the gallery. At
 
 252 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the same time, behind the scenes the question of an 
 international loan to be given to the repentant Bolshe- 
 vism was being discussed in London, and probably else- 
 where. The aim of the loan was to be economic re- 
 construction, useful and necessary to any future 
 government in Russia. Would the question of the 
 famine promote or hamper the question of a loan? 
 The first idea of the Bolshevist Government was to 
 simplify the situation by denying the facts of the 
 famine. But soon it became impossible. An old Rus- 
 sian organization, the Agronomic Society in Moscow, 
 met on June 22, 1921, and decided to draw the atten- 
 tion of the Soviet Government to the terrible situation 
 of the Volga population. The second thought of the 
 Government was to use the prominent non-Bolshevik 
 members of the Agronomic Society as mediators in 
 their negotiations with Western Europe. On July 23, 
 an All-Russian Relief Committee was organized by the 
 Bolsheviks. Mr. Kishkin and Prokopovich, former 
 ministers of the Kerensky Government; Mr. Golovin, 
 the President of the Second Duma, with some other 
 non-Bolsheviks, were invited to join the committee. 
 "For the first time after four years," as Mr. Kishkin 
 said in his introductory speech, "the representatives of 
 the governing power have met the representatives of 
 non-official circles in order to start, in common accord, 
 on a work of national and social significance." The 
 character and the real causes of the disaster were stated 
 openly in the same speech. "The famine," Mr. Kishkin 
 stated, "has been aggravated by the deep and general 
 crisis in the economic life of the country. An almost 
 complete ruin of industry, a considerable decline in 
 productivity of work, a conspicuous diminution of sown 
 area, an exhaustion of reserves formerly accumulated,
 
 THE FAMINE 253 
 
 the disorganization of transportation, the depreciation 
 of the ruble, all these evils have made the poor crops, 
 caused by bad weather, bring about a really catastro- 
 phic situation. Most decisive and complete measures 
 are necessary in order that all classes of the population 
 who are in the same predicament may take part in the 
 struggle." 
 
 We shall see in another place that just that attempt 
 to unite the non-Bolshevist Russia in that gigantic task 
 of helping themselves made the Bolsheviks suspicious 
 and brought the work of the Moscow committee to a 
 speedy close. As it has always been the chief aim of 
 the Bolsheviks to influence public opinion outside of 
 Russia by their display of moderation, they planned 
 to send the leaders of the committee on a mission to 
 Britain, France and probably America. Negotiations 
 have been started to that effect. But in the meantime 
 the Bolsheviks saw that they could talk with the 
 outer world without intermediaries. After the agree- 
 ment with Mr. Hoover they concluded another, much 
 more favorable for them, with Mr. Nansen. They re- 
 served for themselves the complete control of supplies 
 to be received through Mr. Nansen and, in addition, 
 they empowered Mr. Nansen to negotiate a loan for 
 them to the amount of 10,000,000 (September, 1921). 
 
 However, this time they were very much disap- 
 pointed. On Mr. Nansen's coming back to Geneva 
 from Moscow, he met with a very skeptical reception 
 on the part of the League of Nations. His agreement 
 was found unsatisfactory, and his request for credit at 
 least premature. Many questions had first to be de- 
 cided, such as recognition of debts, conditions of eco- 
 nomic reconstruction, the extent of recognition of the 
 Soviet Government, etc. The Bolsheviks made things
 
 254 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 still worse for themselves by their insolent refusal to 
 let an international commission of inquiry, headed by 
 Mr. Noulens, enter Russia. Thenceforth it was quite 
 hopeless for them to expect that Europe would pass 
 over the question of economic reconstruction to the 
 direct help asked by Dr. Nansen. On October 6, 1921, 
 the International Russian Relief Commission in its 
 plenary sitting at Brussels repeated its demand for a 
 Commission of Inquiry to be sent to the affected areas, 
 as a condition of any credit to be given. It emphasized 
 the importance of guaranties for the distribution of re- 
 lief, and made the following recommendations as to 
 the Soviet's request for credits: 
 
 (1) Whatever may be the extent of the famine, no definite 
 solution can be found until economic conditions have been 
 realized guaranteeing normal production within Russia, and 
 until confidence has been sufficiently restored for foreign 
 exporters to send their goods to Russia. 
 
 (2) The confidence necessary to secure the support of the 
 commercial communities can only be created and maintained 
 when Russia's debts and obligations have been recognized 
 and all advances to her sufficiently guaranteed. These prin- 
 ciples apply both to credits granted by the Governments 
 and by private concerns. 
 
 (3) The Conference is thus led to the conclusion that, in 
 order to obtain the credits for the purpose of aiding exporta- 
 tion to Russia, the two following conditions are absolutely 
 essential: 
 
 (a) The Russian Government must recognize its existing 
 debts and other obligations. 
 
 (b) Adequate guarantees must be given for all credits to 
 be granted in the future. 
 
 These recommendations hopelessly confounded po- 
 litical questions with that of mere philanthropy. The 
 Russian democratic parties wished to discriminate be-
 
 THE FAMINE 255 
 
 tween the immediate help on American lines, which 
 they enthusiastically greeted, and the question of re- 
 construction which could not be solved as long as the 
 Bolsheviks continued in power. The Supreme Council 
 of the Allies put itself before an alternative equally 
 dangerous on both sides : recognition of the Soviet Gov- 
 ernment or complete refusal of help to the suffering 
 population. 
 
 The Soviet Government was thus left to its own 
 resources and to the aid of voluntary organizations 
 (in the first line, the A. R. A.). Its own scheme for 
 relief is based on the allotment of some 12,000,000 
 poods of flour and grits, 10,000,000 poods of potatoes 
 and 1,750,000 poods of meat for the space of time from 
 October, 1921, to June, 1922. They expected to feed 
 with this a gradually increasing number of children and 
 adults: respectively 375,000 and 125,000 in October; 
 1,500,000 and 1,000,000 in January, after which the 
 number of adults is to increase up to 1,750,000 in 
 March. The motive was that "it is necessary to give 
 a little food to the workers in the field, so that they 
 will not fall down while going behind the plow," and 
 that "this is the only way to save the spring seeds from 
 being eaten by the starving people." In May the num- 
 ber of adults is to decrease, and it comes down to 750,- 
 000 in June. One must add that even that scheme does 
 not go beyond the feeding of 3,250,000 the highest 
 figure in March, while the whole starving population 
 is estimated for the same time as 12,000,000. The 
 amount of seed necessary for the 15 starving provinces 
 is estimated by the Soviets as more than 22,000,000 
 poods, of which they hoped to buy in Sweden and in 
 the Baltic States 5,000,000 poods; to get in exchange 
 for goods, through the Cooperatives, another 5,000,000,
 
 256 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 and to appropriate 15,000,000 from the supply fund. 
 Of course, all these were merely plans, and it is impos- 
 sible to say what part of them can be realized. The 
 last figures of imports of food to be found in the Red 
 press refer to December 6, 1921, and they can give us 
 a good idea as to the relative proportion of help given 
 to the Russian people by different organizations. Here 
 are the figures: 
 
 Car-loads 
 
 American Relief Administration 1,265 
 
 Central Russian (Bolshevist) Committee 
 
 Famine Relief 674 
 
 International Children's Relief 180 
 
 Nansen's organization 88 
 
 Quakers' organization 61 
 
 From Bulgaria 60 
 
 Swedish Red Cross 41 
 
 German Volga Committee 8 
 
 Thus, the activity of the American Relief Admin- 
 istration is the most conspicuous, and it is only natural 
 that the news about the Americans helping Russia has 
 traveled to the remotest corners of Russia's provinces. 
 No propaganda and no other form of activity could lay 
 such a firm foundation for lasting friendship between 
 our two countries as the activity of these 75 Americans 
 who form the working personnel of the American Re- 
 lief Administration. It is no wonder that the Bolshe- 
 vist authorities abstain from interference with the 
 American work (although they still try to discredit it 
 through the press). But even the lawless elements 
 which are now so many in Russia, the bandits and the 
 robbers, are kept in check by the high moral value of 
 that humanitarian activity. I find a touching account 
 in a cablegram of the A. R. A. of December 8:
 
 THE FAMINE 257 
 
 "Raiders, 800 men and women, all dressed in sheepskin 
 coats, riding black horses, carrying two rifles, looted all 
 Government warehouses, taking what they wanted, telling 
 the populace to take the balance. But they left the A. R. A. 
 warehouse entirely untouched. The tall thin black-bearded 
 leader even knew Floete's name. He made a speech in the 
 public square saying that he liked the American representa- 
 tive who had humanity at heart and only wanted to feed 
 the starving. Coming and going I met several unprotected 
 wagon trains carrying our supplies but always left unmo- 
 lested when they learned the origin and purpose." 
 
 Before I finish this chapter, let me quote a few more 
 passages from recent American reports. They will 
 give us the latest news as to the state of the famine 
 in Russia and, as was to be expected, they will show 
 that the situation far from being improved has become 
 worse with the beginning of winter. 
 
 Mr. Rives Childs, regional inspector of the Kazan 
 district, made a trip of 560 miles through 12 of the 13 
 cantons of the Tatar republic. This is what he wrote 
 while on his way (December 17) : 
 
 "Conditions are growing worse by leaps and bounds. I 
 am thoroughly convinced after my last trip and on the basis 
 of reports we are receiving that to say that half the popula- 
 tion of the Tatar republic will starve before the end of the 
 winter would be in the nature of a conservative estimate. 
 Conditions took a turn for the worse in most cantons be- 
 ginning with November and will reach a crisis in January. 
 The only meal that 75% of the children in our kitchens are 
 receiving to-day is from the A. R. A. Unless the outside 
 world awakens to conditions here I doubt if we shall save 
 more than half the children we are feeding to-day." 
 
 After his return, Mr. Childs gave (January 5) some 
 figures to support his statement: 
 
 "Six hundred thousand children have no resources upon 
 which to live through the winter and 50% of these are al-
 
 258 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ready in acute need. Excluding the number of children we 
 are feeding and a small number reached by Russian Relief, 
 only 12% of the remaining population can survive the win- 
 ter. During recent months 34% to 72% of the horses have 
 been killed for food and cows to even a greater proportion. 
 These figures are confirmed in 40 villages representing every 
 canton visited." 
 
 To the south from the Tatar Republic the situa- 
 tion is the same. Here is the state of things in the 
 Bashkir Republic, as reported by the Ufa supervisor 
 (January 9) : 
 
 "Of the total population of 2,000,000 of the Ufa Gov- 
 ernment half a million are famishing children. Of the 
 1,125,000 population of the Bashkir Republic 90% are fam- 
 ishing. People are eating their last supplies of food sub- 
 stitutes and in some localities are making flour out of bones. 
 Government kitchens are soon to be closed because of the 
 exhausted supply of foodstuffs." 
 
 A more detailed report from a trip through the 
 Bashkir Republic via Samara Ufa Sterlitamak 
 (the capital) by Mr. Dickinson (December 28) com- 
 pletes the ghastly picture: 
 
 "Villages in this region are from 20 to 40% deserted by 
 the people fleeing from the famine, and the remaining in- 
 habitants are living mostly on bread made from weeds and 
 clay. The dead are carted from railroad stations and 
 trains at Ufa, Samara and elsewhere by wagon road. When 
 a wagon is not immediately available the dead are thrown 
 into big bins and snow shovelled over them to preserve the 
 bodies. The dead are usually buried in big trenches in cem- 
 eteries. At Samara Dickinson, visiting a cemetery late in 
 the day, saw 50 bodies still unburied although workmen had 
 been busy all day." 
 
 Still more to the south, the situation on the lower 
 Volga, about 50 miles southwards from Saratov, is thus
 
 THE FAMINE 259 
 
 summarized in a report from Mr. Clapp (December 
 
 22): 
 
 "I inspected 15 villages. Children are badly swollen from 
 starvation and dying daily. Horses are killed for food and 
 soon there will be no live stock left. Total population has 
 absolutely nothing in the way of substantial foodstuffs, al- 
 most no clothing. There is a general exodus from the dis- 
 trict. The roads are teeming with wagons with families 
 with few possessions going to Saratov. When asked where 
 they are bound for they reply: 'America/ or some place 
 where there is bread. All have a vague hope of crossing 
 the frontier somewhere and ultimately getting to America." 
 
 These are all cold facts, but we can understand how, 
 after having passed through many heartrending 
 scenes, the American visitors finally break into pathetic 
 appeals. Mr. Childs writes thus from his trip to Ela- 
 buga: 
 
 "I am sure that if our representative American citizens 
 who sit in Congress, or those diplomats who affect to speak 
 for millions of their citizens, could have passed with me 
 along the way which I was traveling and could have seen the 
 mute appeals I saw in the faces of the hungry and could 
 have heard the tales of distress as I heard them told so 
 simply, there could exist no doubt as to whether such a 
 woman as this (see below) should be given sufficient food 
 to endure the winter." 
 
 Here is the distressing scene reported by the ob- 
 server: 
 
 "The mother (of two children), a young woman school- 
 teacher of about 28, looked tired and despairing (in the 
 village school they had tea) . Asked what food she herself 
 lived on, she answered that she had nothing. She did not 
 know what to do to save herself from starvation which 
 seemed, in view of conditions confronting her, to be in-
 
 260 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 evitable. I turned over to her all the food which we were 
 carrying with us consisting of two or three pounds of bread 
 and as many pounds of rice. The gifts did not elicit from 
 her tired face even a smile. The only evidence of any human 
 emotion was the glance of tenderness which she bestowed 
 upon her children as they scampered about the bread." 
 
 This case was not an exception, as is to be expected. 
 Mr. Childs reports: 
 
 "The mothers and fathers of the children, it was found, 
 were now running out of food and I believe, in view of this 
 fact, that unless it is possible for the A. R. A. to undertake 
 adult feeding that it is quite possible in view of the critical 
 conditions which are sure to come this winter that the feed- 
 ing of the children alone will come, it might also be said, to 
 naught." 
 
 Mr. Childs' general conclusion is: 
 
 "It is all bad ; there is only a difference of degree. One 
 might sum up the situation by saying some have starved, 
 some are starving, and others are on the verge of starvation, 
 and it is not a question of months or weeks, but of days." 
 
 I could complete these reports with a number of 
 quotations from the Red press, which confirm the 
 American descriptions, but enough has been said to 
 show how great the need is, how powerless the Soviet 
 Government is to cope with it, and how inevitably 
 insufficient must be the help from outside. Of course, 
 this is by no means an argument against that help. 
 Nor do I think that help given to the population can 
 strengthen the Bolsheviks. I would not raise my voice 
 against the saving of Russian lives even if I thought 
 so. But this is not the case. Nothing can help the 
 Bolsheviks to their feet again. The disproportion be- 
 tween what is necessary for a State to exist and what
 
 THE FAMINE 261 
 
 can be done by the Soviet power to improve the situa- 
 tion can only grow with time. A great nation like 
 Russia cannot be saved by philanthropy. It has to 
 work out its own salvation, and no salvation can be 
 found as long as the State is run on false economic 
 principles by people who are not interested in its pres- 
 ervation nor in the fate of its population.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW. 
 
 There are two sides to the process I have been de- 
 scribing in the preceding eight chapters. "The old 
 crumbles down, time brings changes, and from the 
 ruins blossoms forth a new life." l I used that quota- 
 tion from Schiller twenty-five years ago, to sum up my 
 "History of Civilization in Russia." I am tempted to 
 use it again, to sum up what some people are inclined 
 to call Russia's return to barbarism. 
 
 To be sure, with the background of the World War, 
 the Revolution has brought great destruction. Con- 
 ditions proved extremely favorable for Bolshevism to 
 take hold of the Revolution. But the Revolution in 
 Russia is a long process of change in the minds of the 
 people and in the institutions. It is organically con- 
 nected with the whole process of Russian civilization. 
 Bolshevism is only a stage which is passing away. 
 Even in this stage the process is not confined to the 
 destruction brought about by the Bolshevist power. 
 There are many germs of new life blossoming from the 
 ruins. The other side of the process is not destructive, 
 but constructive. It is this side that makes us hopeful 
 in spite of all and proud of our Russia of to-morrow. 
 
 It is probably easier in a great process of change to 
 predict what will be the final outcome than to make 
 
 1 "Das Alte stiirzt, es andert sich die Zeit, und neues Leben bliiht 
 aus den Ruinen." 
 
 262
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 263 
 
 prophecies as to what is going to happen next. But 
 the latter question is generally asked first, and an an- 
 swer is suggested in what has been said in Chapters 
 VII and VIII. The Bolshevist stage of the great Rus- 
 sian Revolution is coming to a close as a consequence 
 of two factors: the economic exhaustion and the atti- 
 tude of the population towards the present power. 
 
 An outsider easily grows skeptical when he now hears 
 about the coming end of the Bolsheviks. Prophecies 
 to that effect have been repeated for four years but 
 they have proved wrong. The closer observer of Rus- 
 sian events knows, however, that these prophecies were 
 never entirely mistaken. Mr. Brailsford has just told 
 us in his "The Russian Workers' Republic" that one 
 of the ablest leaders of Bolshevist Russia made the 
 avowal to him that "in 1917 they hardly hoped to 
 maintain themselves for two months." There were 
 many causes which contributed to their staying. There 
 was also a gradual process which eliminated those 
 causes, one by one. In Chapters II and III we noted 
 the part that the Bolshevist promises played in their 
 success and in the strengthening of their power. But 
 gradually the masses saw they were being deluded. 
 There was also fear, caused by the organization of 
 terror, and this motive is still working. But this factor 
 alone can never suffice to sustain the Bolsheviks in 
 power once the population has withdrawn its tacit 
 moral consent. There were two additional reasons 
 which contributed to the moral consent given to the 
 Bolsheviks to rule, in spite of the fact that their prom- 
 ises had already proved false. In the first place, there 
 was that "White" movement. There was a moment, 
 especially in 1918-1919, when the population wished 
 for the success of the "White" movement and tried to
 
 264 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 help it. But we also know (Chap. VI) why finally 
 the population found that this was "worse than Bol- 
 shevism," and chose the lesser evil. From then on the 
 "White" movement helped to strengthen Bolshevism 
 instead of destroying it. It promoted a national feel- 
 ing as against the foreign intervention and it made the 
 population realize that they still had to defend their 
 social gains from the claims of the dispossessed privi- 
 leged class. In the second place, the Bolshevist propa- 
 ganda succeeded in implanting in the people the idea 
 that a communist revolution was impending all over 
 the world, and they naturally concluded that it was 
 useless to combat it in Russia. Many a construction 
 of Russia's greatness was based on the speculation of 
 a convalescent young Russia in the midst of the old 
 world grown sick. 
 
 Now these last two causes no longer exist. Since the 
 beginning of 1921 there is no "White" movement, and 
 the people have to rely on themselves for their salva- 
 tion. The consequences of that change of mind have 
 already made themselves felt in a series of isolated 
 uprisings. On the other hand, even the Bolshevist 
 leaders no longer expect the world revolution to come 
 at once, although they have not lost faith in it. The 
 people are tired of waiting for a world overthrow. The 
 objection may be raised that just this state of despair 
 as to the possibility of a speedy change to come from 
 the outside might move the population to look at the 
 Bolshevist regime as final and to support it, by the 
 force of a growing tradition. This objection would 
 have value if the Bolshevist regime could make itself 
 at least minimally acceptable for the nation. But it 
 cannot. 
 
 Can Bolshevism evolve? This is the question hi dis-
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 265 
 
 pute. There is no doubt that the Bolshevist power is 
 making concessions. But the point is that it makes 
 them in order to remain a Bolshevist power. We know 
 the reason for their readiness to make concessions: 
 it is that Russia is only a means for them, while their 
 aim is international and universal. They may change 
 the exhausted Russia for some unexhausted place in 
 the East : that idea had been discussed and preparations 
 had been made in their hour of distress, in 1919. It 
 seems to have been revived again, with the increased 
 possibilities for some national and even social over- 
 throw in Asia (see Chap. V). But the Bolsheviks 
 cannot change their system, neither in an exhausted 
 Russia, nor in another place: I mean the system of 
 arbitrary rule of the Communist Party based on com- 
 pulsion. So far as this system is concerned they are 
 even less able to compromise than ever autocracy 
 was, which fell just because of its incapacity for 
 compromise. There was an idea in autocracy 
 which could be broken only with autocracy itself. 
 There is an idea in Bolshevism which also can- 
 not be broken unless Bolshevism is broken. But even 
 if there were no idea, if they really were only a gang 
 of rascals and assassins, even then to tone down by an 
 evolutionary change is impossible for them for the 
 reason which one of my American friends formulated 
 in the picturesque phrase: "You cannot dismount if 
 you ride on a tiger." 
 
 It was Mr. Lloyd George's idea, to which he stuck 
 from the time of the invitation of the Bolsheviks to 
 Prinkipo, hi January, 1919, up to the time of the invita- 
 tion to Genoa, in January, 1922, that trade with the 
 Bolsheviks will be the powerful factor which will 
 smooth down all difficulties and bring into Russia the
 
 266 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 sobering influence which will gradually transform the 
 "cannibals" and "assassins" into a sort of decent gov- 
 ernment. Accordingly, a formula of minimum requi- 
 sites was sought for to make a civilized intercourse with 
 Bolshevist Russia possible at all. Secretary Hughes' 
 formula given out in his Note of March 25, 1921, was as 
 follows: "It is idle to expect resumption of trade until 
 the economic bases of production are securely estab- 
 lished. Production is conditioned upon the safety of 
 life, the recognition by firm guarantees of private prop- 
 erty, the sanctity of contract and the rights of free 
 labor." Nobody can say that these are political de- 
 mands. They can be complied with by the mere exist- 
 ence of a code of civil law, which might be enforced by 
 regular judicial institutions, under the supposition that 
 there is a legal order defended by the power of the 
 State. It is, however, characteristic for Bolshevism 
 that the citizens of the very country which entered into 
 a formal trade agreement with the Bolsheviks (Great 
 Britain in March, 1921) were the first to come to the 
 conclusion that no such prerequisites as those just men- 
 tioned can exist in Soviet Russia. Mr. Leslie Urquhart 
 is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of a powerful 
 British company, "The Russo-Asiatic Consolidated, 
 Ltd.," possessing important mines and works at Kysh- 
 tym, Tanalyk, etc. He received a proposition from 
 the Bolsheviks to enter into an agreement concerning 
 that property. He went to Moscow and in August and 
 September, 1921, discussed with the Concessions Com- 
 mission, in all details, the draft of a contract embodying 
 27 clauses. As a result, the Company preferred "to 
 remain as heretofore claimants against Russia for dam- 
 age caused by the Soviet Government for unlawful 
 appropriation of properties and working capital." The
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 267 
 
 motives for this decision are stated by Mr. Leslie Urqu- 
 hart in a letter to Mr. Krassin, and they are so closely 
 connected with my trend of argument that I may be 
 permitted to quote them at some length. Says Mr. 
 Urquhart : 
 
 "As communism does not recognize the right to pri- 
 vate property on which the previous Civil and Criminal 
 Code was based, magistrates have been suppressed and 
 Courts of Justice have been abolished. Nothing has 
 been substituted for these except a so-called Court of 
 revolutionary conscience. Under the new system, taxes 
 have been abolished, the mining, factory, customs, for- 
 est and railway laws and regulations, in fact all previ- 
 ously existing authorities, have been destroyed, as is 
 evidenced by the Clauses of that draft Concessions 
 Contract reviewed in this letter, and nothing but in- 
 complete Decrees and instructions which are issued 
 daily have taken their place. Further, the communis- 
 tic system does not recognize any obligations between 
 individuals and therefore no contract or obligation be- 
 tween two persons can be enforced ; nor does the State 
 itself recognize any obligation to individuals or sub- 
 jects. The only obligation recognized and enforced in 
 the communistic State is the absolute subjection of 
 every individual to the State. 
 
 "This extraordinary position, the absence of all laws 
 and regulations, dominated, as you are aware, the dis- 
 cussions all through the negotiations." 
 
 The summary of what was said by the British busi- 
 ness man during the negotiations is given by himself in 
 the following words : 
 
 "We pointed out that Russia under her present communist 
 system of State economy produces nothing to trade with,
 
 268 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 that the process of unlimited emissions of banknotes has 
 utterly exhausted the remnants of credit and that the stocks 
 of products and materials of the old capitalistic system had 
 been used up. The abolition of rights to property, of eco- 
 nomic freedom and the complicated system of economic re- 
 strictions generally have killed individual initiative and 
 enterprise while the elimination of private gain had de- 
 stroyed all incentive to work and produce. The policy 
 of nationalization of all industry and trade had killed for- 
 eign credits, and foreign capital without which the resuscita- 
 tion of Russian industry will be difficult, if not practically 
 impossible, would not be forthcoming if the present economic 
 system were to continue." 
 
 Now, as we know, 1921 was the time when the Bol- 
 sheviks found themselves badly in need of individual 
 initiative and enterprise, as well as of foreign credits 
 and capital. By the Decree of March 30, they granted 
 the peasant and town workers permission to barter and 
 to trade, they decided to denationalize small industries 
 and to offer concessions to foreign capitalists. In Au- 
 gust, on the basis of these concessions, they tried to 
 negotiate a loan of 10,000,000 through Mr. Nansen. 
 On October 29, in a speech before a party conference, 
 Mr. Lenin invited the Bolsheviks to a further "retreat." 
 "State Capitalism," he said, has not succeeded. "The 
 exchange of manufactured goods for the produce of 
 agriculture has not materialized, in the sense of taking 
 the form of simple buying and selling." "The private 
 market has proved to be stronger than our author- 
 ity." The next position to defend is "State regulation 
 of buying and selling and of money currency." 
 We know that practically, buying and selling in 
 a kind of free market was never stopped. But 
 formal recognition of that basic law of political 
 economy first came now. Did it mean that Lenin
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 269 
 
 had decided to come back to "capitalist" econ- 
 omy? By no means. The leading principle, as stated 
 by Lenin himself in the Moscow Pravda in August, 
 remained that all concessions to be made should be 
 "within the limits of what the proletariat can concede 
 without ceasing to be the dominating class." 
 
 Can legal order, ordinary justice, "sanctity of con- 
 tract" and "firm guarantees of private property" be 
 conceived as finding themselves within these limits? 
 They are certainly within the limits of what autocracy 
 could concede without ceasing to be the dominating au- 
 thority. Autocracy had been securing all these things, 
 which did not have anything in common with politics 
 or political freedom, since at least the time of Peter the 
 Great. But now they are outside the limits of a regime 
 which demands the "absolute subjection of every in- 
 dividual to the State." No space for the activity of 
 civil law is thus left, and the demand for "legal order" 
 under the Bolsheviks has become a political demand 
 implicating the overthrow of the basic principle of their 
 regime. Lenin can never go that length without en- 
 dangering the continuation in power of the "dominat- 
 ing class." 
 
 The invitation to Genoa seems to have dealt with 
 that impossibility. The only condition it puts, not 
 merely for the restarting of trade, but for "official 
 recognition" of the Soviets, is that the property and 
 the rights of foreigners shall be respected and that the 
 sanctity of their contracts shall be in some way guar- 
 anteed. In the Russian view this is tantamount to the 
 introduction into Russia of a regime of capitulations 
 and exterritoriality for foreigners. Russia is thus to be 
 treated like old Turkey or old China and to be turned 
 into a colony of foreign exploitation. Such is indeed
 
 270 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the scheme that was suggested by Mr. Keynes in his 
 well-known book ("The Economic Consequences of the 
 Peace") and taken up recently by Mr. Stinnes and, 
 probably, by Mr. Lloyd George. The Russian people 
 is not likely to go to that limit. It remains to be seen 
 whether the Bolsheviks are ready to go. An alliance 
 with foreign "capitalists" in order to preserve their 
 power over Russia may be within the scope of the 
 negotiating parties, but it hardly will contribute to the 
 Bolsheviks' "evolution" into a decent government. 
 
 There is one specious and well-sounding reason used 
 to cover the "retreat" of the Supreme Council from the 
 only sensible position, which is that of Secretary 
 Hughes and Mr. Leslie Urquhart. The Supreme Coun- 
 cil said : "It is the right of each country to choose for 
 itself the system which it prefers." But this is just 
 what the Russian people was not permitted to do, and 
 will not be permitted to do as long as the "dominating 
 class" keeps in power. When asked by the late Prince 
 Kropotkin at the most critical moment, in September, 
 1919, whether he would admit the building of a coali- 
 tion cabinet with other political (namely socialistic) 
 parties, Lenin replied with a deliberate: "No." The 
 Soviets in Hungary, he argued, were overthrown just 
 because they accepted such a government. He was 
 not going to repeat the experiment. However, rumors 
 went again to the same effect in the summer of 1921 
 and, while in America, I was often asked whether it 
 was true that the Bolsheviks had addressed themselves 
 to certain political leaders with the proposal of sharing 
 the power with them. The only answer I could give 
 was to quote from a secret circular which was sent by 
 the Central Committee of the Communist Interna- 
 tional to the Bureau of the Western European Propa-
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 271 
 
 ganda on May 18. The circular states that "certain ir- 
 responsible persons who call themselves representatives 
 of the Communist International, the Russian Com- 
 munist Party and the Soviet People's Commissaries" 
 were carrying on negotiations in Paris, Berlin, Prague 
 and Vienna, "regarding the possibility of a compromise 
 with the ami of forming a coalition government." The 
 document quoted called such negotiations "a pure pro- 
 vocation" and ordered the Western Secretariat to in- 
 quire about the facts and to punish the delinquents as 
 dangerous conspirators, "whatever be their revolution- 
 ary past or their personal authority in the party." 
 
 However unfounded the mentioned rumors are, I 
 was still asked what would have been my answer if 
 such a proposal had been really made to me personally. 
 The only answer possible for any Russian democrat 
 would be just this: Give the Russian people the right 
 really "to choose for itself the system which it prefers." 
 If under the conditions of really free elections to a 
 popular assembly the people say they prefer the Bol- 
 sheviks, well, all right, we will submit to the govern- 
 ment of their choice. If there must then be further 
 struggle, it can be carried on by parliamentary meth- 
 ods. But for the Bolsheviks to concede free elections, 
 the reestablishment of political freedom, together with 
 the abolition of the notorious "Che-Ka" and their sys- 
 tem of espionage, would mean to commit suicide. It 
 would be too naive to expect it from a party which is 
 still, as Mr. Brailsford rightly states, "fighting for its 
 life" and which, "in their tremendous adventure, en- 
 tirely discarded democracy." 
 
 No, there is no way open to the Bolsheviks except to 
 fight on to the bitter end. No substantial change in 
 the conditions of the national economy and, accord-
 
 272 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ingly, in the state of utter exhaustion of the national 
 resources can come as long as their basic method 
 which is domination by an insignificant minority and 
 their basic ami which is the world revolution are not 
 surrendered. 
 
 In the absence of such a possibility what are their 
 own prospectives? An undertone of pessimism per- 
 vades the last speeches of Lenin. In the October speech 
 mentioned above he reviewed the three stages of the 
 Bolshevist struggle. "When the question was about 
 the power of the Soviet, the dissolution of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly (i.e., end of 1917 and beginning of 
 1918), the danger was political and it proved to be neg- 
 ligible. When the period of civil war set in, and it was 
 supported by the capitalists of the entire world (i.e., 
 second part of 1918 to the end of 1920), there appeared 
 a military danger, and it was much more formidable. 
 But when we changed our economic policy (i.e., spring 
 of 1921) the danger grew even much stronger, because 
 it is formed of an enormous number of every day's 
 trifling details which nobody takes care of." It is, 
 Lenin might have added, a struggle against the laws of 
 life expressed in the science which he made the object 
 of his special study: political economy. In another 
 speech, held on October 19, before a congress of the in- 
 stitutions of "political education," Lenin was still more 
 explicit. "The struggle will be more desperate and 
 more violent than that against Kolchak and Denikin." 
 To win in war has been a familiar thing for centuries, 
 but this tune it is the war of the understanding, of 
 political preparedness. Now, "the proletariat has been 
 declassed and, as a class, it has ceased to exist." It- 
 will grow with the new growth of capitalism, but this is 
 not the basis on which a "proletarian power can rest."
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 273 
 
 Is it the Communist Party? Lenin "hopes" that at 
 least 100,000 members will be removed from it and 
 he will be "still more pleased" if 200,000 will be re- 
 moved, as they are "red-tapeists" and "embezzlers." 
 There remain the peasants, but "they can have no un- 
 derstanding because they suffer from illiteracy and 
 grope in the darkness. They are just like semi-savages. 
 How long it will take for all the different kinds of com- 
 mittees to liquidate that illiteracy, it is impossible to 
 say." On the other hand, no waiting is possible. "The 
 question is now whom will the peasants follow, the 
 proletariat, which strives to build a socialistic society, 
 or the capitalist who thinks it safer to turn around?" 
 "One of the two must perish, either the republic or 
 the capitalists." But as the decision rests with the 
 "semi-savages" who prefer "capitalism" and do not 
 see the "enemy" in it, and as "it is confirmed by the 
 experience of all former revolutions," one can readily 
 guess what Mr. Lenin's real conclusion is. 
 
 It is idle to speculate just how, just when and just 
 where the Bolshevist power will perish. The latest 
 impressions of foreigners and of certain Americans 
 are that the Bolshevist power is as strong as ever. 
 There is the Red Army, especially those detachments of 
 "Internal Guards for Special Service," whose par- 
 ticular aim it is to prevent uprisings; there is that 
 largely spread system of espionage which defies com- 
 parison with that of the times of Tacitus, not to speak 
 of autocracy. There is also that notorious "Extraordi- 
 nary Commission," the "Che-Ka," which in its shooting 
 the "politically unreliable" is not even constrained by 
 the "revolutionary conscience" of ordinary tribunals. 
 There is that network of the Bolshevist administration 
 which can carry the decisions of the Central Govern-
 
 274 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ment to the outskirts of the former Empire. Even the 
 "Imperial" spirit of unity and patriotism is renascent. 
 Why should that seemingly strong fabric of govern- 
 ment collapse, when there is no organized force to com- 
 bat it either from the ouside or from the inside? 
 
 Mr. Lenin knows better. Mr. Gorki also knows bet- 
 ter, for he only recently gave vent to his "proletarian" 
 panic before the coming advent of these "semi-savages" 
 who will go out of their huts and will sweep the towns 
 and the cities and will submerge the remaining centers 
 of civilization in Russia. This state of mind of the 
 powers that he has also found a peculiar reflection in 
 Mr. Brailsford's severe indictment of the Russian peo- 
 ple, "living in the ignorance and in the superstition of 
 the Middle Ages." According to him, too, "if the 
 peasants had had the will or the skill to express their 
 minds," their "democratic" policy "would have meant 
 the slow death of the towns and the extinction of civil- 
 ization." 
 
 This is a capital point which must be elucidated 
 before we go any further. The whole question of Rus- 
 sia of "to-morrow" is here implicated. If, indeed, the 
 Russian people have passed through their Revolution 
 only to be degraded to the level of the Middle Ages, 
 how can we talk at all of democracy? In that case, of 
 course, we "may mean by democracy, that certain 
 groups of intellectuals, clever, well-educated and gifted 
 with the power of speech, should somehow use the ma- 
 chinery of elections in order to guide the State with 
 their own more or less enlightened ideas." But as this 
 sentimental picture, purposely drawn in pink, is ob- 
 viously unrealizable, the way is paved, by the method 
 of elimination, to the Reds or the Blacks, to Bolshe- 
 vism or Monarchy. They are the only regimes that
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 275 
 
 can rule the "semi-savages" by force, thus saving "civil- 
 ization" from the invasion of those barbarians. It 
 was not in vain that Mr. Lenin spoke of Monarchy as 
 the only alternative to Bolshevism. However, Mr. 
 Brailsford is right when he says that "the convinced 
 democrat must surely mean more than that," even in 
 Russia. 
 
 The Bolshevist or pro-Bolshevist argument 
 queerly coincides with that of the Russian reactionaries. 
 As they, naturally, do not believe in Bolshevism, and 
 as any other issue is impossible for them, they think 
 that if their services are refused, Russia is definitely 
 lost. The Russian people are unable, according to 
 them, to save themselves. The masses are down-trod- 
 den and helpless. How to get the daily bread is their 
 only thought. Since the hope for help from the out- 
 side was lost, a sort of dull and passive submission set 
 in. The government can do with these people just as 
 they like for as long as they like. Moreover, as a re- 
 sult of the violent struggle for life, the masses have 
 become completely demoralized. Everybody takes care 
 of himself, and Might goes before Right. Abject misery 
 and newly-acquired riches meet in unpalliated con- 
 trasts, unmitigated by any social work or relief. All 
 means are deemed permissible in human strife: brib- 
 ery, theft, fraud, robbery, murder. Sexual laxity has 
 become familiar. The young generation growing in 
 such surroundings is bound to be brought up free from 
 idealism, disrespectful of law and moral discipline, but 
 intensely keen and shrewd for all practical purposes. 
 As the other nations are supposed to be as keen and 
 intent on profiting by Russia's weakness, the result is 
 expected to be that Russia will become a prey for for- 
 eign exploiters who will transform her into a depend-
 
 276 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ency of the civilized powers. Such a country can only 
 be ruled by compulsion and it certainly deserves to 
 have the government that it has. Monarchy is too 
 good for them, autocracy would be better, and the Bol- 
 sheviks gave proof of great understanding of realities 
 when they undertook to rule Russia with exaggerated 
 methods of autocratic violence. That regime is bound 
 to be strong and it can be supplanted only by a similar 
 regime. 
 
 This is about the view of the situation built upon a 
 complete lack of faith in the Russian people. It is, per- 
 haps, interesting to mention that the same people 
 who share it now were under the Tsar's old regime very 
 much inclined to exaggerate and to extol the good qual- 
 ities of the Russian people, namely the plain peasants, 
 the "semi-savages" of the present day. Our nation- 
 alists even constructed upon it an idea of Russia's 
 world mission. The Russian people was described to 
 be the most perfect exponent of Christian spirit and 
 Christian life. It was especially praised as true to 
 the old national tradition, at the expense of the Russian 
 intellectuals who were said to be treacherous to their 
 people and its faith. I must also add. that a part of 
 the Russian intellectuals, the so-called socialists-popu- 
 lists ("Narodniki"), eulogized the Russian people for 
 having been born "communists" (meaning the collec- 
 tive possession of land), whose mission it was to give 
 the world its new Bible. These opinions found a weak 
 reflection also in the foreign literature, e.g., in the 
 books of Mr. Stephen Graham. 
 
 I have lived long enough to observe the rise and fall 
 of these alternate opinions which I never shared. To 
 me the Russian people is neither a "Christophorus" 
 (Christ-bearer), nor communist, nor "semi-savage," nor
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 277 
 
 a "wild animal." The mistake of the present de- 
 tractors is that they ignore all the past, with its long 
 process of historical growth, and do not know the pres- 
 ent. The study of the real Russian people, with all 
 their good qualities and faults, has itself a pretty long 
 history. I cannot expatiate on that subject now, but 
 I think it necessary to warn against superficial obser- 
 vations, with no background behind them, and against 
 foregone conclusions which beg the question. People 
 who avow that they do not know much about the real 
 Russian people are probably nearer to the truth than 
 the amateurs with their cut-and-dried schemes, mutu- 
 ally exclusive. 
 
 The Russian people is a very complex phenomenon, 
 and one may find in it as many features as one needs to 
 prove any view. The above-mentioned opinion, which 
 I do not share, is overdrawn and one-sided, but one 
 cannot say that it is entirely untrue. There is another 
 side to it which it is especially important to emphasize 
 in connection with that question of "Russia of to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 In the first place, it is necessary to state that the very 
 fact of the widely spread fear of the appearance 
 of the real people, the peasants, on the political 
 stage is a most eloquent and convincing proof of 
 a speedy growth of their social weight. One may 
 say that just as was the case during the great French 
 Revolution, the Russian peasantry is the only class 
 which has directly benefited by the Revolution. What- 
 ever remained of the nobility after the great act of 
 1861 (emancipating the peasants from serfdom) was 
 definitely destroyed by the Revolution of 1917, never 
 to revive in its old form. The class of industrialists, 
 comparatively young, was also swept away by the
 
 278 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 destruction of industry. This class will revive and 
 grow ; but its social role is all in the future. The lower 
 middle class, which was not numerous, has particularly 
 suffered from the downfall of the towns. The class of 
 workmen, also comparatively recent, is scattered and 
 has distributed itself among the village, the army and 
 the new officialdom. The intellectuals and men of the 
 liberal professions have been in part exterminated, a 
 part of them have fled away from Russia, and a part 
 were forced to enlist in the Bolshevist civil service. 
 They, of course, will be badly needed by the State and 
 the communities at the first moment of Russia's recov- 
 ery. But now they are dragging themselves through 
 a miserable existence. The peasants alone are known 
 to have become better off since the beginning of the 
 War, to have taken the land from the squires after the 
 March Revolution and to have enriched themselves 
 at the expense of the town during the Bolshevist 
 revolution. Their growing hatred against the "loafers" 
 in the towns is also known, but it is explained by the 
 fact that the town could give no more manufactured 
 goods for grain, which it began to requisition from the 
 peasants through the intermediary of the Bolshevist 
 State machinery. This ill-feeling will certainly pass 
 as soon as the normal relations of exchange are restored 
 between the town and village. As things are now, the 
 town is frightened, and the typical exponent of the 
 proletarian townsfolk, such as Gorki is, faithfully re- 
 flects that state of feeling. 
 
 It is also mostly among the townsfolk that negative 
 phenomena of demoralization can be observed. Mr. 
 Brailsford rightly brings that new wave of crime which 
 swept Russia in connection with the same phenomena 
 all over Europe, as produced by the state of misery
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 279 
 
 created by the War. The great mortality, especially 
 in the towns (Chap. VII), is of course chiefly due to 
 the increased state of suffering caused by the Bolshe- 
 vist regime. 
 
 The consequences of the economic ruin which began 
 from the top have also hit the Russian village hard. 
 We know how it has reflected itself in the state of Rus- 
 sia's agriculture (Chap. VII). But, with the exception 
 of the famine-stricken areas, one must not exaggerate 
 the degree of destruction of the Russian village. It 
 is especially here that the comparatively low level of 
 economic development and low standard of life ren- 
 dered Russia a real service. Two generations have 
 hardly passed by since the light of civilization was 
 first introduced into the Russian village through the 
 newly built Zemstvos, the organs of rural self-govern- 
 ment. 1 Such forms of the past as trade based on bar- 
 ter, industry in its primitive form of home handwork, 
 locally limited markets and fairs were still fresh in 
 everybody's memory. It was comparatively easy for 
 the peasant to cast aside his new needs and habits and 
 to revert to old traditions, such as homespun clothes, 
 filthy hamlets, thatched roofs, wooden shoes and im- 
 plements, chips of wood instead of lamps or matches, 
 primitive means of transport and locomotion, in short, 
 to primitive habits of life. 
 
 Russia has fallen deep ; but it has not fallen from a 
 very high level. That is why it has not hurt itself so 
 much in its collapse, as would be the case with a more 
 advanced country. Imagine a New York skyscraper 
 falling to pieces, or a Bolshevist regime playing havoc 
 for a couple of days in the midst of an extremely com- 
 plex social organism of modern times, and compare it 
 
 *See my book: "Russia and its Crisis," Chicago, 1905.
 
 280 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 with some similar occurrence somewhere in the newly 
 settled districts of Manitoba: you will realize the dif- 
 ference and you will understand my assumption, that 
 it is by far easier for a country like Russia to recover, 
 and that it can be done in a much shorter space of 
 time than would be the case with a more highly de- 
 veloped social structure. 
 
 However, it would be entirely wrong to take the 
 present degraded state of the Russian village as a start- 
 ing point in its development from some "semi-savage" 
 stage to a state of civilization under the benevolent 
 rule of the Bolsheviks. That mistake has been par- 
 ticularly often repeated in the question of popular edu- 
 cation. The Bolsheviks are generally credited with 
 especially successful educational activities. And in- 
 deed they drew almost as much attention to their 
 school as to their army. The school had to "serve as 
 a laboratory for those social forms which are considered 
 most rational for the given cultural epoch." In plain 
 speech it meant teaching communism. But the Bolshe- 
 viks at once met with the resistance of the "All-Russian 
 Teachers' Union," a very influential organization. They 
 opposed to it a "Union of Teachers-Internationalists." 
 However, it was extremely difficult to find a new teach- 
 ing personnel devoted to communism. In December, 
 1919, the Red newspapers of Petrograd complained 
 that out of the total of 24,839 persons who 
 constituted the total personnel of the "Division 
 of Education," "9,439 were former bourgeois intel- 
 lectuals, 1,490 were former owners of property 
 and 1,117 former bureaucratic officials." The Red 
 organ was extremely dissatisfied and sarcastically 
 remarked that these bourgeoisie worked "in the sweat 
 of their brow to introduce communistic education and
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 281 
 
 to break up in the children the ideas of respect for the 
 sacred institution of private-ownership of the means 
 of production which is being instilled in them by their 
 backward parents and to educate these children in the 
 spirit of the realization of the class aims of the pro- 
 letariat." The statistical results were still more unsatis- 
 factory for the Communists. Let us compare the fig- 
 ures of a pre-war report (1911) and that of the Com- 
 munist Minister Lunacharsky (for 1919) : 
 
 Number of Scholars 1911 1919 
 
 In Elementary schools 6,322,725 2,618,000 
 
 " Secondary and special 687,631 200,000 
 
 " Universities 38,192 * 55,000 
 
 Total 7,048,548 2,873,000 
 
 Far from having opened a new era of national edu- 
 cation, the Bolsheviks witnessed the destruction to a 
 great extent of what had been accomplished by the two 
 last Dumas. A scheme for universal education to be 
 introduced in a period of 15-20 years was worked out 
 by the Dumas and appropriations in the budget were 
 being increased accordingly at a very speedy rate. The 
 appraised great increase in the budget of the Bolsheviks 
 was purely nominal. 
 
 Appropriations In gold Per cent, of the 
 
 Years (thousands of rubles) (millions) whole budget 
 
 1912 170,206 ... 6.37 
 
 1914 238,605 ... 7.21 
 
 1916 270,775 ... 8.24 
 
 1918 3,074,343 47.3 6.58 
 
 1919 17.279,374 43.5 8.02 
 
 1920 114,366,070 24.3 10.98 
 
 1 3,778 peasants.
 
 282 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 The decrease in the number of schools, pupils and 
 appropriations under the Bolshevist regime is evident. 
 However, there is one feature in the situation which is 
 particularly interesting. The peasants themselves dis- 
 play a great interest in education and they try in every 
 way to make up for the deficiencies of the Bolshevist 
 State. It is the general opinion of all recent observers 
 of Soviet Russia, that "the greed for knowledge is in- 
 deed colossal" among the peasants. Of course, they 
 do not care about the history of communism: they 
 want their former school teachers to come back to 
 them and to teach as they always did. The school 
 buildings are unrepaired and there is no fuel to heat 
 them. There are no textbooks, no blackboards, no 
 paper, pens, pencils or ink. The teacher sometimes 
 draws the characters on sand, in the autumn and spring, 
 on snow in the winter. But the children overcome all 
 obstacles and a great number of them pass to the sec- 
 ondary schools. In Southern Russia sometimes 40 to 
 60 per cent, of the pupils in the secondary schools are 
 children of peasants. This is another new feature. 
 Finally, I find in a personal letter the assertion that in 
 every village one can find young peasants who have 
 graduated from the universities. It is true that uni- 
 versity teaching has especially suffered at the hands of 
 the Bolsheviks, the program of studies being substan- 
 tially changed, all entrance requirements being entirely 
 abolished and the professorial staff being chiefly com- 
 posed of communist newcomers, without sufficient 
 qualifications for teaching. To compensate for these 
 drawbacks, Soviet Russia has now 23 universities, in- 
 stead of the former 10, and we have seen that the 
 number of students has increased. The desire for edu- 
 cation is especially strong among the growing genera-
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 283 
 
 tion of the intellectuals. The gaps in the official teach- 
 ing are here often made good by personal study. The 
 enthusiasm of the youth and the feeling of duty towards 
 their people which inspires them reminds me of the 
 best period in the history of our intellectuals. 
 
 Some other important symptoms of a new revival 
 in the masses are noted by Mr. S. Maslov, whose data 
 I have quoted in a previous chapter. He emphasizes 
 that the feeling of responsibility towards the State has 
 also grown enormously among the people whom he 
 knows from close observation. The connection be- 
 tween the deranged functions of the State and the en- 
 suing dislocation in all branches of social life is now 
 clearly understood. The great importance of cohe- 
 sion between the different regions of the State, the 
 significance of railways, harbors, outlets to the world 
 communications for the unity of the national organism 
 has also been learned by the large masses from the ex- 
 periences of the civil war and Russia's dismemberment. 
 They now know that if Russia is cut from the north, 
 there is no fish in the market; if the Caucasus is de- 
 tached, there is no oil; if the Donetz basin is lost, 
 there is no coal. These are the elements of sound na- 
 tionalism which had been lacking but which they have 
 been taught at the hand of events. Accordingly, na- 
 tional feeling is growing, and it will certainly have a 
 great influence on the state of the public opinion in 
 questions of foreign policy. Owing to the failure of 
 the Bolshevist experiment, the former spell of socialism 
 is weakening, especially among the intellectuals (Mr. 
 Maslov, a socialist himself, has left the ranks of his 
 party). In all classes of the population, intellectuals 
 as well as peasants, a common feature is noticed which 
 Mr. Maslov designates by the expressive term "crea-
 
 284 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tive pathos." Everybody wants to work, to break 
 through the "senseless and criminal barriers" put up 
 by the Soviet power, and to till the land, to restart 
 cooperation, to print books. "Russia is alive," Mr. 
 Maslov sums up; "the people's soul has not been 
 killed; there is a will to action, a healthy reaction 
 against the surrounding chaos and dissolution." Mr. 
 Maslov also marks the moment when the change came. 
 "From October-November, 1920," he states, "the curve 
 of Russia's political activity moved upwards. Just why 
 it happened at that particular moment, I cannot ex- 
 plain. 1 But the fact is that it did. Increased activity 
 manifested itself in the growth of the peasant up- 
 heavals, in the greater number of 'partisans' detach- 
 ments, in the tumultuous conferences of the Soviets, 2 
 in workmen's disturbances, in the movement among the 
 students, in the increasing activity of the socialistic 
 parties in Russia, in the growth of the illegal litera- 
 ture, written and oral, in frequent discussions on new 
 political groupings and in the new determination for 
 building local branches of such groupings." 
 
 How different is this picture, based on the close ob- 
 servation of experienced political workers, from the 
 biased constructions and deductions of the pro-Bol- 
 sheviks and reactionaries! It makes the Russian demo- 
 crats very hopeful as to Russia of to-morrow, and it 
 palliates the gloomy forebodings of the partisans of a 
 "declassed" proletariat as to the political consequences 
 of the predominance of the Russian farmers, who con- 
 stitute the great majority of the Russian population. 
 
 *It coincides with the final downfall of the "White" movement 
 (Gen. Wrangel's retreat). See Chap. VI. 
 
 'One can note the increasing numbers of opposition delegates 
 elected to the Soviet in spite of the Bolshevist pressure on the elec- 
 tions.
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 285 
 
 Of course, political life in a democratic Russia of 
 farmers will be different from what it was before. But 
 we know that real political life was just beginning be- 
 fore the Revolution (see Chap. I). As a result of the 
 pressure of autocracy on public opinion all the political 
 parties were either too artificially built and serving a 
 fictitious representation, or too doctrinaire and ab- 
 stract, representing political ideas rather than social 
 interests. Under the Revolution the former group of 
 parties, the reactionary and conservative, has entirely 
 disappeared, while the latter, the liberal and socialistic, 
 has been gradually adapting itself to real political life. 
 "Even these parties have to be thoroughly reconstructed 
 in order to be able to serve the democratic Russia of to- 
 morrow. It is very characteristic that all the political 
 groups now fighting the Bolsheviks inside Russia have 
 lost the rigid delineations of their programs and have 
 melted together in a common struggle which is carried 
 on under extraordinarily difficult conditions. The 
 official designation of that matter-of-fact coalition of 
 Russian parties (Mensheviks, Social-Revolutionaries, 
 Populists, Cadets) is 'non-party.' It is the 'non- 
 party' element which fights out the elections to the 
 Soviets and succeeds in getting into them a few repre- 
 sentatives of their own in spite of all the anti-parlia- 
 mentary methods of the 'dominating class' (see Chap. 
 III). However, there are elements which are natur- 
 ally excluded from that 'non-party' coalition, because 
 they are simply non-existent in Russia. There are no 
 monarchists in their midst. There are no opponents to 
 democracy, no partisans of the formerly privileged so- 
 cial groups. Democracy is the present day reality in 
 Russia: democracy as opposed to Bolshevism." 
 
 If the picture thus drawn is true as I think it is,
 
 286 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 on the authority of ample evidence given in papers, in 
 private letters and through personal intercourse some 
 conclusions may be drawn concerning the Russia of to- 
 morrow. 
 
 We have seen that outside of Russia a reactionary 
 and monarchist agitation is rife among the members of 
 the old privileged class, the old type bureaucrats and 
 the remainders of the evacuated army. It is stated 
 that up to 15,000 former officers have been enlisted by 
 the monarchist organizations, in order to start- on a 
 military raid at some opportune moment, with the aim 
 of restoring monarchy. However, the chance of suc- 
 cess is so small that, to my knowledge, no pretender 
 has been found as yet who would consent to play the 
 part of Charles Hapsburg. It would be difficult to 
 assert that the very idea of monarchy has completely 
 disappeared from Russia. But if that idea ever was 
 popular in Russia, it was in the shape of a democratic 
 monarchy, of a peasant Tsar like Pugachov, the famous 
 Cossack impostor of the time of Catherine II, the 
 peasant duplicate of her murdered husband, Peter III, 
 who surrounded himself with peasant dignitaries and 
 "generals." Is such a Russian Napoleon likely to ap- 
 pear in the present crisis? Many peasant Nicholases II 
 have already appeared, but they had not a chance to 
 succeed. Not only is the Russian peasant very differ- 
 ent from what he was in the XVIII Century, but mon- 
 archy has also lost all its historical prestige. The peas- 
 ant cannot forget that the Russian monarch was always 
 in close alliance with the Russian squire. And the 
 Russian farmer will never again tolerate the squire. 
 We know that the chief reason for the failure of the 
 "White" movement was that the "White" generals 
 came accompanied by the old landlords. Neither can
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 287 
 
 the monarch detach himself from his secular ally, the 
 landlord, because he is the only one that wants to 
 bring the monarch back. This is why the monarchist 
 movement among the noble emigres has no chance to 
 succeed, unless it is supported in addition to the Ger- 
 man money which it gets now (Chap. VI) by a 
 strong German army. Ludendorffs and Stinneses may 
 dream of such an operation, but it hardly can count on 
 any support elsewhere in Europe, and if it ever ma- 
 terializes it can only count on a momentary and passing 
 success. 
 
 If we dismiss that possibility of Russia's becoming 
 again a monarchy, there remains another issue much 
 spoken about by the partisans of the Bolsheviks, who 
 wish to prove the wisdom of letting them continue in 
 power. Their reasoning, made especially popular by 
 Mr. H. G. Wells, who claims to know Russia as he 
 knows everything, is as follows: If the Bolsheviks go, 
 what is going to happen? Who will take their place? 
 There may be anarchy, which is still worse. Russia 
 will have gotten rid of the only strong government 
 which she can have now, and she will plunge into com- 
 plete chaos. The Bolshevist Government is at least a 
 government and it has shown itself to be possessed of 
 great will power and a remarkable capacity for gov- 
 erning. . . . This cannot be said of the other pro- 
 gressive parties, which lost their power to the Bolshe- 
 viks through sentimentalism and lack of practical ex- 
 perience. As the Bolsheviks now promise to renounce 
 their pernicious principles and to evolve, would it not 
 be better to let them stay and give them a chance to 
 become a "decent" government? 
 
 A part of these suggestions has already been an- 
 swered. There is no chance of the Bolsheviks "evolv-
 
 288 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 ing," and their promises of economic concessions are 
 conditioned and limited on and by the preservation 
 of their political power. Indeed, their "will to power" 
 is so great that it defies the will of the whole popula- 
 tion for them to go, and that will can only be realized 
 by practicing these very methods which make their 
 further stay impossible. There is a limit to everything, 
 even to fear. All reports concur in the statement that 
 the people are no longer cowed by the Red Terror and 
 that the fear of the Che-Ka has been blunted since 
 that political revival the beginnings of which are de- 
 scribed above, in a quotation from Mr. S. Maslov. It 
 is true that most of the parties that came into power 
 under the March Revolution of 1917 were unable to 
 keep in power, and that this was partly due to their 
 inexperience. But we saw them learn in the process, 
 and it was chiefly the unpreparedness of the popula- 
 tion which prevented them from applying their new 
 knowledge and caused the masses to prefer the Bolshe- 
 vist demagogy to real democratic strivings. It remains 
 to be proved that the lesson was learned both by the 
 progressive parties and by the population. This can 
 only be proved by events, but in the meanwhile I can 
 refer to the new state of mind among the Russian 
 masses, which is characterized above. Is it true that 
 there is nobody left in Russia to prevent anarchy since 
 all the non-Bolshevist intellectuals have been exter- 
 minated or have fled for their lives? No. it is not true. 
 It is not true that underneath the Bolshevist surface 
 of 600,000 or 300,000 or probably less of the Communist 
 Party there is nothing but an amorphous mass of uned- 
 ucated and unconscious plain people, that will be 
 broken up and strewn about like atoms after the or- 
 ganizing upper layer is removed.
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 289 
 
 On the contrary, the elements of cohesion are there 
 and many, and they are ready to coagulate and to 
 crystallize at any moment. To illustrate that tendency, 
 I shall quote a fact which is universally known. I mean 
 the story of the Moscow non-Communist Famine Com- 
 mittee, which is already known to you (Chap. VIII). 
 When the Bolsheviks first learned how unexpectedly 
 great was the Russian disaster and how utterly helpless 
 they were to relieve it by their own means, they came 
 to the idea of addressing themselves just to these non- 
 Communist intellectual elements which are supposed 
 by some people to be non-existent. The Bolsheviks 
 wished to use the authority of these non-Bolsheviks 
 abroad to influence foreign public opinion, and to profit 
 by their connections in the country, in order to organize 
 provincial branches. This appeal to the non-Commun- 
 ist elements which, however, was far from generally 
 accepted or approved in their midst elicited such a 
 reverberation both outside and inside Russia, that the 
 Bolsheviks became frightened. Branches of the Mos- 
 cow Committee in the provinces here and there began 
 to be considered by the population as new organs of 
 administration, intended to take the place of the Bol- 
 shevist ones. There were cases (e.g., in the Province 
 of Ryazan) where the Bolshevist commissars proposed 
 voluntarily to surrender their powers. The Bolsheviks 
 decided to cut short and to put a speedy end to the ex- 
 periment which had proved so dangerous. In the mean- 
 while they saw that they could negotiate with the outer 
 world without intermediaries. And they not only dis- 
 solved the Moscow Committee under the futile pretext 
 that its members had misused their power, but they 
 even tried to convict them of political crime. 
 
 No, there will neither be anarchy nor monarchy in
 
 290 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Russia of to-morrow. There will be democracy. It 
 will be a peasant democracy. Under an electoral law 
 based on the principle of universal suffrage and no 
 other kind of suffrage is possible in democratic Russia 
 the majority of the deputies in any really popular 
 assembly will belong to the peasant class. From the 
 old regime the peasants have learned to be extremely 
 suspicious of any member of another class representing 
 their interests. I have in mind an interesting descrip- 
 tion of the elections at a provincial peasant conference 
 in Samara, in May, 1917. It was very typical of all 
 the peasant elections. There were in their midst many 
 school-teachers who had taken part in the agrarian 
 movement of 1905-6 and had been punished by im- 
 prisonment. They were all Social-Revolutionaries, a 
 party particularly favored among the peasants and 
 which received the majority of votes to the Constituent 
 Assembly at the end of 1917. But preference was given 
 to a peasant, also a member of that party, who de- 
 clared: "Do not rely on anybody, either officials, or 
 priests, or white-collar men. They are wolves in 
 sheep's skins, and the popular wave will sweep them 
 away. You will be able to tolerate them only then 
 when all these white shirts will have become dirty from 
 hard work." 
 
 You will now understand why, wherever popular elec- 
 tions on the basis of universal suffrage were tried (like 
 in Siberia, see Chap. X\ the majority of deputies 
 elected were peasants. They are just class, not party. 
 and their choice of the party preferred will necessarily 
 vary. It does not mean, however, that they will not 
 tolerate any intellectuals at their side and that the fate 
 of the Russian peasant republic will be that of Bui-
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 291 
 
 garia under a Stambuliisky. It only means that they 
 will not swear by the words of the intellectuals and will 
 not permit the intellectuals to dictate to them. There 
 are groups of Russian intellectuals who are even now 
 known to the peasants for their active and useful work 
 among them. Since 1861 they learned to know agrono- 
 mists, physicians, teachers and especially coopera- 
 tive workers, who all belong to the Russian intellect- 
 uals and share in -their creed. They confide compara- 
 tively less in their priests whom they class, as -we have 
 just seen, with the government officials. But even here 
 there are exceptions, and every Russian recollects the 
 brilliant types of democratic priests who were sent to 
 the first Duma by the peasants. It is very difficult to 
 say to what an extent religious feeling in the villages 
 has deepened as a result of the Bolshevist propaganda 
 and persecution against the Church. At any rate noth- 
 ing like secret mass services conducted in the woods, 
 like those of the French Thermidor, have taken place 
 in Russia, and in general the influence of the Orthodox 
 clergy on the popular masses has been far from equal 
 to that of the Catholics. The religious development of 
 the Russian people, especially in the South, has taken 
 to the line of non-conformity, but data are lacking to 
 show how much that religious movement has changed 
 or progressedisince the Revolution. 
 
 Coming back to our subject of elections, I must point 
 out that there is at least one group of Russian intel- 
 lectuals who actually enjoy the confidence of the 
 masses. I mean the Cooperators. For the time being, 
 as we know (Chap. XII), free cooperation has been 
 killed by the Bolsheviks who made participation in it 
 compulsory for every Russian citizen and transformed
 
 292 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 it into a state institution. But the personnel of the 
 former cooperative societies have mostly remained at 
 their posts, and they will probably be the first connect- 
 ing link between the people and the party leaders. 
 The Cooperators tried to use their sobering influence on 
 the extremism of the socialist parties as early as the 
 middle of 1917, when the Provisional Government was 
 nearing its end. Since that time they have declared 
 themselves "non-party." This position may serve as 
 a medium for transforming the doctrinaire socialism of 
 yesterday into some acceptable political program of to- 
 morrow. Private ownership of peasant land is conditio 
 sine qua non of such a program. It will be much easier 
 for the "Cadets" to adapt themselves to the new situa- 
 tion as their agrarian program was already working that 
 way. Unfortunately, the use that the "White" govern- 
 ments made of that program has very much contrib- 
 uted to discrediting it. A reconstruction of the Party 
 was also necessary to get rid of its opportunist ele- 
 ments, which evolved to the right in 1918-1920, and 
 to give it its initial democratic character. 
 
 Under new conditions of work among the peas- 
 ant masses there is always the danger present that 
 demagogy will be substituted for democracy. More 
 than one "peasant" party will surely make its ap- 
 pearance, and some adventurous leaders may over- 
 bid the others and probably win. Some others, who 
 are accustomed to follow the track of the old in- 
 tellectual parties, reminding one of American "mug- 
 wumps," may grow disgusted and retreat from the 
 game. All that is quite likely to happen, and the 
 only remedy is a free play of democratic institutions. To 
 try to forestall eventual mistakes with new plots and 
 coups d'etat will not only be undemocratic, but with
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 293 
 
 the masses awakened to political consciousness it will 
 simply prove impossible. 
 
 There is one more feature which will characterize 
 Russia of to-morrow. I mean a free agreement among 
 the nationalities formerly incorporated into that huge 
 mass of an Empire of Eastern style, a "colossus on feet 
 of clay." I have mentioned the solution of the problem 
 which the Russian democratic parties consider as the 
 only possible, namely federation (Chap. IV). I have 
 also touched upon the generally peaceful disposition of 
 the Russian masses who are hostile to any aggression, 
 offensive wars and alliances. Under the lessons of in- 
 tervention and the Allied policy of contradictions and 
 selfishness toward Russia (Chap. X), the Russian peas- 
 ants will probably, and especially at the beginning, be 
 inclined to follow the policy of entrenchment. As I 
 have already mentioned, the national feeling is grow- 
 ing among the masses, together with a sense of unity 
 and interdependence of the different parts of the for- 
 mer Empire. I am sure that they will be satisfied with 
 much less than the present Bolshevist policy of re- 
 stored and increased centralization. It is very difficult 
 to say just where the line will be drawn between federal 
 and state competency. But there hardly can be a 
 doubt but that these questions and probable contests 
 will be settled peacefully. Plain necessity points to the 
 solution of these questions by free consent of popular 
 assemblies as the only means for meeting the problem. 
 
 The federative structure of future Russia, the United 
 States of Russia, will thus be one more feature in com- 
 mon between our two nations. In the course of my 
 discussion, we have found that there are many features 
 in common between America and Russia. (See espe- 
 cially Chapters X and XL) The large space they
 
 294 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 occupy on their respective continents, their unete- 
 hausted natural resources, their expanding populations 
 that have passed through a recent process of settlement, 
 their young or rejuvenated psychology, a certain self- 
 sufficiency in isolation, simplicity and unconventional- 
 ity of habits and a peaceful disposition of mind, a kind 
 of self-respect welded with good-will towards other na- 
 tions, a broad-minded spirit open to new developments, 
 all of this is so familiar to every Russian and Ameri- 
 can that we almost understand each other before we 
 study one another. 
 
 I am sure that the coming developments in our Rus- 
 sia of to-morrow will not belie the expectations which 
 our great Revolution aroused in this country. I am 
 not unmindful of the appreciation of the meaning of 
 that Revolution which lies at the bottom of the Ameri- 
 can policy toward Russia, the only policy that is sound 
 and really friendly. I recollect Mr. Root's various ex- 
 pressions of that basic truth in connection with his mis- 
 sion to Revolutionary Russia. "We believe in the com- 
 petence of the power of democracy," Mr. Root said at 
 the reception of his mission by the Provisional Govern- 
 ment ; "in our heart of hearts abides faith in the coming 
 of a better world" of freedom and justice. And on his 
 coming back from Russia, at the moment when its 
 darkest hour was coming, Mr. Root thus expressed the 
 view of the great American democracy : "We found no 
 organic or incurable malady in the Russian democracy. 
 Democracies are always in trouble, and we have seen 
 days just as dark in the progress of our own. We must 
 remember that a people in whom all constructive effort 
 had been suppressed for so long, cannot immediately 
 develop a genius for quick action. The first stage is 
 necessarily one of debate. The solid, admirable traits
 
 RUSSIA TO-MORROW 295 
 
 in the Russian character will pull the nation through 
 the present crisis." 
 
 I do not undertake to prophesy when the end of the 
 crisis will come or in what way. But I know that the 
 end is near. When foreign observers of the present 
 Russia tell me that nothing can happen and that the 
 present regime is stable because there is no force there 
 to overthrow it, their evidence does not make me less 
 hopeful. I can only tell a story. On the eve of the 
 March Revolution, in February, 1917, I sat at the side 
 of Lord Milner who had been sent to Russia in order 
 to learn whether it was true that the Russian Revolu- 
 tion was really approaching. I knew it was and every- 
 body knew it in Russia. We did not know, as we do not 
 know now, just how and where and when it was going 
 to happen. But we knew it was going to happen. My 
 friends put me at Lord Milner's side on purpose. I 
 had to tell him, and I told him that the storm was ap- 
 proaching, that if at the last hour the dynasty would 
 not consent to compromise its fall was inevitable and 
 that our Allies were the only ones whose voice might 
 probably be heard. Much later I was told that on his 
 coming back to England Lord Milner reported in an 
 opposite sense. According to him, the dynasty was as 
 strongly rooted in the love of the Russian people as it 
 ever had been, no danger for peace and order in Rus- 
 sia was forthcoming and everything was all right. A 
 few weeks later the dynasty was overthrown : the Revo- 
 lution had come. I recently read almost the same asser- 
 tions in Governor Goodrich 's article in the New York 
 Times. Governor Goodrich is an excellent observer and 
 I appreciate very much what he has already done for 
 Russia. But I happen to be a Russian. I know the 
 psychology of our people. And I say to all who want
 
 296 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 to hear: Russia is ripe for a democratic change. The 
 change will come. It will come soon. What will 
 emerge from it will be not the ancient regime, not 
 anarchy, but a great democratic Russia of to-morrow.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON. 
 
 Among the many important results of the World 
 War, perhaps one of the most important and, prob- 
 ably, the least expected is a proportional diminution 
 in the international weight of Europe as compared with 
 other parts of the civilized world. The center of the 
 world politics is shifting from the leading powers of the 
 Old World to the West and to the East: to America, 
 to the British Dominions, to Asia. A new period in 
 the life of humanity seems thus to open. 
 
 The great change just mentioned has been recently 
 emphasized by the succession of the two international 
 gatherings in Paris and in Washington. On the oldest 
 site of our old Europe the peace conference of 1919 
 changed into a "conference of victors," to use President 
 Harding's exact expression. Questions touching the 
 whole of humanity seemed to be somehow out of place 
 in Paris. Their place was inevitably taken by provi- 
 sions to perpetuate the new "balance" created by vic- 
 tory, by lengthy disputes over every inch of territory 
 on the newly-built frontiers, disputes centuries old and 
 overburdened with painful recollections of the remote 
 past. Temporary adjustments, necessary and useful, 
 obscured the main issues of the world peace. America 
 did not seem to feel quite comfortable in the straits of 
 the Parisian disputes. Paris seems to have found itself 
 in a similar situation in Washington. 
 
 297
 
 298 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 In America it is not Albania, or Silesia, or Teschen, or 
 Klagenfurt, or Hungarian Burgenland, that is being dis- 
 cussed. The questions raised are as large as America's 
 boundless plains or the surface of the Pacific. There 
 is only one event of the same year, 1921, which can be 
 compared with the Washington Conference in its world 
 significance: the British Imperial Conference of Au- 
 gust. 
 
 Russia was absent both in Paris and Washington, as 
 there is no government legally entitled to represent the 
 Russian people. But the Paris Conference began with 
 the declaration that there can be no peace in the 
 world, if there is no peace in Russia, Unfortunately, 
 the only means found in Paris for bringing peace to 
 Russia was the inefficacious and inadequate Prinkipo 
 proposal. Accordingly, the only treaty concluded with 
 Russia was the British Trade Agreement of March, 
 1921. The Washington Conference was also preceded 
 by a declaration on Russia. But it was a tentative 
 enunciation of a new principle in international politics, 
 the principle of "moral trusteeship." It was not 
 America's fault if it did not materialize. 
 
 We, Russians, have nothing to lose from the shifting 
 of the international politics to larger regions of the 
 world. Russia herself is a large place in the world: 
 quite one-sixth of the world's earth surface. If be- 
 tween Alaska and New York the difference of tune is 
 about five hours, from Petrograd to Bering Strait the 
 distance is twice as much, i.e., ten hours. The popula- 
 tion of Russia, even in its present dismembered state, 
 is about 130 millions. We are Europeans, but we are 
 also Asiatic. Some foreign scientists and some Russian 
 patriots call us "Eurasians." We are thus of both con- 
 tinents. Our absence is equally felt in both hemi-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 299 
 
 spheres, and we are equally needed for reestablishing 
 the equilibrium in Europe and in Asia: in Europe to 
 equipoise France in her contest with imperialistic Ger- 
 many; in Asia to equipoise the United States in its 
 developing contest with Japanese imperialism. This 
 is, in a nutshell, the position of Russia in the world. 
 Russia is very sick just now. But Russia will recover. 
 She will recover soon. And no international decision 
 affecting her interests can be taken in her absence with- 
 out endangering the future world peace. 
 
 Russia is legally absent from international gather- 
 ings. But she is morally present: at least, she ought 
 to be. And if it is true that there can be no peace in 
 tb^ world without peace in Russia, the question natur- 
 aliy presents itself: what can Russia contribute to the 
 peace of the world? 
 
 Many foreign observers have called the Russian peo- 
 ple "the most peaceful nation in the world." And, in- 
 deed, peace is one of the greatest requirements and 
 will be one of the greatest acquisitions of the rising de- 
 mocracy in Russia, Russia is not only temporarily 
 peaceful because she is utterly exhausted and because 
 she needs a long rest to recover, Russia is naturally 
 peaceful because this is the normal state of mind of 
 her people. Probably it is due to its natural surround- 
 ings, just a Middle-American as is the case with 
 this country. A Russian of Middle Russia, if left to 
 himself, would not show much interest in active for- 
 eign politics, in wars or alliances. Leo Tolstoy, the 
 great connoisseur of the Russian soul, tells us an amus- 
 ing story. Monsieur Deroulede, the well-known French 
 patriot and nationalist, came to see him at his country 
 home and asked Tolstoy to make him acquainted with 
 some Russian peasants. Tolstoy went with Mr. De-
 
 300 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 roulede to the fields and they met a peasant. Tolstoy 
 took pains to explain to the Russian moujik who Mr. 
 Deroulede was, and his visitor in his turn tried to prove 
 to the peasant just why it was so exceedingly important 
 to take back Alsace-Lorraine from Germany and why 
 Russia had to help France. The peasant listened at- 
 tentively, and then he said : "There is land enough for 
 everybody in the wide world. Why should we quar- 
 rel?" Of course, the peasant was not quite up to date 
 in his ideas on foreign politics, and now he has to pay 
 for it. But this is how he actually felt. 
 
 Contrary to the assertions of Russia's enemies and 
 her own extremists, the Russian people were never "im- 
 perialistic." Like so many people in America, Russia 
 was in happy possession of that privilege longed-for by 
 many: she could stay quietly at home because she felt 
 self-sufficient. What was it that forced Germany to 
 become imperialistic and aggressive? What is now the 
 cause of Japan's growing desire for expansion? The 
 first cause is over-population, which makes it necessary 
 to emigrate and to colonize. The second cause is over- 
 production, which compels the race for new markets 
 and for such colonies as can supply needed raw ma- 
 terials. The result is competition ; competition spells 
 armaments and naval programs, and armaments mean 
 increased taxation. This is imperialism. Now, no- 
 body could charge Russia with over-production and 
 over-population. Russia never possessed colonies, and, 
 accordingly, never had any colonial policy. Russia is 
 one great continuous continental block, covering a 
 great part of two continents. Raw materials can be 
 found at home in abundance. Their supply is secured 
 for centuries by unexhausted and partly unexplored 
 richness of soil and mineral wealth. The internal
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 301 
 
 market is so large, and so capable of extension, that it 
 never could be satiated with products of national in- 
 dustry alone. Foreign capital is necessary and desir- 
 able, under one single condition that it does not treat 
 Russia as a colony, a "Wirtschaftsgebiet." I must add 
 that the Germans tried to do that, and they enforced 
 on Russia the unfavorable commercial treaties of 1894 
 and 1904. Even now they may be the first to come to 
 regenerated Russia, owing to their better knowledge of 
 Russia's resources, better conditions of credit, a ready 
 network of commercial agents, etc. So much the more 
 do we need American capital to come to our rescue, and 
 we want you to learn to know Russia as Germany 
 knows it. 
 
 You see now that Russia has nothing to do with that 
 kind of imperialism which brings about armaments and 
 wars and also systems of alliances and "balances of 
 power." An international system under which there 
 would be no new distribution of nations between two 
 competing camps, would be the most desirable to Rus- 
 sia. You may object that Russian politics had been 
 aggressive in the past. That is also not quite exact. 
 The Russian Tsars very rarely waged wars for purely 
 national interests and mostly remained passive in 
 choosing or changing their systems of alliances. With 
 the exception of the reign of Peter the Great and Cath- 
 erine II, most of the Russian wars were fought for 
 other people's interests. Peter's heiresses made Russia 
 play the part of a European condottiere. Under Alex- 
 ander I and Nicholas I Russia defended the idea of 
 World Legitimism and World Christian Brotherhood: 
 it was then understood as expressed in a monarchical 
 League of Nations. Whatever its reactionary applica- 
 tions, the idea was intended to serve international
 
 302 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 order and peace. Alexander II fought for the liberation 
 of the Balkan Slavs, and this was also the formal rea- 
 son for Russia's participation in the recent World War, 
 where Russia's interests were the least important. The 
 late German chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, tried 
 to prove that the responsibility for this last war rests 
 with the Russian Minister Sazonov, because he wished 
 to annex Constantinople. Bethmann-Hollweg must 
 have known that Russia's claim for the possession of 
 the Straits was posterior to the beginning of war, 
 and that this claim was chiefly provoked by the German 
 scheme of a Berlin-Bagdad route through the subdued 
 Middle Europe. It stands and falls with that compet- 
 ing scheme. As there is no more German danger for the 
 Straits, we are now again the best of friends with Tur- 
 key. We are also likely to become again the best of 
 friends with China, in spite of certain imperialistic 
 exceptions from our generally peaceful politics there 
 to which I shall refer. 
 
 To state it once more, the international position of 
 Russia does not necessarily commit her to any special 
 alliance. Russia would fain substitute any kind of So- 
 ciety of Nations for the existing systems of world equi- 
 librium which force her to undesirable activities. We 
 fully understand America's cautious attitude towards 
 the "Covenant" of the League of Nations. We might 
 have been obliged to make some similar reservations, if 
 we had had to consider the same question. But, Cove- 
 nant or no Covenant, this way or another, some legal 
 way must be found for a stable international organiza- 
 tion of peace. Mr. Hughes kindly reminded the Wash- 
 ington Conference in his famous introductory speech 
 that Russia was the first to urge disarmament and 
 peaceful settlement of international disputes, in her
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 303 
 
 proposal to convoke the first Hague Conference in 
 1899. We also greatly appreciate the part that America 
 played in promoting that great .scheme at the Paris 
 Conference. Perhaps it was necessary to recede, in 
 order the better to advance. That is why, when a new 
 attempt in the same line was made in Washington with 
 the obvious aim of improving upon the last one, we, 
 Russians, enthusiastically greeted it, and we felt in 
 complete agreement with the aim of the Government 
 of this country. 
 
 But we have, moreover, a special reason for being 
 grateful to American statesmanship. We think that 
 America's special policy towards Russia has been 
 a sound policy which has tended very much to deepen 
 the moral ties that unite both democracies. In a pre- 
 vious chapter (see Chapter IV) I pointed out that it 
 has become a tradition of American diplomacy to de- 
 fend Russia's unity from all attempts at dismembering 
 and weakening Russia. This view is a logical deduc- 
 tion from the fundamental conception as to the sover- 
 eign rights of the Russian people. It was also to the 
 Russian people that the United States addressed itself, 
 over the heads of changing and temporary governments, 
 local and all-Russian. 
 
 Let me remind you of some of these declarations, in 
 chronological order. As early as February 7, 1920, the 
 United States declared that it did not recognize the 
 decision of the Supreme Council, regarding the inde- 
 pendence of Georgia and Azerbaidjan. President Wil- 
 son's note of March 24, 1920, categorically declared that 
 "the question of a government for Constantinople 
 should remain open until Russia is able to participate 
 in its discussion" and that "no plan concerning the
 
 304 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 future of Constantinople which did not take in con- 
 sideration the interests of Russia, should be successful." 
 On July 28, 1920, the United States addressed a Note to 
 Japan which is particularly important in connection 
 with to-day's problems. The United States objected 
 to the occupation of the Russian part of Sakhalin, the 
 continued occupation of Vladivostok and of other Si- 
 berian territories by the Japanese troops. 1 Then fol- 
 lowed, on August 10, that splendid and admirably 
 worded Note of Secretary of State Colby, answering 
 Italy's demand for a statement of America's views as 
 to the Russian advance into Poland. "The United 
 States," Mr. Colby said, "is confident that restored, 
 free and united Russia will again take a leading place 
 in the world, joining with the other free nations in 
 upholding peace and orderly justice." We thankfully 
 endorse this judgment. 
 
 It is especially important to emphasize that this was 
 not at all a party policy. The republican administra- 
 tion has developed the same principles of Russian pol- 
 icy as were formulated by its democratic predecessors. 
 When the "Far Eastern Republic of Chita" (Bolshe- 
 vist) asked to be allowed to send delegates to Washing- 
 ton, the American legation at Pekin transmitted on 
 September 19, 1921, the following answer: 
 
 "In the absence of a single recognized Russian Gov- 
 ernment the protection of the legitimate Russian inter- 
 ests must devolve as a moral trusteeship upon the 
 whole conference. It is regrettable that the confer- 
 ence, for reasons quite beyond the control of the par- 
 ticipating powers, is to be deprived of the advantage of 
 Russian cooperation in its deliberations, but it is not 
 
 *See below, the note of May 31, 1921, confirming that mentioned in 
 the text.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 305 
 
 to be conceived that the conference will take decisions 
 prejudicial to legitimate Russian interests or which 
 would in any manner violate Russian rights. It is the 
 hope and expectation of the government of the United 
 States that the conference will establish general prin- 
 ciples of international action which will deserve and 
 have the support of the people of eastern Siberia and 
 of all Russia by reason of their justice and efficacy in 
 the settlement of outstanding difficulties." 
 
 The assurances thus given from such a high place 
 were more than sufficient for us to feel certain that 
 legitimate Russian interests would not be neglected or 
 interfered with, in such decisions or international action 
 as the present conference was likely to take. But what 
 are the "legitimate interests" of Russia? What are 
 especially the legitimate interests "of the people of 
 eastern Siberia"? The question, once raised, deserves 
 most serious consideration as the fate of the World 
 peace may hang on its solution. 
 
 It is an open secret that legitimate interests of Rus- 
 sia in Siberia can only be interfered with by the lead- 
 ing power of the Far East: by Japan. Japan, after 
 Germany, is now the storm center and the weather- 
 glass of the World. We must look to Japan for a 
 solution. 
 
 What does Japan want in Siberia? Not to seem 
 biased, let me quote a Japanese answer. It is that of 
 Mr. Yoshi S. Kuno, an assistant Professor of the 
 Oriental Department of the University of California. 
 The author "requests the reader to bear in mind that 
 the material contained" in his book ("What Japan 
 Wants") does not reflect his "personal ideas and poli- 
 cies," but, "the state of public opinion in Japan." We 
 shall see that, moreover, it reflects the present policy of
 
 306 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the Japanese Government, which works in agreement 
 with the public opinion. 
 
 "If America is the white man's land," Mr. Kuno 
 says, "Japan would inquire whether Siberia is not the 
 yellow man's land. Though Siberia to-day constitutes 
 a part of the Russian Empire, yet in order to decide 
 whether Siberia is politically a component part of 
 Russia, one must turn to history." Russia "finally 
 succeeded in bringing the whole of this great barren 
 waste peopled by Asiatic tribes under her control. She 
 even occupied Sakhalin. . . . With the downfall of 
 the Russian Empire . . . Japan reoccupied the whole 
 of Sakhalin Island and has assumed military control 
 both of Vladivostok and an immense region round 
 about. Now that the doors of all Anglo-Saxon nations 
 are closed against her emigrants and she must seek 
 some other outlet for her population, it is but natural 
 that Japan should raise the question whether Siberia 
 may not be the land of the yellow man." 
 
 We cannot but feel thankful to the author for his 
 exceptional sincerity. Mr. Kuno is equally sincere and 
 outspoken in disclosing for us the underlying motives 
 of the Japanese aspirations. They can be summed up 
 as follows: 
 
 1. "Japan wants to make of Vladivostok an open port 
 similar to Hongkong. Then, in the course of time, Vladi- 
 vostok would become a port through which Japan could 
 establish the shortest possible trade route to Europe. Japan 
 feels that the right to establish such a trade route is the 
 smallest reward that she could possibly ask for her financial 
 and military efforts." 
 
 2. "In order to avoid closer proximity (with Bolshevism) , 
 Japan wants some independent State established between 
 herself and Bolshevist Russia. This explains why Japan 
 wants all nations to recognize the Far East Republic at
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 307 
 
 Chita in Siberia. She has already sent her representatives 
 to the Chita Government and has entered into negotiations 
 with it regarding numerous concessions in Siberia, along the 
 lines of mining, fishing and industry." 
 
 3. "Of course, Japan also wants elbow room in Siberia 
 for her surplus population. However, the sending of emi- 
 grants ... is not a pressing question with the Govern- 
 ment just now. ... A more vital question is where she will 
 be able to obtain a constant supply of raw materials for her 
 rapidly growing industries. . . . China is, of course, an 
 inexhaustible mine, but at the same time this mine is being 
 worked by all nations and even China itself, with her mil- 
 lions of laborers, is beginning to manufacture on an unpre- 
 cedented scale. Siberia, on the other hand, is both thinly 
 populated and practically unexploited. Moreover, this vast 
 country lies just across the Sea of Japan and from its geo- 
 graphical propinquity would seem to be the natural source 
 of raw material." 
 
 4. The next point is especially important as we shall see 
 later on. "Japan wants to make of the Sea of Japan a Japa- 
 nese inland sea, just as the ancient Romans made a Roman 
 sea of the Mediterranean in the time of the Roman Empire. 
 From a Japanese standpoint, such an undertaking is a 
 natural one. The Sea of Japan is closed on the south by a 
 very narrow channel known as the Straits of Korea, which is 
 Japanese water to-day. On the north, there is but a narrow 
 strip of water between the mainland and Sakhalin Island. 
 This may be crossed in small boats. To the east lies the 
 chain of Japanese islands and to the west stretch the coasts 
 of Korea and Siberia. Through this sea Japan might ob- 
 tain two approaches to Europe, one through the Korean 
 port of Fusan, and- the other through Vladivostok. Ex- 
 pansion into Siberia would, therefore, be more natural and 
 more profitable than the sending of emigrants across the 
 Pacific to distant lands. In this way also Japan would be 
 spared the embarrassment of coming into unpleasant con- 
 flict with Occidental nations." 
 
 The inference is quite obvious. Preserve your Mon- 
 roe Doctrine for yourself, but let us (the Japanese)
 
 308 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 have our own Monroe Doctrine for the Far East. If 
 not, here is the perspective. I quote again from that 
 obliging gentleman's book : 
 
 5. "Although war between Japan and the United States, 
 according to the present outlook, seems well-nigh impossible, 
 still none can say with assurance that permanent peace 
 can long be maintained between the two nations. However, 
 if war should come, the cause thereof will not be the Japa- 
 nese question in the United States, but rather with regard 
 to some situation in the Orient itself. Japan might take 
 up arms should the United States adopt some policy that 
 would stand in the way of Japan in obtaining raw materials 
 from China or Siberia. Interference of this sort would 
 threaten not only the sources of the national prosperity of 
 Japan, but even the very existence." 
 
 This is also quite clear. This is just how the Ger- 
 mans defended their right to a "place in the sun," a 
 new "Machtpolitik." But Mr. Kuno forgets to repro- 
 duce one more argument for taking possession of the 
 Sea of Japan, which is, probably, more obvious to mili- 
 tary strategists than to learned scholars. It is this. 
 Just in the event of an "unpleasant conflict" with the 
 United States, for whatever reason it be, Japan does 
 not want the United States to find its ally in Russia. 
 That is why even before the necessity of emigration is 
 keenly felt by the Japanese nation, i.e., before a natu- 
 ral pretext presents itself, Japan wants her "elbow 
 room" in Siberia and wishes to bottle up the Sea of 
 Japan. Her aim is obviously not so much economic as 
 military. She wants to keep Russia away from the Sea 
 altogether, in order to have her rear secured. That is 
 also why the only place in Asia and on the Sea, which 
 is actually a "white man's land," must be turned into a 
 "yellow man's land."
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 309 
 
 You will excuse my rather lengthy quotations from 
 Mr. Kuno's book. This is practically the shortest way 
 to make known Japan's real attitude in the Far East- 
 ern question and thus to introduce us to a discussion 
 of Japanese acts and arguments. Acts often precede 
 arguments in Japan. 
 
 Let us first take up that question of the "white" or 
 "yellow" man's land in Siberia. One might with equal 
 reason call America the "red man's land." Siberia is, 
 indeed, the only girdle of the white man's settlement in 
 Asia which brings the white race to the Pacific. But is 
 it a product of sheer conquest? Is the white race in 
 the minority in Siberia? Is the white settlement as 
 recent as the last period of the world colonial policy? 
 
 Such is by no means the case. Siberia is closely 
 welded to European Russia by a secular process of set- 
 tlement. That process is contemporaneous with the 
 settlement of America. It began at the end of the XVI 
 Century, and in the XVII Century the main outlines 
 of colonization were firmly laid down. The process 
 was slow and steady. It was a continuous stream of 
 Russian settlers which found Siberia, indeed, "a great 
 waste," as Mr. Kuno puts it, and its aboriginal popula- 
 tion as scarce and scattered as behooved the tribes of 
 hunters and nomads. The Russian settler brought to 
 Siberia his habits of husbandry and introduced seden- 
 tary life. 
 
 Was it the "imperialistic" Government of ancient 
 Moscow which was responsible for the "annexation" of 
 the Siberian wilderness? No, this was not the case. 
 The Muscovite Government of the XVII Century was 
 by far not strong enough to guide the process of settle- 
 ment. It only tried to step into the shoes of the set- 
 tlers. They were free Russian Cossacks, of the Great
 
 310 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Russian stock, who crossed the Urals in the second half 
 of the XVI Century and who in another half century 
 passed through all Siberia, following the confluents of 
 the chief Siberian rivers. In about 1650 they found 
 themselves at the mouth of the Amur, on the Pacific 
 coast. The peasant followed the Cossack, and the gov- 
 ernment official followed the peasant. The Siberian 
 population, however, never knew serfdom and the sub- 
 missiveness of the Russian center, as the land-owners 
 had no opportunity to make Siberian lands their own. 
 Siberians always remained splendid specimens of the 
 Northern robust race, a liberty-loving folk. They are 
 Russian republicans, a forecast of what free Russia is 
 going to become. 
 
 What was the attitude of the settlers towards the 
 local population? Of course, the Cossacks had come as 
 conquerors and economic exploiters. But the peasants 
 came as peaceful neighbors. We had no long wars of 
 conquest in Siberia. The difference in civilization was 
 not so great between the Russian settlers and the Si- 
 berian aborigines, as it was at the same time between 
 the Anglo-Saxons and the Indians. There was inter- 
 marriage, mutual amalgamation, and the physical type 
 of the Siberian Russian was slowly changing in the 
 midst of the yellow Tungus and Mongol. However, the 
 white race asserted itself. An appropriate term to char- 
 acterize the cultural significance of Russian settlement 
 in Siberia was found by Sir Harry Johnston. He called 
 it "Aryanization." Russian settlers, as he rightly 
 stated, "were repeating history," or rather, prehistory, 
 by "once more Aryanizing Northern and Central Asia." 
 The difference was that they were now moving in the 
 opposite direction : from West to East.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 311 
 
 The process went on throughout the last three cen- 
 turies, and the last stage of it was recorded by foreign 
 observers. Let me quote from an American book, by 
 Mr. Beveridge, on "The Russian Advance" in Asia. 1 
 Mr. Beveridge, while in Vladivostok, had a talk with an 
 "intelligent Russian commercial man." This is how the 
 latter represents that last stage of "Aryanization" of 
 the Far East. "Yes," said Mr. Beveridge's informant, 
 referring to the prairies north of Vladivostok, "these 
 fields were all once occupied by Chinamen ; but now, as 
 you see, they are as fully occupied by the Russian peas- 
 ant, his wife and his children, as if this land had always 
 been a part of Russia. That has not been so very long 
 ago, either. It is quite impossible to explain the re- 
 tirement of the Chinese. There was no friction between 
 the people and the Russian peasant." Mr. Beveridge 
 draws a correct conclusion. "This singular fact," he 
 says, "which repeats itself in many different phases, 
 is one of the most significant truths in the peculiar 
 process of Russian expansion: never any friction be- 
 tween the Russian and the native." This fact has 
 often been confirmed by other observers. The ex- 
 planation can be found partly in the circumstance, 
 just mentioned by me, of closer standards of culture, 
 partly in a particular adaptability of Russian settlers 
 to new surroundings, their -generally peaceful disposi- 
 tion, free from any nationalist bias. This is what for 
 centuries made Russians born colonizers. 
 
 The Far East was thus made an integral part of 
 Russia. The Russian population was increasing at a 
 remarkably speedy rate. Let us take the last reliable 
 statistical data, the census of 1897 and the estimated 
 
 1 The book was published under that title in 1904.
 
 312 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 figures for 1915. The population of the whole of Si- 
 beria was: 
 
 1897 9,196,000 
 
 1915 14,396,000 
 
 The figures for the white population, taken sepa- 
 rately, are as follows : 
 
 1897 5,291,000 
 
 1915 10,771,000 (estimated, the lowest figure) 
 
 The white population doubled in eighteen years, 
 which, of course, can only be explained by the very 
 strong tide of emigration from European Russia after 
 the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1896. 
 The number of emigrants for that period is more than 
 3,000,000. 
 
 The growth of the population is still more marked 
 as we go from West to East. These are the figures 
 for the provinces to the East of Lake Baikal : 
 
 1897 1915 
 
 (in Thousands) (in Thousands) 
 Total White Per Cent. Total White Per Cent. 
 
 Transbaikalia . 672 446 68 972 698 72 
 
 Amur 120 104 87 261 243 93 
 
 Maritime Prov- 
 i n c e, Kam- 
 chatka, Sak- 
 halin 223 126 56 707 610 86 
 
 1015 676 67 1940 1551 79 
 
 Taken as a whole, the population also doubled (from 
 1 to nearly 2 millions) in the eastern part of Siberia. 
 But in the provinces now under Japanese control 
 (Maritime Province, Kamchatka, Northern Sakhalin)
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 313 
 
 the white population multiplied almost five times, while 
 increasing its proportion to the alien minority from 56 
 per cent, to 86 per cent. For the whole of eastern 
 Siberia the white population increased from two-thirds 
 to four-fifths of the whole. 
 
 You can now see whether it is fair for Japan "to raise 
 the question whether Siberia may not be the land of 
 the yellow man." Siberia just like Canada whose 
 population is one-half of Siberia's is the product of 
 the white man's thrift, wrested from nature by the infi- 
 nite toil and endurance of the Russian squatters, 
 through a process lasting for more than three centuries. 
 Siberia cannot be used by the Japanese for settlement. 
 Mr. Kuno conscientiously tells us that the question of 
 emigration to Siberia is not at all a "pressing ques- 
 tion with the Japanese Government just now." And, 
 indeed, the Japanese have proved to be poor colonizers 
 even under better conditions of climate and soil. So 
 far as that question of settlement is concerned, there 
 is no danger of Siberia becoming a "yellow man's 
 land." 
 
 But there is another side to that desire to occupy 
 Siberian territories. The Japanese want Siberia as a 
 colony for raw materials, foodstuffs and minerals. They 
 want, moreover, to monopolize this colony, as con- 
 trasted with China, which "is being worked by all na- 
 tions" and, into the bargain, is developing its own in- 
 dustry. It is, of course, very well known that Siberia 
 is exceedingly rich in natural resources. Immense 
 quantities of iron ore, as yet untouched, exist in the 
 Maritime Provinces, particularly north of Vladivostok, 
 between Olga and Vladimir Bay; the deposits lie only 
 about ten miles from the coast. Sakhalin coal can be 
 easily brought to these well sheltered bays. Enormous
 
 314 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 quantities of coal are found also in the Amur Province. 
 Gold, silver, copper and oil can also be found in the 
 same Far Eastern provinces. The extent of the for- 
 ests in the Amur and Maritime Provinces is estimated 
 at 509,000,000 acres, and the best sorts of timber can 
 be found there. As soon as the World War began, a 
 host of Japanese surveyors and investigators rushed 
 into the Russian Far East, and especially to the Mari- 
 time Province coast and to the Russian part of Sakha- 
 lin. All the reports of Russian geologists respecting the 
 oil and mineral wealth of that part were to be verified. 
 "Our Mining Department and Geological Commission 
 are literally besieged by the Japanese who are con- 
 stantly asking for varied information and are putting 
 in claims," said a Russian writer (in the beginning of 
 1917). 
 
 It was still more immediately important for the Japa- 
 nese to make use of the abundance of fish along the 
 coasts of the Maritime Province, Okhotsk and Kam- 
 chatka. As a result of their wasteful and predatory ex- 
 ploitation, their own fish supplies along the shore of 
 Japan were getting exhausted at the end of the XIX 
 century. But, at the same time, their fishing rights in 
 the Russian waters of Sakhalin and the Amur regions 
 had been limited by the regulations of 1899-1900, in or- 
 der to safeguard the rights of the Russian population 
 and to prevent the rapid exhaustion of fish supplies. It 
 was especially dangerous for Kamchatka as here the 
 native population and the Russian settlers lived exclu- 
 sively on fish. Fish was also the food of their dogs 
 a necessary component element of their economy; 
 clothing, shoes, sails, etc., were being made from fish 
 skins. No agriculture can thrive in these regions, and 
 the population had to become fishermen and hunters.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 315 
 
 But control over fishing was especially difficult there, 
 and illegal fishing by the Japanese was largely spread. 
 To check that, supplementary regulations were pub- 
 lished on Nov. 29, 1901, which confined the Japanese 
 fishing rights to Southern Sakhalin and the southem 
 part of the Primorsk coast. The Japanese answered 
 by threatening the Russian fishing industry with high 
 import duties and by establishing in 1902 a powerful 
 "Union of Fishermen" in Hakodate, which deprived 
 Russian fishermen of any individual Japanese help with 
 gear, vessels, workmen, instructors, etc., and made 
 them completely dependent on the corporation. 
 
 The Russo-Japanese War intervened, and, in accord- 
 ance with the Portsmouth Treaty of Sept. 5, 1905, a 
 special Fishing Convention was concluded in St. Peters- 
 burg on July 28, 1907, to remain in force for 12 years. 
 In spite of the Japanese insistence based on an arbi- 
 trary construction of the text of the Treaty, the Con- 
 vention of 1907 reserved for the Russian fishing indus- 
 try all rivers and 34 internal water areas. The rights 
 of the Russian settlers were thus guaranteed, while the 
 Japanese received full scope for the development of 
 their own fishing industry. A period of peaceful eco- 
 nomic competition set in, in which the Japanese were 
 favored by their better technical equipment, larger 
 number of vessels and experienced working men and 
 stronger initiative of their capitalists, who were sup- 
 ported by the State. Competition was difficult for the 
 Russians, but they now began to export fish to Euro- 
 pean Russia, Especially, the products of the firth of 
 the Amur River (the town of Nicolayevsk) were all 
 sent to the home market in 1916 and 1917 owing to the 
 increased demand for feeding the Army. The Russian 
 fish industry thus grew independent of the cheap Japa-
 
 316 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 nese market. Besides the home market, it found ready 
 sales in the best markets of Western Europe. This 
 explains why the Japanese were particularly eager to 
 use their chance as soon as it presented itself for 
 strengthening their position in Russian waters. 
 
 War and revolution opened before the Japanese 
 much larger prospectives than that of capturing Rus- 
 sia's economic resources in the Far East by the slow 
 method of "peaceful penetration." It is during this 
 time and especially during the last four years that 
 the Japanese have actually tried to realize annexation- 
 ist schemes such as are formulated by Mr. Kuno. The 
 estuaries of the Amur and the northern part of Sakhalin 
 were occupied by the Japanese, with all their fisheries 
 and other natural resources. A new Gibraltar was to 
 be created by fortifying the northern entrance to the 
 Japan Sea through the Tartar Straits, and the Japan 
 Sea was to be transformed into an inland sea, a new 
 Mediterranean. Moreover, a "buffer state" controlled 
 by Japan was to be created on the Siberian mainland. 
 The officially avowed aim was to ward off Bolshevism 
 from Japan and especially from Korea. But the actual 
 ami is different. It is suggested in Mr. Kuno's book. 
 It consists in warding off Russia from the Pacific and 
 thus securing Japan's rear in the event of some un- 
 toward happening on that Ocean. 
 
 The campaign for the annexation of, at least, the 
 northern half of Sakhalin had begun even before the 
 Russian Revolution. In the summer of 1916, a number 
 of articles were published in the Japanese press, in 
 which the Russian Government was represented as 
 prepared to cede to Japan that northern part, as having 
 no value to Russia. Japan, it was said, did not 
 wish to accept it as a gift from Russia, and was ready
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 317 
 
 to offer a small monetary compensation. Under date 
 of August 12, 1916, a Russian writer, N. M. Popov, 
 stated that influential Japanese newspapers were even 
 asserting that "in compensation for the freedom of 
 action accorded to Russia in the west, she was ready 
 to relinquish, in favor of Japan, her sovereign rights in 
 the territories lying east of Lake Baikal." 
 
 The Bolshevist revolution in November, 1917, of 
 course, gave Japan a splendid chance to advance her 
 new claims. As early as December, 1917, Japan took 
 her first step. She addressed a note to the Allied na- 
 tions and to the United States, offering to send troops 
 into Siberia, to protect the Allied interests from Ger- 
 many. Japan even proposed to send troops to Europe 
 if desired, on the conditions that intervention in Siberia 
 should be exclusively Japanese, that her paramount 
 position in China and the existing treaties with China 
 should be recognized and that exclusive concessions 
 should be given to her in Eastern Siberia for mining, 
 timber exploitation and fishing. Of course, Japan 
 declared that no permanent occupation of Siberia and 
 no territorial annexation was intended. 
 
 After some speculation, France and Great Britain 
 accepted the Japanese proposal, provided that the 
 United States also agreed. The French idea was to 
 have some hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops 
 sent, in the spring of 1918, somewhere to the Urals 
 or the Volga, where a new "Eastern front" was to be 
 built (see Chapter VI). This scheme was vetoed in 
 Washington. The United States' argument is made 
 clear in a message communicated to the Ambassadors 
 of France, England and Italy, on March 3, 1918. "The 
 United States," the message states, "is cognizant of 
 the peril of anarchy which surrounds the Siberian prov-
 
 318 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 inces, and also the overshadowing risk of German in- 
 vasion. It shares with the Government of 
 
 the view that if intervention is deemed advisable, the 
 Government of Japan is in complete touch with the 
 situation, and could accomplish it most efficiently. . . . 
 But it is bound in frankness to say that the wisdom of 
 intervention seems to it most questionable. . . . The 
 central empires could and would make it appear 
 that Japan was doing hi the East exactly what Ger- 
 many is doing in the West. It is the judgment of the 
 United States . . . that a hot resentment would be gen- 
 erated hi Russia." 
 
 The State Department was perfectly right. All Rus- 
 sian parties were equally averse to the Japanese in- 
 tervention. On March 5, 1918, Mr. Bruce Lockhart 
 telegraphed to the British Foreign Office: "You can 
 have no idea of the feeling which Japanese intervention 
 will arouse. Even the "Cadet" (Constitutional-Demo- 
 cratic) press, which cannot be accused of Bolshevist 
 sympathies, is loud in its denunciation of this crime 
 against Russia." 
 
 However, a few days later (March 14) Mr. Balfour 
 tried to prove before the House that Japan was not 
 "moved by selfish and dishonorable motives," that she 
 acted as a "friend of Russia," France also stuck to 
 her idea. A new, mitigated scheme was now worked 
 out in Paris. The intervention was not to be purely 
 Japanese, but inter-Allied. Its aim was to help the 
 Russian initiative. From March to May new negotia- 
 tions were carried on hi Washington, to persuade Presi- 
 dent Wilson to accept the scheme. This was also the 
 aim of the mission of Mr. Bergson. In Moscow the 
 Allies tried to influence the Russian parties. After 
 a good deal of friction, Russian politicians were in-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 319 
 
 duced to consent to the Japanese landing, but on the 
 formal promise that Russia's sovereignty, independence 
 and unity of territory would not be impaired. A "ver- 
 bal note" to this effect was handed over to the Rus- 
 sian anti-Bolshevist organizations by Mr. Noulens, 
 the French Ambassador (see Chapter VI). President 
 Wilson finally consented, but even after that he per- 
 sisted in considering the whole undertaking as aimless. 
 The other Allies also cooled down a little, as soon as 
 they came to know that Japan was not at all interested 
 in going further to the West than Lake Baikal. It 
 at once threw a lurid light on the real aim of her 
 "friendly" support. Lake Baikal is a strategic frontier 
 between the Eastern and the Western Siberia and any 
 one who is in possession of the railway tunnels in the 
 mountains surrounding the lake on the south, holds 
 the key to the Far East. 
 
 Japan did not seem to wait until her proposals for 
 intervention should be agreed upon by the Allies. The 
 Japanese keenly observed the changing situation in 
 Siberia and offered their help to the local Russian 
 groups working for the liberation of Russia. Ataman 
 Semenov, who began fighting the Bolsheviks in De- 
 cember, 1917, received Allied aid early in 1918. An 
 American report from Irkutsk .(Webster and Hicks, 
 on April 3) stated that Semenov "has ample money, 
 is paying high price for soldiers," and Semenov him- 
 self acknowledged that he was aided (after England 
 and France) by Japan. Secret documents found by 
 the Bolsheviks in Vladivostok disclosed negotiations 
 between the representatives of the newly-built Siberian 
 Government and the Allied representatives in Harbin, 
 Vladivostok and Pekin in the beginning of April, 1918. 
 The representatives of the Siberian Government stated
 
 320 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 that it was Japan which chiefly benefited by the negoti- 
 ations. "The uncertainty of the situation," they said, 
 "favors extremely the strengthening of the influence 
 of Japan at the expense of the other Allies. The posi- 
 tion maintained by the representatives of Japan re- 
 garding the recognition of the .Siberian Government 
 gives room for the thought that Japan holds the possi- 
 bility of recognition entirely in her hands; she makes 
 definite terms for recognition, among which it is neces- 
 sary to point out the condition that Vladivostok remain 
 unfortified." They added that "such predominance of 
 the Japanese influence worries the Government of 
 Siberia extremely," as "the aim of Japan is to obtain 
 complete control over certain economic factors, such 
 as, for instance, the fisheries in Kamchatka." They 
 stated that "there are public groups which are, it seems, 
 ready to use the separate assistance of Japan, which 
 she is ready to give" and which "may go the limit, in- 
 clusive of a separate agreement with Japan. 1 Conse- 
 quently they urged a more clearly defined attitude on 
 
 *Mr. John Spargo in his book "Russia as an American Problem" 
 says (pp. 239-240) that "General Horvath was approached (at 
 Harbin) by a representative of Japan, Gen. Nakashima, and offered 
 the entire support of Japan with all the arms, money and men that 
 might be required to clear Siberia of the "Bolsheviki," on the con- 
 ditions that "Japan should undertake intervention in Siberia alone," 
 "that she should be given the northern half of Sakhalin," "prefer- 
 ential trade and commercial rights" in Eastern Siberia, "exclusive 
 concessions for the exploitation of all mining areas and .forests east 
 of Lake Baikal." "full equality with Russians in the fisheries of 
 Eastern Siberia," and "that Vladivostok be transformed into a free 
 port and all its fortifications dismantled." But Gen. Horvath in 
 a letter to me (Pekin, Aug. 15, 1921) stated that "Japan never 
 addressed such demands to me." He admits, however, that there 
 were "certain hints in the spirit of some of the points quoted, on 
 the part of irresponsible persons." But he concludes that such opin- 
 ions "did not at all coincide with the true intentions of the Japanese 
 Government." I do not see any basis for such an optimistic con- 
 struction and after having taken steps to verify Mr. Spargo's data 
 I feel entitled to assert that they repose on good authority.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 321 
 
 the part of America towards the Government of Siberia. 
 
 America, naturally, had to change its attitude 
 towards intervention when the Allies decided to make 
 use of the Czecho-Slovaks in the internal struggle in 
 Russia, The Czecho-Slovaks were now to take the 
 place of the Japanese, in building the "Eastern" front. 
 President Masaryk, who was then in America, per- 
 suaded President Wilson that it was necessary to aid 
 anti-Bolshevist Russia. However, the part of Japan 
 was now to be made equal to that of the other Allies. 
 It was, probably, in order to obviate suspicion that the 
 invitation to Japan was conveyed by the United States. 
 The United States thus took upon themselves a joint 
 responsibility for the Allied action in Siberia. 
 
 On August 3, 1918, official declarations appeared 
 from the Japanese Government and the Government 
 of the United States, mentioning the American pro- 
 posal to Japan "that each of the two Governments send 
 a force of a jew thousand men to Vladivostok," and 
 the Japanese consent to it. The aim of the interven- 
 tion was carefully circumscribed and based upon two 
 temporary purposes: (1) "to render such protection 
 and help as is possible to the Czecho-Slovaks against 
 the armed Austrian and German prisoners who are at- 
 tacking them," and (2) "to steady any efforts at self- 
 government or self-defense in which the Russians them- 
 selves may be willing to accept assistance." A declara- 
 tion was added "in the most public and solemn man- 
 ner," that the United States "contemplates no interfer- 
 ence with the political attitude of Russia, no inter- 
 vention in her internal affairs not even in the local 
 affairs of the limited areas which her military force may 
 be obliged to occupy and no impairment of her terri- 
 torial integrity, either now or hereafter." The Japa-
 
 322 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 nese Government equally "reaffirmed their avowed 
 policy of respecting the territorial integrity of Russia, 
 and of abstaining from all interference in her internal 
 politics." They also declared "that upon the realiza- 
 tion of the object above indicated ('to relieve the pres- 
 sure weighing upon the Czecho-Slovak forces') they 
 will immediately withdraw all Japanese forces from 
 Russian territory, and will leave wholly unimpaired 
 the sovereignty of Russia in all its phases, whether 
 political or military." No more positive assurances 
 could be imagined, and the readiness to give them, in 
 the light of subsequent activities gives place to philo- 
 sophic speculation. 
 
 The Government of the United States continued to 
 hold the gravest doubt as to the final result of the 
 undertaking upon which it was embarking. The same 
 announcement of August 3 starts with the following 
 argument. "In the judgment of the Government of the 
 United States a judgment arrived at after repeated 
 and very searching consideration of the whole situation 
 military intervention in Russia would be more likely 
 to add to the present sad confusion there than to cure 
 it, and would injure Russia rather than help her out 
 of her distresses. Such military intervention as has 
 been most frequently proposed, even supposing it to be 
 efficacious in its immediate object of delivering an at- 
 tack upon Germany from the East, would, in its judg- 
 ment, be more likely to turn out to be merely a method 
 of making use of Russia than to be a method of serv- 
 ing her." 
 
 At the very time when these lines were written, they 
 proved distressingly true so far as European Russia was 
 concerned (see Chap. VI). The case proved to be the 
 same in eastern Siberia. The Americans, as a conse-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 323 
 
 quence of their wavering attitude, tried to keep clear 
 of armed encounters, and it was said that they took 
 pride in the fact that during the first eight months of 
 intervention they never killed a single Russian. On the 
 contrary, the Japanese very soon revealed their real 
 intention to control eastern Siberia. "The British, 
 French and American forces," Mr. Spargo says, "were 
 systematically kept from points of strategic importance. 
 East of Lake Baikal every town and village of any im- 
 portance was placed under Japanese control. Every 
 railroad bridge and every road was guarded by the Japa- 
 nese, and every railroad station from Vladivostok to 
 Chita flew the Japanese flag and no other. . . . No 
 American, etc., officer could move a man without in- 
 forming the Japanese General Staff. On the other 
 hand, the American and European officers were never 
 informed of the movements of Japanese troops. . . . 
 Japanese warships filled Vladivostok harbor, their guns 
 trained on the city most of the time. Not a caravan 
 could move, not a train be run, not a ship arrive or 
 depart without passing Japanese inspection and secur- 
 ing Japanese permission." Moreover, the very mean- 
 ing of intervention was substantially changed by an 
 increase of Japanese troops unforeseen in the initial 
 agreement. Every Allied power had been invited to 
 send about 7,000 armed men. But soon strange reports 
 began to roll into Vladivostok, that Japanese troops 
 were everywhere: in the Transbaikal Province, at 
 Irkutsk, Chita, upon the Amur line and in North Man- 
 churia, at the mouth of the Amur, east of Kirin and on 
 the trade route from Mongolia. Intelligence officers 
 sent out to investigate the situation brought back the 
 news that the Japanese had over 70,000 in Siberia and 
 Manchuria, and that beside the Twelfth Division, con-
 
 324 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 trolled from Vladivostok, they had two more armies: 
 the Seventh Division controlled by the Kwangtung 
 administration at Port Arthur and guarding the Chi- 
 nese Eastern Railway and the Third Division with 
 headquarters in Chita, directly controlled by the Gen- 
 eral Staff in Tokio. "These facts gradually becoming 
 known," an American writer (nineteen years a resident 
 of Japan), states in his book 1 which has recently ap- 
 peared, "killed that complete faith and trust in Japan 
 which characterized the early days of the expedition." 
 On November 2, 1918, Secretary Lansing plainly told 
 Viscount Ishii that Japan had gone too far. As a re- 
 sult, General Otani, the Japanese Commander, received 
 orders to send back the 52,000 in excess of the agree- 
 ment. But a year later, on September 15, 1919, Secre- 
 tary of War Baker told the Military Committee of the 
 House of Representatives, that there were still 60,000 
 Japanese troops in Siberia as against 8,477 Americans ; 
 1,429 British; 1,400 Italians and 1,076 French! 
 
 It may be suggested that just this numerical superi- 
 ority was necessary in order actually "to steady the 
 Russian efforts at self-government and self-defense," 
 as against the Bolsheviks. The Japanese diplomatist 
 at the Washington Conference, Baron Shidehara, did 
 indeed state at a Committee meeting on Jan. 23, 1922, 
 that the Japanese Government were "anxious to see 
 an orderly and stable authority speedily reestablished 
 in the Far Eastern possessions of Russia." "It was 
 in this spirit," Baron Shidehara added, "that they 
 manifested a keen interest in the patriotic but ill-fated 
 struggle of Admiral Kolchak." It is only just to men- 
 tion that on the very next day after Kolchak's nomina- 
 tion (Nov. 19, 1918), the Japanese proposed to send 
 
 '"What Shall I Think of Japan?" by George Gleason.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 325 
 
 to Omsk a few regiments. However, Kolchak was not 
 inclined to play the part of Ataman Semenov and he 
 obviously had good reasons to apprehend the result 
 of the armed support the Japanese were so eager to 
 offer. 
 
 He declined. That chance of controlling Siberia 
 gone, the Japanese returned to their former tactics and 
 supported Semenov in Chita against Kolchak in Omsk. 
 It took about four months to liquidate the conflict, 
 and Kolchak had to submit to conditions dictated by 
 the Japanese, in order to be recognized by the rebel 
 ataman. The conditions accepted established an al- 
 most complete independence of the Far East under 
 Semenov. This was the first attempt of the Japanese 
 to build a "buffer State" : we see that it was to be built 
 against the national Government and not against the 
 Soviets. 
 
 Kolchak's ministers induced the ruler to yield in 
 that question of Semenov, as they hoped that this 
 would pave the way for bringing the Japanese troops 
 to the front, where they were now badly needed. Far 
 from this being the case, the Japanese Government 
 even rejected (August, 1919) the Russian-American re- 
 quest to send two divisions to the west of Lake Baikal, 
 in order to guard the railway line. The "climate" was 
 unfavorable for the Japanese in Western Siberia, and 
 Siberian expeditions had become too unpopular in the 
 Parliament! At the same time a new Japanese division 
 was sent to Transbaikalia. 
 
 As stated by Baron Shidehara at the Washington 
 Conference, this means that the Japanese "have care- 
 fully refrained from supporting one faction against 
 another. . . . They withheld all assistance from Gen. 
 Rozanov (Kolchak's Governor at Vladivostok) against
 
 326 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the revolutionary movements which led to his over- 
 throw in January, 1920." The same can be repeated 
 concerning the occasion of the overthrow of Kolchak 
 himself (Chap. VI). Even on that occasion the Japa- 
 nese "maintained an attitude of strict neutrality and 
 refused to interfere in these movements which it would 
 have been quite easy for them to suppress if they had 
 so desired." Baron Shidehara's statement is fully borne 
 out by the facts. Kolchak's Premier, Mr. Tretyakov, 
 indeed, asked in vain for Japan's help at the decisive 
 moment of Irkutsk's revolt against Kolchak. The 
 Japanese sent out a detachment of a thousand soldiers, 
 but at the same tune a telegram from Tokio forbade 
 them to intervene. At the. supreme moment when Ad- 
 miral Kolchak was ignominiously betrayed by the 
 Allies, at the Irkutsk railway station, in mid-January, 
 1920, the Japanese soldiers followed the procedure with 
 cool curiosity. And when, on February 7, Kolchak was 
 shot, there was no more need to "serve" Russia. One 
 might now easily "make use" of the incipient Siberian 
 chaos. 
 
 However, for a tune Japan wavered between the 
 two opposite policies of complete withdrawal and re- 
 inforced military occupation. On December 8, 1919, 
 the Japanese Ambassador at Washington asked the 
 Secretary of State which of the two policies America 
 was prepared to pursue, in face of "the recent unfavor- 
 able development of the situation in Siberia." The 
 United States after a "most careful consideration" de- 
 cided for withdrawal, thus "marking the end of a co- 
 operative effort by Japan and the United States to 
 assist the Russian people." The motives given in the 
 Note of January 16, 1920, were that the first purpose 
 of intervention as expressed in an aide-memoire handed
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 327 
 
 to the Japanese Ambassador at Washington on July 17, 
 1918, the repatriation of the Czecho-Slovak troops, was 
 on the way of being accomplished. The second pur- 
 pose, "steadying the efforts at self-government and 
 self-defense," could hardly be "longer served by the 
 presence of American troops." 
 
 Japan decided otherwise. The question of evacua- 
 tion was here made a party issue between the omnipo- 
 tent military party and the liberal civilians, whose 
 influence, however much on the increase, is still not 
 strong enough to determine actual politics. The Ameri- 
 can observer quoted, Mr. Gleason, rightly connects the 
 decision of the Japanese to stay in Siberia with their 
 internal politics. "With the dissolution of the Diet 
 late in February (1920)," he states, "and the conse- 
 quent removal of restraint on the military party, the 
 Government early in April announced its decision to 
 remain in Siberia. A policy of aggressive control of 
 the railroad east of Lake Baikal seems to have been 
 adopted." The official motive that was now given for 
 a prolonged occupation, was, as stated by Baron Shide- 
 hara, "the duty of affording protection to a large num- 
 ber of their nationals residing in the districts in ques- 
 tion and security in Korea." 
 
 Before we pass to the measures with which the de- 
 cision taken "early in April" (4-5) was accompanied, 
 we must dwell somewhat upon the pretext chosen by 
 Japan for enacting these drastic measures. Baron 
 Shidehara grows very emphatic when he comes to speak 
 of that bloody "outrage" in Nicolayevsk, which roused 
 "the just popular indignations" and for which "no 
 nation worthy of respect will possibly remain forbear- 
 ing," as "history affords few instances similar to" that 
 incident. Exceptionally strong language is thus used
 
 328 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 to justify an exceptionally strong measure of a "re- 
 prisal" to last an indefinite time, "pending the estab- 
 lishment in Russia of a responsible authority with 
 whom Japan can communicate in order to obtain due 
 satisfaction." One must not forget that the incident 
 which took place in Nicolayevsk on March 12, 1920, 
 was made possible only because "a responsible au- 
 thority" had just disappeared as a result of the "move- 
 ments which it would have been quite easy for the 
 Japanese to suppress if they had so desired." More- 
 over, the very massacre at Nicolayevsk was, as we shall 
 see, the result of the same Japanese policy. 
 
 And, indeed, what did happen in Nicolayevsk on 
 that memorable day of March 12? As a result of Kol- 
 chak's downfall the whole country was in a state of 
 dissolution, when nobody could vouch for anybody's 
 safety. The Japanese garrison, which occupied the 
 little town of Nicolayevsk hi the estuary of the Amur 
 River, was practically the only strong unit of power in 
 the whole country to the north of Khabarovsk (Mari- 
 time Province). It numbered 600 men in 1919, but 
 just at the critical moment it had been diminished to 
 300. As early as January 7, 1920, the Japanese Consul 
 at Nicolayevsk had sent a telegram to Foreign Min- 
 ister Uchida, to warn him that as a result of Bolshevist 
 activities in the neighborhood the situation at Nicola- 
 yevsk had become desperate. "If our residents," he 
 said, "are not removed directly, I cannot guarantee the 
 consequences." He asked for permission for immediate 
 removal, before it was too late. He was ordered to 
 wait for instructions and to act according to circum- 
 stances. On January 26 the Consul asked again for a 
 detachment to be sent at once, as there was danger 
 of being surrounded by the Bolsheviks and removal of
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 329 
 
 the residents had already become impossible. He never 
 received any help, and, at the last moment, he was 
 forced to "act according to circumstances." But which 
 of the two policies of Baron Shidehara was he to fol- 
 low? Was he to remain neutral or to support "an 
 orderly and stable authority"? The commander of 
 the Japanese garrison, moved by plain good sense, had 
 little doubt about it. There was a "robber band which 
 called itself Red Army" which was approaching Nicola- 
 yevsk. And there was also a small garrison of loyal 
 Russians in the town which, as well as the whole popu- 
 lation, Russian and Japanese, had to be defended from 
 the "robbers." The Japanese commander decided to 
 side with the loyal population and he even declared to 
 them, in his appeal of January 17, that "all officers and 
 soldiers of the Japanese detachment are firmly resolved 
 to sacrifice their lives in the defense of the lives and 
 property of the inhabitants." In a joint declaration by 
 the Russian and the Japanese commanders it was an- 
 nounced that the Japanese "are rendering a substantial 
 help to the Russian armed forces in their struggle 
 against the Red band." The Japanese thus cooperated 
 with the only remainder of a "responsible" Russian 
 Government and took upon themselves the risk of that 
 cooperation. 
 
 However, the defense was not successful and the Reds 
 besieged and bombarded the town. On February 20 
 (i.e., after Kolchak's death), the Japanese commander 
 decided to negotiate and was permitted to communicate 
 by wire with his superior in Khabarovsk. To his as- 
 tonishment he was told that in Vladivostok, Khabar- 
 ovsk and elsewhere there was a "revolutionary gov- 
 ernment" towards which the Japanese were preserving 
 "complete neutrality." His only aim in Nicolayevsk
 
 330 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 was now to be "the defense of the Japanese subjects and 
 preservation of order." An ambiguous phrase was 
 added, that "the Japanese Command will not permit 
 the violation of order, if arms are used for usurping the 
 power" as they "wish to guarantee the life and property 
 of the population and prefer not to see the tragedy 
 of useless bloodshed among the fighting parties." The 
 "robber band" being thus transformed into a "fighting 
 party," the Japanese commander decided to stop "use- 
 less bloodshed" by surrendering the town to the Reds. 
 Promises were given and accepted that the lives and 
 property of the Russian officers and the population 
 would be guaranteed on the condition of surrender 
 of arms to the Japanese. The Russian commanders 
 then thanked the Japanese for their loyal comrade- 
 ship and committed suicide. They knew that rob- 
 bers were robbers, and indeed, promiscuous killing had 
 begun directly after the entrance of the Red band into 
 Nicolayevsk, on February 28. 
 
 After having imprisoned, tortured and killed many 
 hundreds of Russians, the bandit leader, a certain 
 Triapitsin, on March 11 addressed to the Japanese 
 officers a proposal to surrender their arms and mu- 
 nitions. Facing that threat, the Japanese commander 
 probably decided that this was the end of his "neu- 
 trality." He decided to attack the "fighting party" 
 first, before they could attack him. Probably, no "re- 
 sponsible" Russian authority would have asked for 
 "satisfaction" had he exterminated the robbers. Un- 
 fortunately, he did not succeed. The robbers proved 
 to be too many for him (1,500 Russians, 200 Koreans, 
 300 Chinese "partisans" as against 300 Japanese sol- 
 diers and 400 civil population). After a few hours of 
 initial success, when Triapitsin was wounded and some
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 331 
 
 members of his staff killed, the Japanese were besieged 
 at the Consulate and in the barracks, while 600 Rus- 
 sian prisoners and all the Japanese civilians were mas- 
 sacred. On March 16 the Japanese Command in Kha- 
 barovsk sent the order to stop fighting. The theory of 
 "neutrality" once more triumphed, and after the Japa- 
 nese Consul and all the civil population had already 
 been killed, the Khabarovsk Command deemed it 
 possible to once more trust the "fighting party." The 
 Japanese who remained alive (110 soldiers, 17 wounded 
 and 4 women) were ordered to surrender and to give 
 up their arms, with the understanding that they would 
 be released from prison in the spring. The question of 
 "responsibility" for the events of March 12-16 seemed 
 thus to be shelved, so much the more as it was very 
 difficult to find the connecting link between the robbers 
 who had been assailed by the Japanese and any Rus- 
 sian authority responsible for the activities of the rob- 
 bers. 
 
 It was at this moment that the Japanese Government 
 definitely chose between the two opposite policies. 
 However, the policy it now decided to pursue was by 
 no means that of "neutrality." On a larger scale and 
 with more success, the Japanese Command repeated 
 now the unhappy attempt of the Commander of Nicola- 
 yevsk. On April 4-5 the Japanese detachments in 
 Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Nicolsk, Spassk and other 
 towns of the Maritime Province began a sudden attack 
 against the Russians, who were not robbers but regular 
 soldiers of the "revolutionary government" of Reds. 
 Hundreds of Russians were killed, Russian vessels were 
 taken possession of, Russian institutions shut down. 
 Obviously, at that moment Baron Shidehara's theory 
 was completely overthrown. Who was now to hold
 
 332 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the Japanese responsible for their acts of open aggres- 
 sion against one of the "fighting parties"? 
 
 Before we describe the impression produced on all the 
 Russian factions by this new form of the Japanese 
 intervention, let us come back to Nicolayevsk. Tria- 
 pitsin's band very soon learned of the events of April 
 4-5. They understood very well that this time they 
 could expect no mercy. A Japanese landing was in 
 preparation against them. They now decided to pre- 
 vent it and to be the first to act. The power was 
 handed over to a "Revolutionary Staff of the Five" 
 who worked out a scheme for the complete evacuation 
 of Nicolayevsk and the wholesale destruction of the 
 town and of all its inhabitants. On May 21-25 all the 
 Russians (more than 3,000) and all the imprisoned 
 Japanese (131) were murdered by the simplified 
 method of stunning and drowning them, all important 
 buildings were blown up, while the band of miscreants 
 retreated to the southwest, up the Rivers Angun and 
 its confluent, the Kerbi, to the gold-bearing mountain- 
 ous district. The Japanese who occupied Nicolayevsk 
 on June 3, 1920, found nothing but ruins and corpses. 
 The bandit leaders, the only "responsible" ones, were 
 a month later shot by then- mutinying "partisans" 
 (July 9). The responsible part of the Russian popu- 
 lation hi the region continued to cooperate with the 
 newly-arrived Japanese garrison, in pursuing the rem- 
 nants of the Bolshevist band. 
 
 A regional conference of Russian inhabitants met hi 
 Xicolayevsk on August 15-23, and it stated hi its ad- 
 dress to the local Japanese Staff that the Russian popu- 
 lation, "believing hi the friendly help of Japan to the 
 Russian State, had made every effort to facilitate the 
 struggle of the Japanese troops against the armed de-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 333 
 
 tachments of Bolsheviks scattered all around the Nosk 
 district." They hardly expected that it would be that 
 same "Russian State" which would be held responsible 
 for the Bolshevist robbers. 1 
 
 All the Russian parties were very much aware of 
 the coming change in the Japanese policy of occupa- 
 tion. If the Japanese really wished, as Baron Shide- 
 hara stated, to "prompt the reconciliation of the vari- 
 ous political groups in Eastern Siberia," they may have 
 been satisfied. All these groups were now united 
 against Japan. And as Japan had tried to form in 
 Transbaikalia a "buffer state" against Russia, the Rus- 
 sians now decided to transform that province into a 
 buffer state against Japan. 
 
 The idea was first suggested to the victorious Bol- 
 sheviks by the moderate socialistic parties. They un- 
 derstood very well that an immediate appearance of 
 the Bolsheviks on the Pacific slope would be used to 
 justify the change in the attitude of the Japanese and 
 help them transform their intervention into a regular 
 occupation. A buffer state controlled by Moscow but 
 not formally Bolshevist might prevent an open conflict. 
 A special congress met in Tomsk, as early as January, 
 1920, to discuss that proposal. The Bolsheviks decided 
 to accept it, but with one important exception. They 
 wished to keep in their own hands the Baikal tunnels 
 which formed the gate to the Far East. That is why 
 they moved the proposed buffer state from Irkutsk, i.e., 
 from the western side of the Lake Baikal, to the eastern 
 
 1 See for a more detailed account of the "Nicolayevsk incident" my 
 article in the New York Sunday Times, February 5, 1922. It is 
 based on first-hand documents and depositions by eye-witnesses, 
 which had been handed over to me by the representative of the 
 Vladivostok commercial and industrial group, Mr. Alexin, in Wash- 
 ington. Mr. Alexin was directed by the Vladivostok Government 
 to perform a detailed inquiry into the events at Nicolayevsk.
 
 334 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 side of it, thus leaving the tunnels in the hands of 
 Moscow. It was also decided that the buffer state in 
 Transbaikalia was to be only a temporary formation. 
 It was to last until their next move to the East should 
 be deemed sufficiently prepared. Verkhneudinsk was 
 chosen the capital of the new "Far Eastern Republic" : 
 it was the first important town on the road from Baikal 
 to Chita. In Chita, Ataman Semenov was still in 
 power. In Vladivostok, after Rozanov's overthrow, a 
 new government had appeared, associated with the 
 local Zemstvo and formally "democratic." In fact it 
 was also controlled by the Bolsheviks and they did not 
 conceal it, in spite of the warnings of the Premier of 
 the Zemstvo Government, Mr. Medvediev. "If you 
 wish to see the Japanese soldiers here and Vladivostok 
 occupied," he said in the beginning of March, "just say 
 the last word: Tower to the Soviets!' The occupation 
 will surely come." However, that last word was spoken. 
 On April 3, Vladivostok witnessed the opening of the 
 Soviet. A few days earlier a conference of workmen's, 
 peasants' and Red Army delegates was opened in the 
 neighboring town, Nicolsk on the Ussuri. On April 
 4, as we know, the Japanese answered by an armed 
 attack on the Russian army, militia and institutions. 
 The authority of Medvediev's Government was under- 
 mined, and power in name only was left to him. 
 
 The Russian national feeling was stirred again by 
 the Japanese pronunciamento. All the Russian parties, 
 extremist, socialist and bourgeois, were as one against 
 the Japanese aggression. The Bolsheviks were looked 
 upon by the population as the chief defenders of the 
 country against the Japanese invasion. The peasants 
 voted for and with the Bolsheviks. The moderate 
 parties, even non-socialist and conservative, became ex-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 335 
 
 tremely conciliatory. On their part, the Bolsheviks 
 understood their opportunity and made certain con- 
 cessions. Moscow definitely consented to sanction the 
 existence of a non-Bolshevist state in eastern Siberia, 
 in order to preserve eastern Siberia from Japanese oc- 
 cupation. "We agree to the detachment from Russia 
 of that buffer state on the territory between Lake 
 Baikal and the Pacific, including Northern Sakhalin/' 
 Chicherin wrote on April 16, 1920. "The future posi- 
 tion of this state will be determined by a treaty between 
 Russia and Japan." The dictator of the new State was 
 to be Mr. Tobelson-Krasnoschekov, a lawyer from Chi- 
 cago. To the Japanese representative, Major-Gen. 
 Takayanaghi, it was explained that no other program, 
 except a democratic one, was to be carried out by the 
 new Government, and that all rumors to the effect 
 that it would be a camouflaged communistic state were 
 lies and "provocation." At the same time, to the Rus- 
 sians Mr. Krasnoschekov spoke in a more confidential 
 tone: "Our republic has a signboard, but the sign- 
 board has two sides to it. On the one side is written 
 'democracy.' What is written on the other side, is 
 for domestic use, for us alone." 
 
 It was the same thing at Vladivostok. In the new 
 Government Communist leaders worked together with 
 the former members of the Ufa "Directory" (Gen. 
 Boldyrev and the "Cadet," Vinogradov) and with the 
 non-socialist reprsentatives of industry and commerce. 
 All the socialistic groups were united on one platform 
 for the elections to the local (Maritime) Popular As- 
 sembly. The Communists carried the largest vote, and 
 they had 26 deputies, while the Social-Democrats Men- 
 sheviks had only 4, the Social-Revolutionaries 3, the 
 Socialists-Populists (the most moderate) 2, the Cadets
 
 336 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 4, the industrials 9. The peasant non-partisan group, 
 the most numerous (75 deputies), voted mostly with 
 the Bolsheviks. The Bolshevist leader, Nikiforov, de- 
 clared, in the name of the "central Soviet Government" 
 in Moscow, that they thought that in Siberia capitalism 
 must run its course in the way of evolution. 
 
 The leading idea now was to weld the Far Eastern 
 and the Primorsk (Maritime) Republics into one. 
 Krasnoschekov declared to the Japanese Commander 
 in Siberia, Marimoto Ooi, that he was ready to stop 
 military operations if the Japanese were willing to 
 desist from helping the reactionary elements (i.e., Ata- 
 man Semenov in Chita). This seemed to correspond 
 with the new turn in the Japanese policy. 
 
 The Siberian expedition had already cost Japan 
 about 400,000,000 yen and thousands of lives. Not 
 only public opinion abroad, but also the liberal ele- 
 ments in Japan were hostile to its continuation. We 
 have just seen the sinister success of the military poli- 
 cies in April, 1920. But in May the situation changed 
 again. Premier Hara, who wished to weaken the Ken- 
 sikai party and to make himself popular at the elec- 
 tions, withdrew the army from Chita, thus discontin- 
 uing the help to Semenov. However, Semenov had 
 now with him the rest of Kolchak's army, the "Kap- 
 pelites," which after the death of Gen. Kappel in the 
 neighborhood of Irkutsk (Chap. VI) had reached Chita 
 in mid-February, 1920, under the command of Gen. 
 Voitsehovsky. As Kolchak had nominated Semenov 
 Supreme Ruler of Eastern Siberia on January 21, 
 and the "Kappelites" wished to remain loyal to the 
 memory of Kolchak, they were ready to serve Semenov, 
 but under one condition. They wished Semenov to 
 discontinue his predatory tactics and to lean on demo-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 337 
 
 cratic political groups. Semenov did not like the con- 
 dition, and he began intriguing against the "Kappelite" 
 commanders. Gen. Lokhvitsky took the place of Gen. 
 Voitsehovsky, and Gen. Verjebitsky the place of Gen. 
 Lokhvitsky. Both sides finally appealed to Gen. Wran- 
 gel, who did not care to interfere. 
 
 In the meanwhile the Red Army profited by the 
 Japanese evacuation and came as close to Chita from 
 the East as the Korymsk station (at the parting of 
 the two branches of the Siberian Railway) . The "Kap- 
 pelites" had to retreat by the Manchurian trunk-line 
 (station Olovyannaya). They had to stop at the gates 
 of China (station Manchuria). It was then that the 
 Japanese proposed to them to transport them to the 
 Maritime Province through the zone of occupation of 
 the Eastern Chinese Railway, on the condition that 
 they be disarmed while traversing the Chinese terri- 
 tory. The Japanese expected to use the "Kappelites" 
 as a kind of militia. As their Transbaikalian "buffer 
 state" had not materialized, they now were considering 
 a minor scheme, the building of a "buffer within the 
 buffer" in the Maritime Province. The coast of the 
 Japan Sea was already under their control. They had 
 to secure their rear on the mainland, i.e., a distance 
 of about 100 miles from Vladivostok to the Manchurian 
 frontier. This was important for them not so much 
 against Korea or Bolshevism, as in the event of a 
 conflict with America. Mr. Washington B. Vanderlip's 
 concession in Kamchatka and America's naval pro- 
 gram had brought the Japanese nationalist irritation 
 to the highest pitch, and there was talk in the Japanese 
 Chamber of a war to come within the next two years, 
 before new American ships were ready. 
 
 However, when the "Kappelites" came, the Japanese
 
 338 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 saw that it was a well-disciplined force of about 16,000 
 fighters. They thought it better not to give back their 
 arms to the "Kappelites," and they settled them on the 
 territory of the Usuri Cossacks, to the north of Vladi- 
 vostok. Semenov was thus left in Chita without any 
 help, either from the Japanese or from the Kappelites. 
 It was easy for the "Eastern Republic" to surround 
 Chita and to take it, on October 21. Semenov had 
 to flee away and he was permitted by the Japanese 
 to settle in Port Arthur, where he soon became the 
 center of a reactionary agitation. The part of the 
 gold fund he still possessed was sequestrated and its 
 use controlled by the Japanese. 
 
 The Bolshevist scheme of reuniting Transbaikalia 
 with Primorsk was now ripe for realization. A few days 
 after Semenov's defeat, a conference met in Chita in 
 order to decide the problem of the final reunion of all 
 the local Governments of Eastern Siberia. Amur, 
 Chita, Verkhneudinsk, Vladivostok, Sakhalin and 
 Kamchatka were represented, partly by fictitious dele- 
 gates. On November 9, 1920, the conference elected a 
 central Government, which was then recognized as 
 vested with the supreme power over all the territory 
 of Transbaikalia, the Amur and Maritime Prov- 
 inces. However, the Maritime Province protested and 
 insisted on preserving its autonomy rights. Neverthe- 
 less, a Constituent Assembly of the whole of Eastern 
 Siberia was convened in Chita. It met on February 
 12, 1921. Its composition was: 223 peasants, mostly 
 sympathetic with the Bolsheviks; 147 Bolsheviks, 20 
 Social-Revolutionaries, 14 Mensheviks and 20 buryats. 1 
 On January 24, 1921, the northeastern part of Siberia, 
 
 1 A native nationality settled round the southern part of the 
 Baikal Sea.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 339 
 
 Kamchatka and the Anadyr region were transferred 
 from the new Republic to the direct control of the 
 Soviet Russia as a field for foreign concessions which 
 might bring about a clash between Japan and America. 
 In April, 1921, the Constituent Assembly finished its 
 work and was declared the "National Assembly," until 
 the next elections which are due in January, 1922. In 
 the meantime, local Siberian elements gained the up- 
 per hand in Chita. Krasnoschekov was recalled to 
 Moscow. Even under the Bolsheviks, Siberia wished 
 to guard its independence and to live its own life. 
 
 The Japanese now concentrated their attention on 
 the Maritime Province, and especially on the Southern 
 and Northern extremities of it, Vladivostok and the 
 Tartar Straits, for the reasons already made clear by 
 Mr. Kuno. We shall soon see what they did in the 
 Tartar Straits, at a place very remote from the eyes 
 of the world. At Vladivostok they had to be more 
 careful. They could not openly overthrow the Medve- 
 diev Government. But they wanted it to be independ- 
 ent from the Far Eastern republic in Chita, and in 
 order to attain that aim they made use of local dis- 
 sensions. Local strivings for independence were in- 
 creased by that time as a result of communistic at- 
 tempts to dominate the situation from Chita. The 
 spirit of conciliation which had moved the Bolsheviks 
 in the first part of the year (1920) was passing away. 
 Responsible posts in the Vladivostok administration 
 were all taken by the Communist agents of Chita. The 
 activity of the Communist political police had become 
 conspicuous, and some of the Kappelites had been 
 murdered. At the same time, as a result of an economic 
 crisis the prestige of the Government was falling in the 
 eyes of the population. The opposition groups of the
 
 340 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 right wing did not fail to make use of the growing dis- 
 affection. Some leaders of that reactionary opposition 
 were now finding support in the Japanese, who hoped 
 once more to make use of Semenov in opposition to 
 Chita. The preliminary negotiations of the opposition 
 leaders with Semenov at Port Arthur resulted in the 
 working out of a scheme for a general movement 
 against the Reds in Primorsk and in Transbaikalia. 
 On the other hand, Semenov had connections with re- 
 actionary monarchists and with Wrangel. The Japa- 
 nese representative at Gen. Wrangel's headquarters 
 may have been instrumental in keeping up these ties. 1 
 The first symptom of a coming overthrow was the 
 convocation of a congress of "non-socialistic" parties, 
 which took place in Vladivostok in March, 1921, under 
 the guidance of the brothers Spiridon and Nicholas 
 Merkulov, local business men, who kept in touch with 
 Semenov. Among other matters, the congress passed 
 two characteristic resolutions which testify to the Japa- 
 nese influence: (1) That Vladivostok must be defi- 
 nitely detached from Chita and (2) That the Japanese 
 occupation shall be prolonged. Before the congress was 
 ended, a coup d'etat was tried, but it did not succeed. 
 A second attempt to overthrow the semi-Bolshevik 
 
 a On January 2, 1922, the Chita delegation at the Washington 
 Conference made public a series of alleged secret documents, which 
 touch upon the question mentioned above. The documents were 
 promptly denounced as forgeries by both the Japanese and the 
 French official delegations. In certain parts of these documents 
 forgery is evident, but this does not invalidate the fact of the 
 contemplated transfer of a part of Gen. Wrangel's evacuated army 
 to Vladivostok. However, it did not materialize. Russian officers 
 and Cossacks brought to Vladivostok on October 2, 1921, on the 
 transport Franz Ferdinand, belonged to the group (including the 
 Ural Cossacks) which saved themselves from the Bolsheviks at the 
 time of Denikin by a retreat through Persia to the Persian Gulf. 
 Mr. Tirbach, who is mentioned in the documents as an intermediary 
 between the Russians, French and Japanese is known in certain 
 circles in America.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 341 
 
 Government was more successful, and on May 26, 1921, 
 the Government of Spiridon Merkulov took its place. 
 The "buffer within the buffer" was thus secured. But 
 now Semenov also tried to have his share of the spoils. 
 He was brought to Vladivostok on a Japanese steamer, 
 Kyoto-Maru. He considered himself to be the head 
 of a general uprising due in eastern Siberia in the 
 spring, as had been prearranged in Port Arthur. The 
 Japanese favored that scheme. 1 When Semenov met 
 with opposition on the part of Merkulov, the Japanese 
 transferred him secretly on their lorry from the steamer 
 to Grodekovo station, where Kappel's and Semenov's 
 troops were located and they tried to reconcile the 
 Kappelites with the Semenovites, who were considered 
 too reactionary by the former. However, they did not 
 succeed, and nobody would follow Semenov. The 
 whole scheme broke down, and Semenov went to Japan. 
 At the same time, the White army led by the reaction- 
 ary monarchist, Baron Ungern-Sternberg, was to at- 
 tack Chita from the South (from Mongolia), but it 
 was defeated by the Reds and Ungern himself was cap- 
 tured and shot. The Japanese had to satisfy them- 
 selves with their "buffer within the buffer," the Mari- 
 time Province. 
 
 It would not be fair to assert that these schemes and 
 activities were approved of by the whole of Japan. The 
 liberal current in the country, Chamber and Ministry, 
 was still for complete evacuation of Siberia. The 
 civilian members of the late Khara cabinet shared the 
 
 1 Another batch of documents published by the Chita delegation 
 at Washington, reproduced in the New York Times on January 4 
 and 5, refers to trie moment of Semenov's arrival at Vladivostok 
 and to his schemes for a subsequent campaign against Chita. These 
 documents are in complete agreement with the facts already known, 
 and I would not be surprised if they prove to be genuine. But 
 for the time being I refrain from making use of them.
 
 342 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 opinion that the troops must be withdrawn. The colo- 
 nial conference held in Tokio in May, 1921, also 
 decided to evacuate Siberia upon the condition that 
 the Eastern Republic of Chita should maintain order, 
 desist from communist politics and facilitate the eco- 
 nomic development of Japanese resources in Siberia. 
 But that view was strongly opposed by the omnipotent 
 military party. General Tachibana, the Commander 
 of the Japanese troops in Siberia, declared in his inter- 
 view to Asahi, the Tokio paper, that the policy of 
 evacuation was unwise and imprudent. He mockingly 
 rebuked the civilian diplomats who do not understand 
 the real interests of Japan. "If the military men did 
 at any time play the part of diplomats in Siberia, cer- 
 tainly that was because the Foreign Office failed to 
 take the necessary steps for the maintenance of the 
 national prestige as well as of the national interests." 
 The military men obviously knew better. 
 
 What have the military men really done in Siberia, 
 since they confined their activities to the "buffer within 
 the buffer," in April, 1920? The record of their man- 
 agement of the Maritime Province is horrible, and it is 
 this record that was to have been considered by the 
 Washington Conference, if discussion had been found 
 possible. 
 
 The measures taken by the Japanese military gov- 
 ernment in the Russian part of Sakhalin give a very 
 good illustration of what the Japanese meant by 
 "peaceful penetration." That term was used by them 
 to explain the Japanese intentions in Siberia to the 
 American public opinion. To Russian objections 
 against using it, the Secretary General of the Japanese 
 delegation to the conference, Mr. Masanao Hanihara, 
 replied that it meant only "the demand for equal right
 
 LEGEND"- 1 
 Territory of the Japanese 
 Japanese Samsons 
 
 Scale in Miles 
 MO 200 300 
 
 Japanese Occupation in the Russian Far East.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 343 
 
 for the trade of all nations." l As can be seen from 
 the Sakhalin example, the Japanese militarists under- 
 stand their penetration in a very different sense. Un- 
 fortunately, it is they who act while their diplomats 
 are allowed to speak. 
 
 We have a collection of sixty odd "orders," "regula- 
 tions," "announcements," "appeals" of the Japanese 
 military administration, introduced in Sakhalin after 
 its occupation, i.e., since April 29, 1920. 2 For the first 
 three months they tried to keep at peace with the local 
 population. They paid good prices for real estate, 
 they bought food, timber from the peasants, made use 
 of their carriages for transport, employed Russian 
 workingmen at good wages, etc. But at the end of 
 July, when new Japanese troops were landed, this 
 policy was entirely changed. Detachments of Japanese 
 soldiers were sent around to all the villages; about 
 5,000 Japanese workmen were imported speedily, to 
 construct a railway to the interior. A part of the coal 
 mines was now exploited by the Japanese, new explora- 
 tions of mines and oil-fields were hurriedly carried out 
 by the officially protected firm, Mitsu-Bishi (camou- 
 flaged by an agreement with a Russian firm), timber 
 was cut indiscriminately, fisheries on the Sakhalin 
 coast leased almost exclusively to the Japanese, as the 
 Russian enterprises were ruined. In order to control 
 the island without any obstruction on the part of the 
 Russian administration, the Japanese abolished all 
 
 1 The Japanese statement is included in their "eleven points" 
 unofficially published by the New York Herald in November. The 
 Russian answer, signed by Mr. Avxentiev and myself, was made 
 public by the Associated Press on Nov. 24, 1921. Mr. Hanihara's 
 statement appeared in the New York Times on December 9, 1921. 
 
 "The Russian Sakhalin as New Japan," published in Russian at 
 Vladivostok, 1921. The last documents in this book are dated May- 
 June, 1921.
 
 344 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 the local institutions, including the local organs of self- 
 government. A sort of advisory councils, presided 
 over by "Eldermen" all nominated by the Japanese 
 took their place, and the only function left for them 
 was to make the population acquainted with the Japa- 
 nese orders and to execute these orders. Even the 
 clergy in the churches, and the schoolmasters in the 
 schools were made Japanese officials. 
 
 The Russian civil and criminal code and the Russian 
 tribunals have been abolished, and Japanese courts- 
 martial judge all offenders (except the Japanese) ac- 
 cording to the Japanese military law. Further posses- 
 sion, acquisition and sale of real estate has been made 
 dependent on Japanese permits. The same measure 
 extends to the rights of possessing arms, hunting, leas- 
 ing plots of land, cutting timber, fishing, forming so- 
 cieties. Acquisition of landed property and mining is 
 definitely forbidden. All formerly acquired rights must 
 be registered by the Japanese notaries. Political or- 
 ganizations, meetings, leaflets and newspapers of "po- 
 litical content" have been declared criminal, together 
 with rape, blasphemy, forgery and every kind of viola- 
 tion of public order. I cannot exhaust here all the 
 detailed regulars which control every step and every 
 action of the local population. In the spring, 1921, 
 it was formally declared that the Russian population 
 (thus cut off from its own means of subsistence) can- 
 not count upon any earnings from the Japanese au- 
 thorities. They stopped buying everything from the 
 Russian inhabitants, and even hay was imported from 
 Japan. The Russians are thus compelled to emigrate, 
 and their place is already being taken by the Japanese 
 immigrants. This is how the Japanese "peaceful pene- 
 tration" is being worked out.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 345 
 
 But however sad the Sakhalin story is, a still more 
 important point is the occupation of the opposite shore 
 of the Tartar Straits, with the town of Nicolayevsk, 
 commanding the estuary of the Amur and the harbor 
 de-Castries, which took place on June 3, 1921. It 
 is sufficient to say that the methods of occupation were 
 here the same. An attempt of the Russian population 
 to organize, at the Conference of Aug. 15-23 (see 
 above), a temporary Provincial Board of Administra- 
 tion was vetoed by the Japanese Military Administra- 
 tive Department. No answer was given to the demand 
 of the Conference to permit the organization of an 
 armed detachment strong enough to defend the Udsk 
 district from the Bolshevist forces. The question of 
 provisioning the population for the winter of 1920-1921 
 was left without consideration. All safes, metallic 
 parts, telephones, furniture, engines, musical instru- 
 ments, stores of flour, oats, salted fish, timber, vessels, 
 etc., preserved from the time when Triapitsin destroyed 
 Nicolayevsk, were requisitioned and exported. Japa- 
 nese fishermen have been allowed to fish in the internal 
 waters below Nicolayevsk, which violates the Fishing 
 Convention of 1907 and will lead to the exhaustion 
 of fish supplies, which constituted 75 per cent, of the 
 sustenance of the local population. New bids were 
 opened for hundreds of new fishing stations and, of 
 course, in the absence of the Russian competition, they 
 were taken by the Japanese. Fishing rights in the 
 Okhotsk-Kamchatka region were also enlarged by a 
 Note of January 17, 1921, presented by the Japanese 
 Consul General to the Vladivostok Government. All 
 the provisions of the Fishing Convention of 1907 were 
 here completely disregarded. In spite of the numerous 
 protests by the Russian institutions (February-May,
 
 346 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 1921), the Japanese Government realized all their as- 
 pirations, and if things are to remain as they are now, 
 not only is the local population menaced with starva- 
 tion and the further development of Russian settle- 
 ment checked, but the world supply especially of sal- 
 mon is endangered owing to the Japanese predatory 
 methods of fishing. 
 
 But there is another side to that occupation of the 
 Amur estuaries which is by far more important and 
 dangerous than even these methods of the Japanese 
 "peaceful penetration." It is the strategical side of 
 the question. With the Korean Straits in the firm 
 possession of Japan, with Vladivostok under its com- 
 plete control, this was the last remaining outlet to the 
 Pacific for Russia. If the occupation of Nicolayevsk 
 should become final, the Japanese will have attained 
 their aim of transforming the Japan Sea into the Japa- 
 nese "Mediterranean," of assuring their rear from any 
 Russian attack in the event of some "unpleasant con- 
 flict" in the Pacific and of depriving the "white man" 
 of his last footing on the other side of that ocean. 
 
 What is the official motive for the occupation of Nico- 
 layevsk? Sakhalin was occupied "as a guaranty for 
 indemnity in the massacre of 700 Japanese at Nicola- 
 yevsk." (We know how it happened.) But what 
 about Nicolayevsk? Mr. Hanihara told us a funny 
 story. They could not help it. Nicolayevsk belongs 
 to Sakhalin. "The order adding this bit of mainland 
 to the island was issued in 1914 and according to report 
 was the act of a Russian official whose household found 
 Sakhalin pretty dull and lonely in the winter months 
 and thought that any place on the mainland of the 
 Eastern Hemisphere, even Nicolayevsk, would be a 
 little less cheerless. This is the reason why the massa-
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 347 
 
 ere at Nicolayevsk led to the occupation not only of 
 Nicolayevsk, but of the island opposite the island 
 which is part of the same administrative unit." 
 
 We do not quite see which is the addition to which : 
 Nicolayevsk to Sakhalin or Sakhalin to Nicolayevsk? 
 If Sakhalin may be believed to be a specimen of "peace- 
 ful penetration/' Nicolayevsk is a purely strategic 
 measure preparing for war. We know from Mr. Kuno, 
 as well as from the debates in the Japanese parliament, 
 what war was meant and why it was necessary to oc- 
 cupy both Sakhalin and Nicolayevsk. The real rea- 
 sons are, of course, quite different from that futile "in- 
 demnity" question which, however unjust and baseless, 
 every Russian Government, Petrograd, Moscow or 
 Chita would be equally ready to settle. The Chita 
 representatives at Washington declared that Triapit- 
 sin's band was "a body of irregulars hostile to their 
 Government as well as to foreigners, and that their 
 Government was not responsible for the massacre." 
 But in spite of that they were "willing to pay the com- 
 pensation for the loss of Japanese life and property," 
 and every Russian Government would do the same, as 
 the Japanese procedure is quite disproportionate to the 
 offense. 1 
 
 Such was the situation created by the Japanese in 
 the Far East, when the Washington Conference in- 
 cluded the Siberian question in its agenda. We know 
 from Mr. Hughes' note of March 25, 1921, what the 
 intentions of America were when she proposed to the 
 other powers to settle that question. All the Russian 
 delegations present in Washington were unanimous in 
 their opinion which was perfectly identical with the 
 
 *See the Chita delegation's statement in the New York Times, 
 December 15, 1921.
 
 348 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 American viewpoint. "Immediate evacuation" has be- 
 come the slogan of even such groups as the Vladivostok 
 official and unofficial representatives. They would be 
 the first to suffer from the Japanese evacuation, as they 
 would be immediately attacked by the Reds. But the 
 only thing they asked for was that the Japanese should 
 return their arms and munitions, taken from them since 
 April, 1920. They were ready to run the risk if 
 only the Japanese danger could be removed from 
 Russia. 
 
 On the other hand the Japanese were quite deter- 
 mined to stay. While consenting to give some vague 
 promises as to a general evacuation of Siberian terri- 
 tories, they insisted on making an exception of Sakha- 
 lin and obviously of Nicolayevsk. The British first 
 tried to withdraw the question from the agenda, and 
 then, when they saw that Mr. Hughes was deter- 
 mined to include it, they declared themselves neutral 
 and ready to rely on the Japanese promises. The atti- 
 tude of the French was uncertain, as they generally 
 helped Japan without wishing to offend Russia. Under 
 such conditions, there was the danger that the Confer- 
 ence would take some middle course that would end in 
 a compromise on the Siberian question. Mr. Hughes' 
 appeal for a "moral trusteeship" over absent Russia 
 would then have been cast aside. The slightest indica- 
 tion of sanctioning, directly or indirectly, the Japanese 
 occupation of Siberia, given out by an international 
 tribunal of such high authority, would have been a 
 great victory for Japan and a moral encouragement to 
 continue. The whole line of the American policy, so 
 sound and consistent, so apt to lay down deep and solid 
 foundations for our mutual understanding, so unique in 
 the world of international relations, would have been
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 349 
 
 marred. Fortunately for Russia and for Russo-Ameri- 
 can friendship, that danger was avoided. 
 
 America, naturally, could not go to war with Japan 
 for Siberia. But it did not wish to change its view- 
 point and policy. Secretary Hughes finally proposed a 
 resolution according to which the conflicting statements 
 by the Japanese and American delegations were spread 
 upon the records of the Conference without any at- 
 tempt at reconciliation. The parties abstained from 
 public discussion, in order "that this occasion for di- 
 vergence of views between the two governments be re- 
 moved with the least possible delay." But a statement 
 by Secretary Hughes clearly emphasized the scope of 
 that divergence. The American Government took the 
 Japanese assurances "to mean that Japan does not seek, 
 through her military operation in Siberia, to impair 
 the rights of the Russian people in any respect, or to 
 obtain any unfair commercial advantages or to absorb 
 for her own use the Siberian fisheries, or to set up an 
 exclusive exploitation either of the resources of Sakha- 
 lin or of the Maritime Province." The State Depart- 
 ment, of course, was in possession of ample evidence 
 that Japan had been doing just these very things she 
 was promising to abstain from doing. But, as "the 
 Government of the United States had no desire to im- 
 pute to the Government of Japan motives or purposes 
 other than those which have heretofore been so frankly 
 avowed," it confined itself to the expression of the hope, 
 "that Japan will find it possible to carry out within the 
 near future her expressed intention of terminating 
 finally the Siberian expedition and of restoring Sakha- 
 lin to the Russian people." 
 
 Moreover, Secretary Hughes made public the text of 
 the American communication to Japan of May 31, 1921
 
 350 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 (answered by Japan on July 21 in the usual evasive 
 phrases). The attitude of the United States is de- 
 scribed in detail in this communication. It states re- 
 peatedly that America feels responsible for the com- 
 mon promises given to the Russian people at the be- 
 ginning of the intervention of 1918 and that the new 
 course of the Government of Japan runs counter to 
 these promises. Japanese encroachments are "a mat- 
 ter of deep and sensitive national feeling transcending 
 perhaps even the issues at stake among themselves" 
 (see above). Japan's action "tends rather to increase 
 than to allay the unrest and disorder in that region," 
 and it "keeps alive their antagonism and distrust 
 towards outside political agencies." The reprisals for 
 the Nicolayevsk affair raise the question of "scrupulous 
 fulfillment of the assurances" given in 1918 rather than 
 the question of "validity of procedure" according to in- 
 ternational law. The United States points out the in- 
 admissibility of the "continued occupation of the stra- 
 tegic centers hi eastern Siberia involving the indefi- 
 nite possession of the Port of Vladivostok, the station- 
 ing of troops at Khabarovsk, Nicolayevsk, de Castries, 
 Mago, Sophiesk and other important points, the seizure 
 of the Russian portion of Sakhalin and the establish- 
 ment of civil administration which inevitably lends 
 itself to misconception and antagonism." America 
 will never, "neither now nor hereafter, recognize as 
 valid any claims of titles arising out of the present 
 occupation and control, and it cannot acquiesce in any 
 action taken by the Government of Japan which might 
 impair existing treaty rights or the political or terri- 
 torial integrity of Russia." Russia will always remem- 
 ber this splendid and noble act of American statesman- 
 ship.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 351 
 
 The Washington Conference did not discuss the 
 Russo-Chinese relations, and in general they do not 
 present anything menacing the universal peace. How- 
 ever, this chapter would be incomplete were I to omit 
 this problem. There are two questions concerning 
 China which must be settled, in the mutual interests 
 of both countries. In the first place, the Government 
 of Pekin has suspended treaty rights granting privi- 
 leges of exterritoriality to Russian nationals. With all 
 respect to the Chinese claims for restitution of their 
 sovereign rights, in that question of exterritoriality the 
 Russians might prove by their experiences of the last 
 twelve months that the Chinese judiciary cannot be 
 considered at present as equal to dealing with foreign 
 (viz., Russian) citizens and interests. The great num- 
 ber of Russians who live in the railway zone and 
 Kharbin, makes the issue particularly important for 
 them. But this is a general issue and it would not call 
 for a specially Russian solution if there were a legal 
 Russian Government at present. As things are, some- 
 body must take care of them, and we should be espe- 
 cially grateful if it were America. 
 
 Another question, that of the Chinese Eastern Rail- 
 way, is particularly important for Russia. If Russian 
 rights and territories are set free from the Japanese 
 encroachments in the Maritime Province, if the white 
 man is restored to his position on the Pacific, but the 
 Chinese Eastern Railway is permitted to change hands, 
 a good part of the result attained would be destroyed. 
 A look at the map will show that the road through 
 Manchuria is the short cut from Chita to Vladivostok. 
 The northern line, from Chita to Khabarovsk, follow- 
 ing the Amur River to the East and then abruptly turn- 
 ing up the Usuri River to the south, until it reaches
 
 352 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Vladivostok, was very much delayed in execution owing 
 to the difficulties of climate and soil, especially in its 
 western section. This is a region with temperature 
 swinging from 82 degrees below zero in winter to 93 
 degrees above zero in June. The soil never thaws to a 
 depth of more than 3 feet. Vegetation is scant and the 
 population is extremely scarce. The line may open up 
 important mineral resources, but it cannot serve the 
 aims either of trade or of settlement. That is why as 
 early as 1896 an agreement was concluded between the 
 Chinese Government and a Russian corporation, backed 
 by the Government, the Russo-Chinese Bank, for the 
 construction and management of the southern line, 
 through Manchuria. There was nothing in that agree- 
 ment which might interfere with the "open door and 
 equal opportunity policy," no claims for any "special 
 interests" or "superiority of rights" for Russia. 
 
 The encroachments on the rights of China by Russia, 
 as well as by other nations, which led to the enuncia- 
 tion of Secretary Hay's doctrine on September 6, 1899, 
 were posterior to that treaty. As the starting point 
 and the terminus of that railroad were on Russian terri- 
 tory, the treaty secured for Russia, besides certain 
 facilities for constructing and running the line, com- 
 plete freedom of transit of goods and passengers, includ- 
 ing munitions and soldiers. But goods conveyed to 
 China and passengers booked for the interior, had to 
 submit to the general rules of Manchurian traffic. It 
 was, as Mr. Thomas F. Millard stated, 1 "a cautious and 
 pacific course," which might "make Russian occupation 
 
 *"The New Far East," 129-30. See also the same author's "Our 
 Eastern Question" for documents connected with Mr. P. C. Knox's 
 attempt to neutralize the Manchurian railways. The statement 
 quoted in the text is fully borne out by Count Witte's personal 
 recollections. See his Memoirs, English edition.
 
 RUSSIA SIBERIA JAPAN WASHINGTON 353 
 
 advantageous to the world at large, including the na- 
 tive population." "A military policy was substituted 
 for the commercial one," as soon as Admiral Alexeiev 
 was permitted to take the place of Count Witte, and 
 since then "Russia's designs in Manchuria were des- 
 tined to fall." In 1910 Russian diplomats spoke of the 
 "military and political interests of Russia in Man- 
 churia," and insisted on Russia's right to control 
 China's railway policies. Secretary Knox's proposal 
 broke down on that rock, but the world came to know 
 what is wrong about the international policy toward 
 China. Democratic Russia is certain to bring the whole 
 question back to the stage previous to the Alexeiev- 
 Hay-Knox development, and to set the Russian com- 
 mercial policy free from any "strategical" or political 
 implications. 
 
 Russia needs its free outlet through Vladivostok no 
 less than Poland needs its outlet through Danzig. The 
 moral -basis of the claim is the same, but the legal basis 
 is much stronger, because Vladivostok is a thoroughly 
 Russian town, surrounded by Russian territory. There 
 is this difference also, that the Russian hinterland 
 which needs this free port is the immense plain of 
 Siberia. Its economic development, the growth of its 
 towns, the exploitation of Siberia's Natural resources, 
 the speedily increasing export of foodstuffs and raw 
 materials necessary for the world, all this on almost 
 an American scale, all this depends on the continua- 
 tion of a free transit to the Pacific, upon which the 
 modern advance of Siberia is chiefly based. On the 
 other hand, it is now Japan which will be obliged to 
 proffer its "strategic and political" reasons for preserv- 
 ing its way over Manchuria and Mongolia. Control 
 over railway communication in the interior is an essen-
 
 354 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tial part of that general scheme of Japan which is hi 
 process of realization on the Pacific Coast. All the 
 resources of the hinterland will thus strengthen the 
 offensive force of the Japanese army and fleet, while 
 with the removal of Russia from the Pacific Japan's 
 rear will be perfectly secured from any operations on 
 the mainland. It is especially here that the principle 
 of international "trusteeship" can be easily applied. 
 Ever since the international intervention the Chinese 
 Eastern Railway has been administered by an interna- 
 tionally organized board with the participation of Rus- 
 sian representatives. There is no reason to change that 
 system now, in the absence of Russia. 
 
 I hope the reader will realize how great is the service 
 that the United States rendered us by its refusal to 
 recognize the state of things created by Japan in east- 
 ern Siberia. I also have tried to make it clear just how 
 important it is for the United States itself to preserve 
 the Russian status possidendi in Siberia, in so far as it 
 will be upheld by the new democratic Russia.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD'S 
 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 It is a great relief to a Russian, at a moment when 
 Russia presents an appalling show of utter destruction 
 and heart-rending misery and when the fate of its 
 nations and conditions of closer cooperation of the 
 world powers are discussed in her absence, to speak on 
 that other, never-dying Russia which has already given 
 to the world so many tokens of its moral and intellec- 
 tual power in the Society of Nations. 
 
 Russia is no stranger to the world. Nor is she a new- 
 comer clamoring for recognition. Were Russia to die 
 now, her spiritual heritage would give her a prominent 
 place in the common treasury of world civilization. And 
 Russia is far from having spoken her last word. 
 
 Russia did not take part in the Allied feasts of vic- 
 tory and peace, nor was she asked to express her opinion 
 before the international tribunals. But Russia is pres- 
 ent on the shelves of your libraries, in the minds and 
 the sentiments of millions of readers who day by day 
 witness her moral triumphs. You give your applause 
 to that Russia in your concerts and on your stage, and 
 it is often Russian artists who win your favor. You 
 learn to know that Russia in your picture galleries. 
 Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Rachman- 
 inov, Vereschaghin and Roerich, Anna Pavlova and 
 
 355
 
 356 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Chaliapin, and so many others are known and appre- 
 ciated in this country as well as in mine. 
 
 I am proud to say, moreover, that Russia's creative 
 geniuses are given so much attention not because they 
 are good imitators of arts invented by other advanced 
 countries. It is the especially Russian style that at- 
 tracts you, and you prefer the bold and original masters 
 of art who give away to you a part of our national soul, 
 to the docile pupils who copy the foreign patterns per- 
 fectly. 
 
 Let us, however, agree on the exact meaning of that 
 term: "national art." There are certain outward signs 
 and symbols of nationality which unfailingly evoke in 
 you the idea of this or that particular ethnic group. 
 When a national flag is waved, or when an actress wears 
 a Phrygian cap, you know at once what it means. Stage 
 managers know how to make you recognize a Russian. 
 A combination of colors in fancy dress, a series of move- 
 ments hi dance, or a tune of a known national song, a 
 few lines of architectural design are sufficient to attain 
 that aim. 
 
 All this is national, and often nationally traditional. 
 But it is not yet a contribution to the world civiliza- 
 tion. It is just ethnography. A certain sequence of 
 colors, or sounds, or lines designates a Russian, as it 
 may designate a Bushman or a Singhalese. Costumes 
 for ethnographic museums or for theatrical pageants 
 can be collected from every corner of the world. But 
 this is not art. Our writers, our painters, our musicians, 
 our artists claim much more than that. What is na- 
 tional and Russian about them, is not necessarily fet- 
 tered to a special make or color of dress, or to a tune 
 and rhythm of a song. They may speak to you the 
 common language of the art of civilized humanity, free
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 357 
 
 from ethnographic conventionalities, and they never- 
 theless pretend to remain Russians. It is practically 
 the only means to make the Russian soul a subject of 
 interest for you, in its special way of being affected by 
 emotions which are universally human and substan- 
 tially modern. When you finally learn to know the 
 Russian soul as a part of your own, and when you be- 
 gin to feel that with her aid you have learned to under- 
 stand your unexplored self better and deeper than be- 
 fore, it is only then that you will understand the kind 
 of contribution that humanity has received from Rus- 
 sia. I know that any one of you who really has had 
 that thrill of emotion so many have had it will love 
 Russia. 
 
 My task is thus very limited. Such things alone as 
 can be looked at as an actual contribution to the world's 
 moral, mental and esthetic culture, will be discussed 
 here. I am not going to talk to you of that long period 
 of our past that is entirely unknown to you, when Rus- 
 sia was preparing for her present role. Our modern 
 soul, which appeals to the world and our methods 
 of art which really have made it universally known 
 both are of comparatively recent provenience. There 
 are certain things in this part which have also deserved 
 to be known to you, but partly due to the imperfection 
 of international intercourse in former times, partly due 
 to their having been too idiomatic, too much specifi- 
 cally Russian, these things have remained inaccessible 
 to the world, and I shall not mention them in this brief 
 outline. 
 
 You also will not expect me to speak on the Russian 
 people in general. A national soul reflects itself in the 
 most conscious way through that "sensorium" of a 
 nation, its thinking and feeling organ, its "intellec-
 
 358 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tuals." If that brain of a nation is lacking or unde- 
 veloped, you may speak of its national folk-lore, its 
 songs, its ethnography, but the contents of the national 
 soul remains inaccessible and uninteresting to the world. 
 Of course, the Russian intellectuals were often blamed 
 in Russia itself for having detached themselves too 
 much from their own people, in order to be able to 
 represent their nation and to reflect the popular mind. 
 The part of truth in this assertion is, that for a certain 
 time a part of the Russian intellectuals were so much 
 influenced by European civilization that they de- 
 nounced and condemned their own nationality. But 
 even then they were unable to separate themselves 
 from it, and their condemnation remained rather the- 
 oretical. That period of close imitation of foreign 
 fashions in living and literature lasted for about a cen- 
 tury after Peter the Great's bold leap to the West 
 (1720-1820). However, even then excesses of imita- 
 tion ("xenomania") provoked excesses of nationalist 
 reaction ("xenophobia"). Taken as a whole, that pe- 
 riod of preparatory education was inevitable and nec- 
 essary for Russia to make up for the time lost. It took 
 five generations to introduce the stage of national con- 
 sciousness. That is why only the three or four last 
 generations were able to speak to the world. 
 
 What did they reveal to it? Before going into de- 
 tails, let me try to define what is in general the descrip- 
 tion of the national soul which made it appear so at- 
 tractive. I should summarize it in three principal 
 features which are, of course, interdependent. We are 
 fresh and primitive. We are free and non-conventional. 
 We are true to our impulses and principles and unwill- 
 ing to compromise.
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 359 
 
 The Russian people as well as their intellectuals are, 
 indeed, not only young, but primitive. That is not a 
 reflection on them. It is a promise. The western 
 world, time-worn and weary, as it were, of its long cul- 
 tural existence, longs for the primitive. Our primitive- 
 ness does not exclude refinement. But we are not 
 "biases": let me use that untranslatable French term, 
 invented by the oldest nation of western Europe. You 
 now see our chance. There is nothing new under the 
 sun. But everything is new for one who lives for the 
 first time. 
 
 The Russian intellectuals are not conventional. 
 They are not committed to any secular tradition. Such 
 spiritual tradition as had been in the process of making 
 was broken by Peter the Great. It was not the result 
 of his personal whim : it was a fated necessity for Rus- 
 sia to move on and to retrieve the time lost, not to be 
 left behind by the world in motion. Our great writer, 
 Alexander Herzen, said that a Russian is the freest 
 man in the world, because he wears no fetters of past 
 ages. That sort of freedom may have its drawbacks. 
 It certainly has its advantages. 
 
 Absolutely free in the choice of their leading view- 
 points, our intellectuals regularly followed the changing 
 European fashions. That is why they also changed 
 their criteria of thought and action with almost every 
 generation. They were rationalistic in the XVIII Cen- 
 tury, romantic and mystical at the beginning of the 
 XIX, realistic and positivist in the middle of the Cen- 
 tury, romantic and religious again at its end. At the 
 beginning of the XX Century they became revolution- 
 ary, and they probably are "non-party" to-day. But 
 whatever their view, they always strove for unity of
 
 360 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 thought, unity between thought and action. The Rus- 
 sian intellectuals have made their own that German 
 term, also untranslatable: "Weltanschauung." 
 
 The principles which our intellectuals worshiped 
 were often too abstract and academic, inapplicable to 
 practice, not open to compromise. Our intellectuals 
 did not know much of actual life. But they were 
 always ready to sacrifice their lives for their ideals, and 
 that characteristic feature of our intellectuals made 
 many foreign observers call them religious without re- 
 ligion. 
 
 You will find all these features reflected in Russia's 
 contribution to the world civilization. Russian crea- 
 tive geniuses are regularly bold and radical, in the sense 
 that they do not stop before any consequence of the 
 idea which they deem to be true. They carry their 
 idea to the end. This feature is preserved through gen- 
 erations, just because, as I have stated, every genera- 
 tion begins anew. "Sons" are, as a rule, at variance 
 with their "fathers." They take up the last sugges- 
 tions of Europe, they work them out independently, 
 and thus give original creations which make their way 
 outside of Russia, and wake up new life. At the same 
 time within Russia they succumb to their pitiless logic 
 and, unable to find outlets from blind alleys, they are 
 abruptly relieved by the entirely new ideas of the fol- 
 lowing generation. No continuous tradition could thus 
 be formed. Russian masters of art remained icono- 
 clasts and explorers of paths unknown. 
 
 Russian intellectuals are entirely sincere with them- 
 selves in their creations. This is the source and the 
 secret of their force. Whatever they do, they mean it 
 seriously. They are not amateurs and epicureans, but 
 prophets and preachers. Faith in their vocation and
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 361 
 
 steadiness of purpose often made great masters of our 
 dilettanti. 
 
 Our authors and artists remain natural even in the 
 midst of their extreme affectation, assumed postures 
 and mannerisms. They have no false shame and no 
 fear of public opinion. The only thing they are afraid 
 of, is not to be true to themselves. They prefer being 
 cranks to being commonplace. Far from being afraid 
 to look what they are, they strive to reveal the inmost 
 recesses of their soul. J. J. Rousseau's "Confessions" 
 is an exception in the western literature. In Russia, 
 confessions are almost the rule. It is easier to be inti- 
 mate with us or not to know us at all than to remain 
 at a distance, on terms of simple acquaintance. We 
 make friends, or we quarrel, but we do not like to 
 entertain neutral and indifferent relations. 
 
 Russian art and literature, while reflecting these 
 qualities and drawbacks of the national soul, enjoyed 
 the same kind of influence, but probably in a higher 
 degree, as was generally exercised by the northern art 
 and literature. In the countries of southern tempera- 
 ment and old culture it was obviously the freshness of 
 emotion that pleased and made them forgive the na- 
 ivete of the northern "barbarians." In the countries 
 of younger psychology, the Russian attempts to fathom 
 the depths of the national soul proved especially help- 
 ful to a better cognizance of their own, as the ways of 
 thinking and feeling were here more congenial. 
 
 We now have the thread which will help us through 
 the labyrinth of names and facts connected with our 
 subject. The kind of contribution made by Russia 
 has just been described. Let us see who were the con- 
 tributors. Of course, only the most representative or 
 typical ones can here be mentioned.
 
 362 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Just a few lines on Russia's contribution to the world 
 of science, before I speak of literature and art. Impor- 
 tant as this kind of contribution is, it generally escapes 
 the attention of the public. The work of the Russian 
 scholar is very well known to respective specialists, each 
 in his branch. It was particularly well known and fol- 
 lowed up during the recent period, ojving to the better 
 organization of international learned intercourse. Let 
 me only mention that even in this department of human 
 culture the least national of all Russian peculiari- 
 ties reflect themselves in a very marked way. Russian 
 scholars brought to their study of science that same sin- 
 cerity, that same daring initiative, that same taste for 
 philosophical unity of thought, of which we have al- 
 ready spoken. Russian scientists do not belong to the 
 category of compilers of handbooks and compendiums, 
 they are not the registrars of acquired knowledge, but 
 pathfinders. They dig deep to the root, each in his 
 place, and they look at detailed research as a means for 
 universal constructions. On the very threshold of the 
 history of Russian science we meet a man who is a 
 symbol and an achievement. I mean our great Lo- 
 monosov, the man from the people, a peasant who came 
 on foot from his village to the newly built University 
 and Academy of Sciences in Petrograd and who finally 
 found himself in advance of European science. In the 
 midst of the XVIII Century, he became "the father of 
 physical chemistry." He believed in "corpuscular phi- 
 losophy" ; he tried to apply qualitative analysis to the 
 study of physical properties of bodies. In his inquiries 
 he implied the principles of conservation of matter and 
 of motion ; he established certain propositions of mod- 
 ern physics, such as the mechanical theory of heat, the
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 363 
 
 kinetic theory of gases, the continuity of the fhree states 
 of matter, etc. 1 
 
 In the XIX Century also many names of Russian 
 scholars were known outside of Russia for their mas- 
 tery in combining detailed study with philosophical syn- 
 thesis, such as Lobachevsky in mathematics; Mend- 
 eleyev in chemistry; Sechenov and Pavlov in physiol- 
 ogy ; Timiryazev, the renowned follower of Darwin, as 
 well as Kovalevsky and Metchnikov, in the theory of 
 evolution; another Kovalevsky (M. M.) in the science 
 of comparative law; Sir Paul Vinogradov in history, 
 and others. Their names are all connected with some 
 capital reform in their respective sciences. Allow me 
 to add to them one more name, that of Dr. J. J. Manuk- 
 hin, now in Paris, who has just found the means to 
 save humanity from tuberculosis. 
 
 But let us pass to the proper domain of the national 
 soul: art and fiction. To make my short review as 
 clear as possible, I shall classify the outstanding facts 
 according to chronological periods, not according to the 
 separate branches to which they refer: fiction, painting, 
 music, theater, dance. We thus shall avoid many 
 repetitions, as the same spirit of a certain period reflects 
 itself in all the separate branches of art. The view of 
 art as being united and forming a whole through its 
 different ramifications, is one of the basic principles 
 of the Russian monistic trend of mind. 
 
 Four consecutive periods can be distinguished in the 
 process of the revelation of the Russian soul through 
 Russian art: 
 
 'See for further details A. Lappo-Danilevsky, "The Development 
 of Science and Learning in Russia," in "Russian Realities and Prob- 
 lems," Ed. by J. D. Duff, Cambridge, 1917.
 
 364 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 1. 1820-1850 The birth of the national schools. 
 
 2. 1850-1880 The expansion of realism. 
 
 3. 1880-1905 The romantic revival. 
 
 4. 1905-1921 The contemporary period. 
 
 I leave out, as you see, the entire period before 1820. 
 It was, as I have said, the period of imitation, and it 
 fell in line with the then social mission of art: to serve 
 the esthetic tastes and social conveniences of the Court 
 and the Nobility. So far as its creations are concerned, 
 it was the bombastic style of pseudo-Classicism, or the 
 lusciously sweetish style of Sentimentalism, which was 
 equally artificial. Both contrasted completely with 
 and were entirely foreign to, the substance of the Rus- 
 sian soul. Through such a heterogeneous medium, na- 
 tive qualities of artists could not make themselves 
 manifest, and the only form of protest left to them was 
 to return to the plain art of the folk. 
 
 A truly national Russian art began to appear at the 
 end of that period of preparation. However, the initial 
 revolt against artificiality and conventionality in art 
 was raised under another imported banner that of 
 European Romanticism. National Russian schools 
 soon evolved and got rid of this foreign influence. The 
 process of that final emancipation fills the entire period 
 between 1820-1850. With its consummation the chief 
 preliminary condition for Russia's influence over the 
 world was accomplished. Russian art was now freed 
 from its swaddling clothes. 
 
 Just because this period from 1820-1850 was a 
 transitional one, the world did not learn to know well 
 our great writers and artists of that period. However 
 great to us, they became known outside of Russia only 
 at a later date, rather from history than from direct con- 
 tact, and mostly only as names. Our great poet, Push-
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 365 
 
 kin, we call the father of our national school in litera- 
 ture. In music it is Glinka. It is difficult to give one 
 single name for painting, which is always a little late 
 in following the lead. I shall give you two names of 
 men representing different tendencies: Brullov and 
 Alexander Ivanov. 
 
 Some of the subjects of Pushkin's dramatic poetry 
 are known to you from the Russian Opera. The libret- 
 tos for Glinka's "Ruslan and Ludmilla," Dargomish- 
 sky's the "Rusalka" and the "Stone Guest" (Don Juan), 
 Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Oneggin" and "The Queen of 
 Spades," Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov," Rimsky- 
 Korsakov's "Mozart and Salieri" are based on Push- 
 kin's poetry. Pushkin's lyrics, as all others, lose very 
 much in translation. Pushkin's chief merit, from a 
 historical viewpoint, lies in how, not in what he has 
 written. Pushkin gave us that literary language which 
 we now use. Before him we had had a "high style" for 
 classical odes and a "low style" of spoken language, 
 which was not considered dignified enough to be used 
 for literature. Pushkin hammered out of both a lan- 
 guage free from obsolete and conventional rules, rich 
 and pliant and able to reflect all shades and colors of 
 the living reality. Pushkin's protest against conven- 
 tionalism may be drawn from Byron, and his sanction 
 for realism may have been found by him in Shake- 
 speare. The result, however, is genuinely Russian and 
 thoroughly national. Pushkin and his friends unbound 
 our feeling and thought, thus giving us means for their 
 adequate expression. The necessary weapon for trans- 
 mitting Russian thought to the world was now ready. 
 
 I must not fail to mention here another writer of 
 that preparatory epoch, who trod the path opened by 
 Pushkin, and who indeed contributed to the world of
 
 366 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 literature. Nicholas Gogol gave you the mirror for 
 that part of the Russian soul where mirth and sorrow 
 are welded in one. Like Moliere, he scoops out the bed- 
 rock of human weaknesses, in his south-Russian vein of 
 humor, and like Moliere, in spite of the remoteness of 
 the period he lived in, he is immortal. Characteristi- 
 cally enough, he is only now made known to the world, 
 in recent translations. For you, he is one of the many. 
 To us Gogol is the first after Pushkin. 
 
 I named Glinka as the originator of our national 
 school of music. Pushkin had predecessors (like Ka- 
 ramzin) who paved the way for him. Glinka had none. 
 Since the two Empresses, Anna and Elizabeth, who 
 succeeded Peter the Great (1730-1761), we had Italians 
 at the Court, and Italian music held the field without 
 any opposition. Italian bel canto dominated our pub- 
 lic. Glinka also proved unable to throw off this yoke 
 at once. But he succeeded in introducing the national 
 element in music. His melody is the melody of our 
 national song not mere imitation, but imbued with 
 its spirit. His harmony brings us back to the Russian 
 Church choir, which has had so much attention paid 
 it recently in this country. So far as his subjects are 
 concerned, Glinka is already in search of simplicity and 
 freedom from affectation on the stage. He also begins 
 the search for musical themes in the East, which is 
 another typical feature of the national Russian com- 
 posers. 
 
 Glinka's lead is soon followed by Dargomishsky, 
 whose tendencies are Wagnerian before Wagner. "It 
 is my wish," says Dargomishsky, "that the music should 
 interpret the words. Truth is indispensable for me." 
 And, indeed, Dargomishsky's "Stone Guest" turns from 
 Italian arias and appoggiaturas to dialogue and recita-
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 367 
 
 tive. "He knows," Cesar Cui says of him, "how to 
 fit each period or sentence with the musical form best 
 adapted to it. ... With him all the words of the text 
 (which he faithfully reproduced from Pushkin) and all 
 the details of the drama seem to be of a piece with the 
 music." 
 
 The past of our painting also consists of imitation of 
 France and Italy. The evolution here is slow and no 
 one is equal to Pushkin or Glinka, Brullov, a great 
 talent and the only educated painter of the epoch, is 
 often called "the Russian 'Delacroix." But that kind 
 of Romanticism is, as yet, too artificial and Brullov 
 lingers too much in his academic tradition in order to 
 become a real liberator. He also keeps too much aloof 
 from real life; he is too proud and too lofty, to descend 
 to the lower depths. Alexander Ivanov, to the con- 
 trary, is devoured by a burning desire to bring life to 
 his canvas. But it is not Russian life; the painter feels 
 powerless to reconcile idealistic and realistic elements 
 in his paintings and he dies from unaccomplished 
 efforts. We have two more notable painters who strive 
 for life and reality: Venetsianov and Fedotov "the 
 Gogol of painting." 'But the former is still too con- 
 ventional and the latter is held back and obscured by 
 the shining star of Brullov: it is still considered "low 
 style" to treat of everyday subjects. This is how the 
 real beginning of our national school in painting was 
 postponed until the following period. 
 
 This second period (1850-1880), which nearly coin- 
 cides with the reign of Alexander II and with the period 
 of "great reforms," beginning with the emancipation 
 of the peasants, is also a period of exceptionally speedy 
 growth and expansion of the national creative power 
 in all the branches of art. It is our first really classical
 
 368 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 period, and a great number of first rate writers and 
 artists from this epoch may be quoted as having reached 
 world fame and recognition. The avowed aim of all of 
 them is the same : to attain complete truth, while using 
 complete freedom in their methods and approaching 
 reality as closely as possible. 
 
 Literature was the first to start on that campaign of 
 naturalism. Three great Russian novelists tower high 
 above all their contemporaries in the esteem of the 
 world: Turgeniev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy. They are 
 all Russian intellectuals: i.e., they are not only masters 
 of fiction, but philosophers and deep thinkers on social 
 and moral problems. They lived at a period when the 
 democratic social layers were just beginning to be rep- 
 resented in the field of literature by their younger 
 contemporaries of democratic extraction. The revolu- 
 tionary movement in Russia was just beginning. 
 Themselves, they belonged to the gentry and to the 
 generation of the "forties" which here met with that 
 democratic generation of the "sixties." Their way of 
 reacting to the new movement was extremely charac- 
 teristic of their own different tempers and views. 
 
 Turgeniev a nobleman by education and a Euro- 
 pean by taste looked at the democratic movement 
 with warm sympathy, and in his novels he gave us a 
 series of artistic revelations as to its spirit and soul. 
 He also tried personally to bridge the psychological 
 chasm which already had opened between "Fathers and 
 Sons." Dostoyevsky, in contradistinction to Tur- 
 geniev, was intensely Russian, in what was good and 
 bad in him. He was full of hatred against the new 
 movement, which he knew at much closer range, from 
 having himself become its victim. He also gave us 
 pictures, sometimes prophetic, of what would happen
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 369 
 
 in Russia under a revolution. But in his passionate and 
 biased attacks he confounded the idea of revolution 
 as a great step towards democracy with its local and 
 temporary embodiment. Tolstoy, an aristocrat by 
 birth and a democrat by the trend of his life, kept aloof 
 from current politics. Tolstoy of this period is the 
 great novelist, not the great moralist that he became in 
 the second half of his life. But he already tries to be 
 of all times and to speak not to literary circles but to 
 humanity. It was then that he gave us what he him- 
 self called his "Russian Iliad," the great novel, "War 
 and Peace." 
 
 I do not intend to exhaust that extensive subject I 
 have just touched upon: the comparison between the 
 three great writers of modern Russia. But I want to 
 emphasize one more feature that they possess in com- 
 mon, in spite of all their differences of character and 
 opinion. They know the human heart in its different 
 appearances: women's hearts in Turgeniev's artistic 
 tales and novels; tragic depths and base instincts 
 welded together with highly idealistic inspirations in 
 Dostoyevsky's deep analysis; finally, the complete 
 scale of human feeling in dispassionate, epic stream 
 of Tolstoy's great work. 
 
 In the painting and music of this period (1850-1880) 
 there was an equally exuberant outpouring. The move- 
 ment was again led in the same direction of truth and 
 sincerity. A tendency to follow literature as closely as 
 possible prevailed. The language of sounds and of 
 colors was to follow closely the language of words. A 
 painter would choose such a subject for his treatment 
 as would enable him to aid the giants of literature in 
 promoting the cause of a better future for Russia. A 
 composer would avail himself of everyday occurrences,
 
 370 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 in order to express them in sounds. Instead of choosing 
 really pictorial or musical themes, they would make use 
 of their rich resources of color and sound to narrate 
 and to criticize. It was to be realistic art with a "pur- 
 pose" and with a "tendency." 
 
 Some weaker artists succumbed to temptation: they 
 sacrificed realism to "purpose." But as a rule realism 
 asserted itself. Take, e.g., the same subject, the vil- 
 lage church procession, painted by Perov and by Repin, 
 a Tolstoy in painting. Perov makes of it a scathing ex- 
 posure of the drunken habits of the lower clergy. Repin 
 represents, in his epical way, a piece of the living Rus- 
 sian reality, and you can see how earnestly the Russian 
 people feel about that solemn ritual ceremony. The 
 great canvases, "The Haulers" and "The Zaporoguian 
 Cossacks" by Repin also convey to you the true spirit 
 of the folk in servitude and in freedom. There is a 
 "tendency" here, but it coincides with the truth in 
 Repin's pictorial comment. The truth is multifold, 
 and Repin always wants a crowd to tell you how that 
 truth reflects itself through the psychology of his care- 
 fully selected groups of representative types. Each 
 face is here a collective portrait and a study in so- 
 ciology. 
 
 Repin is not well known abroad, but you do know 
 a painter of the same group, Vereschaghin. His col- 
 lective scenes of war horrors speak so eloquently for 
 peace and disarmament. You have here another illus- 
 tration of how realism can pursue a tendency and yet 
 remain thoroughly true to life. 
 
 The group of realistic painters just mentioned, in 
 order to achieve their aim, had to free themselves from 
 tradition. They began their activity with a revolt 
 against the Academy of Arts. In 1863 they decided
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 371 
 
 upon secession, and they formed their "Society of Wan- 
 dering Exhibitors." Hence the name of "Wanderers," 
 which they received. A generation will pass, and in 
 their turn they will be accused by their "sons" of being 
 an obstacle in the way of a new truth. 
 
 It is the same thing in music. Our great composer, 
 Mussorgsky, was rightly compared to Tolstoy, so far 
 as his ideas of art are concerned. We find here the same 
 disregard for all the accepted conventions in musical 
 composition, the same desire to remain unsophisticated 
 and natural, the same aversion to imitating former 
 types of art, and a kind of instinctive fear of being 
 unconsciously influenced by them. Hence a decided 
 omission of study of old masters and a conscious exag- 
 geration of one's own originality. "When we are cruci- 
 fied by the musical Pharisees," are Mussorgsky's own 
 words, "then shall we have begun to make real prog- 
 ress. They will accuse you of having violated all the 
 divine and human canons. We shall just say, *y es >' 
 adding to ourselves that there will be many such viola- 
 tions ere long. 'You will soon be forgotten,' they will 
 croak, 'for ever and aye.' And our answer will be: 'no, 
 no and no.' ' 
 
 Mussorgsky was right. He is much better known 
 and admired now than during the time he was alive. 
 You know his "Boris Godunov" and "Khovanschina," 
 great epic work like Repin's canvases. You may also 
 know his compositions such as the "Nursery" scenes, 
 which reveal a great connoisseur of a child's soul, or 
 his "Pictures from an Exhibition," which are real pic- 
 tures in sounds, trying to describe a troubadour in 
 front of a medieval castle, or a Polish chariot on huge 
 wheels driven by oxen, a little goblin hobbling clum- 
 sily, a ballet of chickens fresh from their shells, etc.
 
 372 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 I shall not fail to mention the other four members 
 of that renowned group of the "Five" Russian com- 
 posers of our national school: Balakirev, the initiator 
 of the group; Borodin, who is after Mussorgsky, per- 
 haps, the strongest and the most original; Rimsky- 
 Korsakov, best known for the brilliancy and color of 
 his instrumentation, and Cesar Cui, the musical critic. 
 Tchaikovsky stands apart from them and is accused 
 of eclecticism. However, it is not incidental that of 
 all the Russian composers Tchaikovsky was the first 
 who won for Russian music the largest popularity out- 
 side of Russia. A great Slav and Russian soul speaks 
 to you through Tchaikovsky's melodies. They are 
 especially representative of the deep melancholy and 
 sadness which are Tchaikovsky's personal note but at 
 the same time are typical of the national soul of the 
 Great Russians, as confirmed by the Great Russian folk- 
 songs. 
 
 Let us now pass to the third period of Russian art, 
 that of 1880-1905. One may call it the fin de siede 
 period, as it reflects all the corresponding influences of 
 the western fin de siede art and literature. Of course, 
 according to the general law of our intellectual develop- 
 ment, it developed in strong contrast with the previous 
 period and proclaims its complete negation of the fore- 
 going period. Being myself a younger contemporary 
 of that generation of Russian great realists, I did not 
 quite like to see the new generation, of 1880-1905, 
 grow too critical in its turn, and in my capacity of his- 
 torian I could have foretold them that the same law 
 of conflict between "Fathers and Sons" might some day 
 be extended to them as well. However, I could not 
 deny that theirs was a strong case and that Russian art 
 was making here a new and important step forward.
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 373 
 
 Realism and naturalism have in their turn become 
 conventional, the new generation went on asserting. 
 A new tradition which was thus in the process of build- 
 ing, had to be discarded just as the old academic tradi- 
 tion had been, in order that the new reformers might 
 recuperate their freedom. 
 
 Why did they need it? 
 
 Their contention was that the problems of art should 
 not be made subsidiary to rational, non-artistic consid- 
 erations. They insisted that there should be no more 
 narrative painting or music. The painter should return 
 to his own pictorial subjects, and the composer must 
 proceed to solve his own problems of sound, without 
 committing himself to the dictates of literature, and 
 especially without serving any political "purpose." We 
 shall soon see that the trend of literature had also 
 changed accordingly. 
 
 This was, as I have said, a very just and right con- 
 tention, with the only exception that some politics was, 
 as a matter of fact, substituted for the former politics 
 of realistic radicalism. Here are the very words of 
 Alexander Benois, one of the group. "All that was 
 vigorous and young," he states; "the slogan of these 
 protestants was the cult of old Russian culture, a some- 
 what Slavophil slogan." The "Slavophils" were the 
 Russian nationalist conservatives. 
 
 And indeed, the emancipation from realism, which 
 was now considered too shallow and prosaic, came 
 through renewed contact with old Russian historical 
 tradition. "By the way of historical painting," Mr. 
 Benois states, "Russian art passed from narrow, doc- 
 trinal realism to new creative efforts." But "history," 
 mere history, was not enough for the new Romanticism 
 which was now coming to the forefront. What at-
 
 374 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 tracted the new generation in history was its mysterious 
 darkness, its connection with legend and faith, with 
 fairy tales of the folk-lore and religious inspiration, 
 in short, with everything that could stimulate the 
 imagination and generate deep moral emotion. 
 
 It was chiefly painting that made itself instrumental 
 in carrying out the new movement of protest. Mr. 
 Serge Diaghilev's review, "The World of Art" ("Mir 
 Iskusstva," 1898-1904), made itself a combative organ 
 of the movement, and the artists who grouped them- 
 selves around that review formed their own society for 
 exhibitions of their new art, in harsh conflict with the 
 old-school paintings of the "Wanderers." The new 
 school wished again, first and foremost, to be sincere 
 and true to themselves, and, while revealing their own 
 souls, the artists considered what they produced as the 
 first revelation of a real national soul of Russia. They, 
 again, did not care a bit about the generally accepted 
 standards of public opinion and they were never afraid 
 of shocking it by their innovations in technique, more 
 daring than any made by the earlier reformers. 
 
 They were justified by their final success, which came 
 at the end of the period, after a long and fierce struggle. 
 Moreover, they made themselves much better known 
 and appreciated outside of Russia than their predeces- 
 sors had ever been. It is partly due to the perfected 
 methods of international intercourse, partly to the per- 
 sonal contact of some representative members of the 
 new school with foreign opinion, and partly to the 
 coincidence of the new Russian tendencies with changes 
 of artistic taste outside Russia, But, of course, the 
 chief reason for the victory of the new artistic spirit in 
 Russia is that they were able to give to the world 
 really wonderful creations.
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 375 
 
 The originators of the new school were, as usual, less 
 fortunate. Vrubel, whose creative genius is especially 
 appreciated by his contemporaries, made some of the 
 first bold attempts, based partly on his study of By- 
 zantine art in Ravenna. But his career was cut short 
 by insanity, and his renowned "Demon" was painted 
 when he was already in the clutches of his illness. 
 Other representatives of historical and ecclesiastical 
 painting were more successful: Victor Vasnetsov, who 
 found his inspiration in the same source of Byzantine 
 art and Russian popular legend; Surikov, whose can- 
 vases form a counterpart to those of Repin, a "Dos- 
 toyevsky in painting," describing the internal pains of 
 the national soul, deeply religious and profoundly dis- 
 turbed in its belief, as opposed to Repin's dispassionate 
 epics. Valentine Serov, the acknowledged leader of 
 the new art and the connecting link with the realistic 
 school, marks the consecutive evolution of the transi- 
 tional stage: "a man of unusual sincerity, and absolute 
 enemy of posing and of every preconceived tendency," 
 a "truly Russian painter who grasped the psychology 
 of the Russian mind" (A. Benois). Then came the 
 uncompromising Roerich, whom America now knows 
 from his exhibitions. It is not reality, but vision, 
 legend, myth, that Mr. Roerich is exclusively concerned 
 with, and he depicts his visions in wonderful colors and 
 in purposely "stylicized" contours. He wants you to 
 go back with him to the mysterious origin of things, 
 when human forms were welded with those of nature, 
 and matter and spirit were one. Or he would lift you 
 to ethereal regions of things unseen. Some European 
 critic called Roerich a "new and remarkable interpreter 
 of the Old Testament." My comparison will be more 
 pagan, but I think it covers the ground better. Mr.
 
 376 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 Roerich's cosmogony rather reminds one of Wagner, 
 than of the Book of Genesis. It begins, like that of 
 Wagner, hi deep and elemental tones of the world 
 chaos (the first bars of the "Rheingold") and it winds 
 up in a clarified apotheosis of a Parsifal in Roerich's 
 latest creations. However, the best characterization of 
 Roerich is, perhaps, that given in a letter which he re- 
 ceived from M. Tagore, which was recently published. 
 "Your pictures," M. Tagore writes, "made me realize 
 that . . . truth is infinite. When I tried to find words 
 to describe to myself what were the ideas which your 
 pictures suggested, I failed. It was because the lan- 
 guage of words can only express a particular aspect of 
 truth, and the language of pictures finds its domain in 
 truth where words have no access. Each art achieves 
 its perfection where it opens for our mind its special 
 gate whose key is in its exclusive possession. . . . When 
 one art can fully be expressed by another, then it is a 
 failure. . . . Your art is jealous of its independence, 
 because it is great." * 
 
 From what has been said before you see that Tagore's 
 appreciation hits the point. It appears to be an un- 
 biased justification of the new trend of our national 
 school of painting. 
 
 Our national school of music was already compara- 
 tively more free from such "purpose" and "tendency" 
 as was suggested by the literature of the "sixties" and 
 the "seventies." That is why the artistic reaction of 
 the fin de siecle generation was here less pronounced 
 than it was in the case of the spiritualist revolt against 
 realism in painting. But a reaction of a similar kind 
 also took place in musical composition. 
 
 At the basis of it we find the same desire to renounce 
 
 1 The Arts, Jan., 1921, New York.
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 377 
 
 the "purpose," the "program," in order to make a 
 larger and more appropriate use of proper means of 
 this particular art. A sound, Stravinski thinks and 
 says, is, first and foremost, a sound. You must not 
 search for a combination of sounds to convey to you 
 an idea which may be better expressed in words. The 
 sound is there for its own sake, just as color, in a pic- 
 ture. The speech of colors and of sounds may not be 
 translatable in words: so much the worse for words. 
 Let us enjoy colors and sounds as such, for their in- 
 trinsic beauty. To attain this aim we need a display of 
 sounds and colors unhampered and unlimited by form, 
 by texture or drawing. The frame, the organizing ele- 
 ment, is thus relegated to the second place. It is the 
 substance of sound, of color, which is given free space. 
 
 Innovations in technique are here also welded with 
 a tendency to mysticism, to a religious penetration 
 through the sound into superior worlds of the spirit, 
 known to the adepts of theosophy. Alexander Scria- 
 bin's creative effort in music is a counterpart to that 
 of Roerich in painting. Music for Scriabin is a 
 method of a higher synthesis of life, art and religion. 
 Creative ecstasy is the state of emotion apt to attain 
 the full light of knowledge on the mystical ways of 
 nature. A normal harmony, based on the usual dia- 
 tonic scale, is too narrow a frame for Mr. Scriabin's 
 inspiration. He is constantly in search of new har- 
 monies, of more refined scales, of less solid and more 
 volatile sounds, which should be able to reflect by in- 
 cessant quivers a sort of peculiarly mystical vibration. 
 
 The transcendental aim, of course, was not attained. 
 Scriabin died like Vrubel, in the very process of con- 
 juring up a "mystery" to be brought down to the earth. 
 His poem, "Mystery," was never completed. But his
 
 378 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 earlier symphonic productions. "The Divine Poem," 
 "The Poem of Ecstasy," "Prometheus, the Poem of 
 Fire," as well as his compositions for the piano, after 
 a period of struggle and misunderstanding, have defi- 
 nitely won a prominent place in musical performances 
 all the world over. 
 
 For many reasons literature did not prove during 
 the period from 1880-1905 as prompt and as much 
 decided on a new start, as either painting or music. The 
 giants of the preceding period still retained their influ- 
 ence, while new talents did not prove strong enough 
 to herald a great change. The political reaction of 
 Alexander Ill's entire reign (1881-1894), which fol- 
 lowed the glorious beginning of national creation under 
 Alexander II (1856-1881), seemed to have stifled liter- 
 ary inspiration. A protest against political "tendency" 
 and "purpose" in literature coincided too much with 
 the opposite, the reactionary politics, to be inspiring. A 
 romantic return to religion and metaphysics also did 
 not prove generally attractive. The current idea that 
 art is concerned with beauty, not with morality or poli- 
 tics, has actually inspired some poets, e.g., Balmont 
 and Briusov, a novelist like Mereshkovsky, and some 
 literary critics. But, in contradistinction to what was 
 happening in the domain of music and painting, they 
 had nothing great and new to show in order to prove 
 their thesis by facts. They extolled Dostoyevsky, the 
 most biased politician and the least inclined to wor- 
 ship an abstract ideal of beauty. At the same time 
 Tolstoy began his open revolt against art, as being 
 "incomprehensible" and "unnecessary" to the people, 
 and he simply used his great talent to preach his morai 
 ideas. In short, the "modernists" in literature have 
 found no hearing, and their literary organ, The North-
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 379 
 
 ern Messenger (Severny Viestnik) ceased publication, 
 after two years of existence (1897) "for lack of sub- 
 scribers." Such new writers of note as appeared at 
 that period, Chekhov, Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Kup- 
 rin, in spite of all their differences, must be classified 
 as "realists." Chekhov, the greatest among them, is 
 probably the nearest to the realization of the modernist 
 idea of "pure art." But it is just because he is a real- 
 ist and not a theorist. He depicted Russian life just 
 as he found it, without emphasis or exaggeration and 
 without resorting to dramatic effects. But life itself 
 at that period of reaction was dull and empty and 
 devoid of any political interest. Chekhov's great art 
 lay in his power to show life as it really was, and to 
 conduct his reader through his endless gallery of hu- 
 man types, taken from all social layers, in their every- 
 day postures. This is Russia before the Revolution, 
 at its period of utter despair and moral depression, and 
 the world outside Russia was right to take Chekhov 
 for the best guide through that real Russia. But one 
 must not forget that this is not all Russia, and that 
 the psychological moment described is a transient one, 
 between two great periods of national effort. This is 
 just the time of "no heroes." Chekhov's intellectual 
 types crave for life and activity. But they have never 
 had the chance to act and to live. They are sad, and 
 they would like to be otherwise, but they have not 
 force enough even for a real drama. They just live on. 
 "Time will pass," one of the "Three Sisters" says, "and 
 we shall go away forever. They will forget us, they 
 will forget our faces, our voices. But our sufferings 
 will pass into gladness for those who will live after us." 
 That sister, Olga, is right. Her face and her voice are 
 forgotten, but Chekhov's play and his tales will live,
 
 380 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 and they are already known all over the world. This 
 is just truth, and truth is immortal. 
 
 It would be unjust were I to forget to tell you that 
 a great part of the success of Chekhov's plays in Russia 
 is due to that other peculiarly Russian creation: the 
 "Art Theater" by Mr. Stanislavsky. The very well- 
 known theatrical critic and reformer, Mr. Gordon 
 Craig, saw that theater in Moscow, and this is what he 
 says of it. "What the Russians do upon their stage, 
 they do to perfection. They waste time, money, labor, 
 brains and patience like emperors. Like true emperors 
 they do not think they have done all when they have 
 merely spent a lavish sum upon decorations and ma- 
 chinery. . . . They give hundreds of rehearsals to a 
 play, they change and rechange a scene until it bal- 
 ances to their thought ; they rehearse, and rehearse, and 
 rehearse, inventing detail upon detail with consum- 
 mate care and patience and always with vivid intelli- 
 gence. Seriousness, character, these two qualities will 
 guide the Moscow Art Theater to unending success in 
 Europe and elsewhere." 
 
 This prediction has already materialized, especially 
 in our days of the Russian dispersion, due to the Bol- 
 shevist tyranny. The foundations to the present suc- 
 cess of the Russian theater abroad are, however, laid 
 at the period now reviewed. The stage has become the 
 center of Russian artistic activity abroad since about 
 fifteen years ago: since 1906, when Serge Diaghilev 
 came to Paris. A tournee by Adolph Bolm followed, 
 with 28 Russian dancers, including Pavlowa, through 
 Finland, Sweden and Germany. Then Diaghilev reap- 
 peared, in 1909, in Paris. The names of Karsavina, 
 Pavlowa, the Fokines, Bolm, Mordkin, Neshinski and
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 381 
 
 others have gradually become known in both hemi- 
 spheres. It was just the time of revival for the Russian 
 ballet, too, on the same principle of freedom from con- 
 ventionality and tradition, and putting in the fore 
 sincerity and steadiness of purpose. As the display of 
 color was one of the principal slogans of the new Rus- 
 sian art, our painters were hot satisfied with the limited 
 frame of a picture. They became decorators and in- 
 ventors of costumes, from MM. Benois, Bakst, Do- 
 bushinsky, Bilibin, to Sudeikin and Goncharova. The 
 best creative effort is now centered upon the stage, as 
 you can see for yourself in this country. Stravinsky 
 and Prokofiev write their music for the stage, Roerich 
 paints the decorations. In 1918 you saw Rimsky- 
 Korsakov's "Coq d'Or" on your Metropolitan Opera 
 stage. The next season it was Stravinsky's "Pet- 
 rushka." You saw Adolph Bolm's "Ballet Intime," and 
 the Chicagoans have just listened to Prokofiev's new 
 production, "Three Oranges," and are going to see 
 and to hear Rimsky-Korsakov's other chef-d'ceuvre, 
 "Snegurotchka" (the Snow Girl), with Roerich's deco- 
 rations. The secret of all this success was given away 
 by Gordon Craig, as quoted above. The Russian art- 
 ists know what they are about, they are sincere and in 
 earnest, they work for a real moral success, and they 
 do not care about the rest. 
 
 I must now come back to the last, the revolutionary 
 period of Russian creative production. I put its be- 
 ginning at the first year of our first Revolution 1905. 
 I do not know whether history will confirm this chrono- 
 logical division. Most of us feel that here something 
 new began to make itself felt in life as well as in art. 
 Just what is it? The answer can only be given when
 
 382 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 this period is closed, which is not yet the case. That is 
 why the characteristics of the period can only be ten- 
 tatively discussed. 
 
 One thing seems to be beyond dispute. The revolu- 
 tionary movement of 1905-1906 was not favorable to 
 the spirit of Romantic reaction of the fin de siecle type. 
 So many "new words" advertised since 1880, passed 
 into history. Chekhov's sadness and boredom had to 
 give way to a new period of feverish activity. The 
 doomsday, predicted by moral philosophers like Vladi- 
 mir Soloviev, was postponed. Wholesome optimism 
 took the place of gloomy forebodings, and individual- 
 istic strivings, influenced by Nietzsche, entered into 
 queer alliances with collectivist teachings. The spell 
 of mysticism was broken, at least for a time. In one 
 way or another, most of the representatives of the 
 "modernist" movement were touched by the new 
 breath of time and modified accordingly their artistic 
 production. Maxim Gorky became a favorite and a 
 proletarian hero. Briusov, Balmont, Mereshkovsky 
 hailed the revolution and constitution. Religious phi- 
 losophers became philosophical socialists or mystical 
 anarchists. The first excess of that revolutionary con- 
 tagion soon passed, with the failure of the first revolu- 
 tion. But pure Romanticism was shattered and has 
 never returned. The public at large have reconciled 
 themselves to the modernists, but at the same time the 
 modernist movement has lost its firm and fixed out- 
 lines. The generation has become eclectic. And that 
 is why it is so difficult to characterize the fourth period, 
 from 1905-1921. The one thing that is certain is that 
 it is not a mere continuation of the former period of 
 1880-1905. 
 
 However, certain features begin to detach themselves
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 383 
 
 in that darkness, owing to that character of eclecticism 
 which was impressed on the movement after 1905. 
 Eclecticism seems to have played this time the part that 
 genuine protests against tradition had formerly played. 
 The new Romantic tradition, with its mystical under- 
 current, is no more obligatory. Again life seems to 
 take the place of visions. The neglected form is com- 
 ing back and is beginning to circumscribe the limitless 
 display of color and sound. The result will be syn- 
 thetic: some happy combination of idealistic and real- 
 istic elements in art which may augur the advent of a 
 new classical period of Russian national art. 
 
 Let us take some instances from contemporary music 
 and painting. Stravinsky's last productions undoubt- 
 edly reveal that double tendency. He still goes on 
 studying sound as such. He brings together most 
 unusual instruments; he lets them show their special 
 color, their peculiar sonorities, and he is satisfied with 
 his new result, new unheard-of combinations. He just 
 breaks up his phrase, without any development, as soon 
 as he is through with his experiments. These are 
 sketches in musical coloring, separate touches, separate 
 bricks for some new edifice to be built. In the mean- 
 time Stravinsky writes in the idiom more intelligible 
 to the average person and not necessarily for the ar- 
 tistic elite. Listen to his "Impressions of War": you 
 will hear the form, the rhythm, the melodies, fit for 
 the "Gartenmusik" such as one hears at watering 
 places, with the whole brilliancy of Stravinsky's or- 
 chestra preserved. Take another of our youngest com- 
 posers, Prokofiev. Some parts of his "Scythian Sym- 
 phony" are just a counterpart of Roerich's "Adoration 
 of the Sun." Primitive men in primitive rhythm dance 
 to the rising sun. The dash and glitter of the first sun-
 
 384 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 beams is beautifully depicted by an unusual combina- 
 tion of sounds in a perpetual crescendo. But this is a 
 return to program, to the music with purpose, to the 
 great master Mussorgsky! Of course, it is not a re- 
 turn with empty hands, but with newly enriched tech- 
 nical resources. And what about the adaptation of 
 .sound to word in his "Three Oranges," the lively 
 dialogues of choirs? I do not know what will come next 
 from Prokofiev, but I know that he is now entrained to 
 come back to the old masters of form, including 
 Mozart. 
 
 Let us now take parallel instances from modern 
 painting. Here the reversion to Idealism is still more 
 distinctive than in music. But here again realism is 
 not quite what it was in the "sixties" and the "seven- 
 ties." In the first place, the topics chosen are mostly 
 not political, but pictorial. In the second place, the 
 treatment of them reminds one rather of the natural- 
 ism of the early Renaissance, than of modern realism. 
 This is realism of the primitives. We have a very 
 strong group of young painters whose work confirms 
 that impression. Mr. Yakovlev reproduces scenes 
 from the Far East without any stylization at all. But 
 when he is left to himself, his painting, just as that of 
 Mr. Shuhayev reminds one of Van Eyck's minute ac- 
 curacy in smallest details. This is an extremely hard 
 and conscientious worker. Another young and already 
 powerful painter, Boris Grigoriev, brings us back to 
 the naturalism of a Mateo Mattei of Siena or of Man- 
 tegna. Mr. Grigoriev escaped recently from Bolshe- 
 vist Russia and he is still haunted with pictures of 
 the horrors, misery and starvation of his native coun- 
 try. He gives us a selection of types of that Bolshe- 
 vist "Rassaya" : he purposely makes use of that popu-
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 385 
 
 larly distorted form of the world "Russia." The types 
 are horrible, almost inhuman. 1 If you compare them 
 with original studies by the painter of the actual types 
 of a peasant-soldier, or a religious fanatic, you will 
 realize the "purpose." It is an exaggeration of natural- 
 ism, but how different from Perov's or Repin's realism, 
 and how primitively sincere in its attempt to enforce 
 on you the impression desired by the painter! 
 
 Grigoriev's canvas reminds me of another artistic 
 criticism of Bolshevist Russia, a criticism intended to 
 be its apotheosis. I mean the poem of the late Alex- 
 ander Block, "The Twelve." The Twelve Red sentinels 
 patrol the streets of Petrograd in the night; a snow- 
 storm rages around ; some old Russian types disappear 
 in the whirlwind, while the Red band "without a cross" 
 proceeding in "sovereign march," prepare to loot the 
 "bourgeoisie" secluded in their houses, kill by the way 
 a prostitute friend of their fellow soldier, whom they 
 want to rob of her newly acquired money. They go 
 on further singing robber songs, while Jesus Christ, in 
 a crown of white roses, unseen through the storm, and 
 untouched by the bullets of their shots, leads the Red 
 procession. In a posthumous verse A. Block changes 
 his mind and tries to explain away the last feature. 
 But taken as a whole, his inspired picture of that 
 Petrograd night remains the best and most realistic 
 summary of that moral chaos which makes no real 
 creation possible. 
 
 However, it would be a mistake to think that all art 
 has perished in Bolshevist Russia. On the contrary, 
 Russian art is, probably, the only thing which still con- 
 tinues to exist amidst the general ruin. But, in the 
 
 *See the reproduction of that great canvas, very important for the 
 history of our painting, in Musical America, December 10, 1921.
 
 386 RUSSIA TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 
 
 first place, this is only the continuation and the preser- 
 vation of formerly acquired art richesses. As Mr. Say- 
 ler says in his recent book on "The Russian Theater 
 Under the Revolution," "The Russian theater con- 
 tinues to-day not because but in spite of the social 
 struggle. . . . It is the theater of the first two decades 
 of the XX Century. . . . The" theater as the Revolu- 
 tion will transform it, has not yet appeared." This 
 observation may also be applied to other branches of 
 art. 
 
 But will a transformation come as a result of the 
 Revolution? Or will it be a complete decay of crea- 
 tive effort and, as some people have said, will Russia 
 be great only in her past? As the current idea is that 
 the Russian intellectual class has been wholly exter- 
 minated, what can take its place? And has not the 
 spirit of refinement gone entirely from Russian culture, 
 together with the Russian upper class? 
 
 I might answer by pointing to that part of the Rus- 
 sian intellectuals and members of the privileged class 
 which is being preserved in the ranks of the Russian 
 emigration in the various countries. But it would not 
 be to the point. The question is whether a new wave 
 of creative inspiration can be expected to come from 
 within the new and democratized Russia. And the 
 right answer is that Russian art became democratized 
 more than half a century ago. Most of our artists 
 and many of our writers, as a matter of fact, have come 
 from the lower middle class and from the class of farm- 
 ers. The period of purely aristocratic culture came 
 to an end as early as 1860. The kind of refinement it 
 implied may have gone in Russia, as was also the case 
 in other countries of Europe after 1789 and 1848. But 
 new generations evolve new forms of moral and intel-
 
 RUSSIA'S CONTRIBUTION 387 
 
 lectual culture, and the enlarged social basis of a post- 
 revolutionary development is sure to bring with it new 
 possibilities. It may take the shape of a return to the 
 primitive; a period of indecision and standstill may 
 intervene. But it does not mean stagnation and death. 
 I even strongly doubt that it will be a completely new 
 start. It is more probable that the symptoms of a new 
 synthesis, which I have just mentioned, will evolve 
 into full blossom, and a stage of new equilibrium, a 
 second classical epoch, may be in view.
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 Alexander I, 15 
 
 Alexander III, 16 
 
 Alexeiev, General, 20, 21, 24, 137, 
 
 138, 139, 148 
 Allied Intervention in Siberia, 
 
 317-322 
 American Relief Administration, 
 
 250-251, 256-260 
 America's Policy towards Russia, 
 
 303-305, 317-318, 320-321, 326- 
 
 327, 347-350 
 Andreyev, Leonid, 379 
 Angora, 118 
 Armenia, 81, 88, 90 
 Armenians, 73 
 
 Avxentiev, 151, 152, 153, 154 
 Azerbaidjan, 88, 90, 303 
 
 Bakst, 381 
 
 Balakirev, 372 
 
 Balfour, 89-90 
 
 Balmpnt, 378, 382 
 
 Benois, Alexander, 373, 381 
 
 Bilibin, 381 
 
 Block, Alexander, 385 
 
 Bolm, Adolph, 380, 381 
 
 Bolshevist (Communist) Party, 
 
 61, 62, 64, 65, 70 
 Borodin, 372 
 Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 57, 66, 85, 
 
 89 
 Briusov, 378, 382 
 
 Catherine II, 15 
 
 "Che-Ka," 69, 273 
 
 Chekhov, 379-380 
 
 Chicherin, 113, 114, 335 
 
 China, 302 
 
 Chinese Eastern Railway, 351-354 
 
 Churchill, Winston, 111 
 Clemenceau, 111 
 Colby, Secretary, 91-93, 304 
 Constantinople, 302 
 Constituent Assembly, 27, 31, 32, 
 
 35, 38, 51, 53, 56, 89, 94, 166, 187 
 Constituent Assembly of Eastern 
 
 Siberia, 338-339 
 Constitution of 1906, 17 
 Constitutional-Democratic Party 
 
 ("Cadets"), 3, 30, 31, 81, 165, 
 
 318 
 Cooperative organizations, 291- 
 
 292 
 Cooperative organizations under 
 
 Bolshevism, 219 
 Cossacks, 167, 173-174, 180, 182 
 Cotton industry, 194-195 
 Craig, Gordon, 380, 381 
 Cui, Cesar, 372 
 Czecho-Slovaks, 133-134, 149, 150, 
 
 151, 162, 320, 321 
 
 Dargomishsky, 366-367 
 Denikin, General, 138, 143, 148, 
 
 164-174 
 
 Diaghilev, Serge, 380 
 "Directory," 151 
 Dobushinsky, 381 
 Dostoyeysky, 368-369 
 Dragomirov, General, 166 
 Dukhonin, General, 65 
 Duma, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 14, 19, 21, 23, 
 
 24, 29, 30, 80, 82 
 
 Education under Bolshevism, 280- 
 
 283 
 
 Emancipation Act of 1861, 13 
 Esthonia, 87, 175 
 Esthonians, 73 
 
 389
 
 390 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 "Far Eastern Republic," 333-336, 
 
 338, 339, 341 
 Federation, 293-294 
 Fedotov, 367 
 Finances under Bolshevism. 211- 
 
 213 
 
 Finland, 6 
 Finno-Ugrians, 73 
 Finns, 73, 78, 83 
 Flax production, 194 
 Fokines, 380 
 France, 183 
 Fuel production, 191-192 
 
 Genoa, 269 
 
 Georgia, 81, 88, 89, 90, 303 
 
 Georgians, 73 
 
 Germans, 73 
 
 Glinka, 365, 366 
 
 Gogol, 365 
 
 Goncharova, 381 
 
 Gorki, Maxim, 274, 379, 382 
 
 Great Russians, 72, 74 
 
 "Green" Army, 171-172 
 
 Grigoriev, 384, 385 
 
 Grishin-Almazov, General, 161 
 
 Guins, 157-160 
 
 Hanihara, Masanao, 342-343, 346 
 Hara, Premier, 336 
 Horvath, General, 320 
 Hughes, Secretary, 92, 266, 270, 
 302, 347, 348, 349-350 
 
 India, 117, 118 
 
 International Russian Relief 
 
 Commission, 254 
 International Socialist Congress 
 
 at Basel, 33 
 International Socialist Congress 
 
 at Stuttgart, 33 
 Irkutsk Duma, 162 
 Iron production, 193 
 Ishevsk army, 161 
 Ivanov, Alexander, 367 
 Ivanov-Renov, General, 161 
 
 Japanese fishing rights, 314-315 
 Japanese intervention in Siberia, 
 319-320, 322-346 
 
 Jews, 73, 78 
 Joffe, 102 
 
 Kaledin, General, 141 
 
 Kamenev, 64, 112 
 
 Kappel, General, 336 
 
 Karsavina, 380 
 
 Kautsky, 35, 52 
 
 Kerensky, 35, 38, 39, 154 
 
 Keynes, 270 
 
 Kienthal Conference, 98 
 
 Kishkin, 252-253 
 
 Knox, General, 152, 154, 161 
 
 Kolchak, Admiral, 148, 152, 153, 
 
 154-165, 324, 325, 326 
 Kornilov, General, 38, 39, 40, 138, 
 
 139, 142 
 
 Krasnov, Ataman, 145 
 Krassin, 203 
 Krimov, General, 21 
 Kropotkin, Prince, 270 
 Krylenko, 65 
 Kuban, 167 
 Kun, Bela, 103 
 Kuno, Yoshi S., 305-309 
 Kuprin, 379 
 
 Land problem, 12, 13, 14 
 
 Landed aristocracy, 12 
 
 Landowners, 171 
 
 Larin, 58, 59, 223 
 
 Latsis, 68 
 
 Latvia, 87 
 
 "League of Nations," 109, 302 
 
 Lenin, 24, 34, 35, 38, 40, 46, 48, 
 
 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 83, 84, 99, 
 
 100, 101, 102, 108, 109-110, 112, 
 
 268, 272-273 
 Liebknecht, 102 
 Lithuania, 80-81 
 Lithuanians, 73 
 Little Russians (Ukrainians), 72, 
 
 74 
 Lloyd George, 19, 86, 87, 90, 111, 
 
 147, 183, 270 
 Lockhart, 106 
 Lomov, 203 
 Lvov, Prince, 41 
 
 March, General, 175 
 Martov, 34
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 391 
 
 Masaryk, President, 321 
 Maslov, 8., 190, 283, 284 
 Medvediev, 334, 339 
 Mereshkovsky, 378, 382 
 Merkulov, 340, 341 
 Militarization of labor, 205-208 
 Milner, Lord, 295 
 Monarchists, 27, 186-187, 286-287 
 Monarchy, 274, 275 
 Mongols, 73 
 Mordkin, 380 
 Moscow Art Theatre, 380 
 Mussorgsky, 371 
 Mussulmans, 81 
 
 Nansen, Dr., 231, 253, 254, 256, 
 
 268 
 
 Nationalities in Russia, 16 
 Neshinski, 380 
 
 Niholas II, 2, 3, 19, 20, 21, 27 
 Nicolayevsk, 345-346 
 Nicolayevsk incident, 327-333 
 "Northwestern" Government, 175 
 
 October Manifesto, 2 
 
 Pavlova, 380 
 
 Peasantry under Bolshevism, 208- 
 
 230 
 
 Peasants, 12 
 Pepelayev, Victor, 164 
 Perov, 370 
 
 Peter the Great, 11, 13, 15 
 Poland, 6, 86-87, 182, 183, 304 
 Poles, 73, 78 
 Polish independence, 80 
 Population under Bolshevism, 
 
 190-192 
 
 "Pravda," 104 
 "Progressive bloc," 19 
 Prokofiev, 381, 384 
 Provisional Government, 29, 32, 
 
 35 
 Pushkin, 364-365 
 
 Quakers' organization, 256 
 
 Radek, 102 
 
 Rasputin, 20, 21 
 
 Red Army, 66, 67, 70, 273 
 
 Red Terror, 68, 69, 70 
 
 Repin, 370 
 
 Revolution of 1905, 1, 2, 18 
 
 Riga Treaty, 86-87, 183 
 
 Rimsky-Korsakov, 372, 381 
 
 Robbins, Col. Raymond, 102, 106, 
 
 107 
 
 Romanovsky, General, 167 
 Roerich, 375-376, 381, 383 
 Root, Elihu, 294-295 
 Rumanians, 73 
 Russki, General, 24 
 Russo-Chinese relations, 351-354 
 Russo-Japanese War, 18 
 Rykov, 59, 203 
 
 Sadoul, Captain, 102, 106, 107 
 Sakhalin, 304, 316-317, 343-344 
 Scriabin, 377-378 
 Second International, 98 
 Semenov, 319, 325, 336, 338, 340, 
 
 341 
 
 Serov, 375 
 Sevres Treaty, 88 
 Shidehara, Baron, 324, 325, 327 
 Shuhayev, 384 
 
 Siberian colonization, 309-313 
 Siberian Government, 150-152 
 Skoropadsky, 144 
 Slavophils, 10 
 
 Social-Revolutionaries, 30, 31 
 Soviet bourgeoisie, 201-202 
 Soviet Constitution, 62, 63 
 Spargo, John, 320, 323 
 Stanislavsky, 380 
 Stolypin, 4, 14 
 Stinnes, 270, 287 
 Stravinski, 377, 381, 383 
 Struye, P. B., 180 
 Sudeikin, 381 
 Sugar production, 194 
 Supreme Council, 270 
 Surikov, 375 
 
 "Tatar Republic," 237-241 
 
 Tchaikovsky, 372 
 
 Third International, 35, 91, 98, 
 
 110, 270-271 
 
 Thomas, Albert, 19, 154 
 Tobelson-Krasnoschekov, 335 
 Tolstoy, 368-369
 
 392 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 Transcaucasia, 88-92 
 Transcaucasian Diet, 89 
 Trotsky, 34, 66, 83, 100, 108-109. 
 
 205, 206 
 Tsereteli, 35 
 Tzarina, 20, 21 
 Turkeniev, 368-369 
 Turkestan, 117 
 Turkey, 89, 91, 302 
 Turko-Tatars, 73 
 
 Ukraine, 81, 144, 180 
 "Union of Autonomists-Federal- 
 ists," 80 
 Ural army, 161 
 Urquhart, Leslie, 266-268, 270 
 
 Vanderlip, Washington B., 337 
 Vasnetsov, 375 
 Venetsianov, 367 
 Vereschagin, 370 
 
 Vladivostok, 304, 334, 335-336, 
 
 340-341 
 
 Votkinsk army, 161 
 Vrubel, 374 
 
 Washington Conference, 297-298, 
 302, 304-305, 324, 325, 347-350 
 
 Wells, H. G., 48, 287 
 
 White Russians, 72, 74 
 
 Wilson, President, 303, 319, 321 
 
 Witte, Count, 18 
 
 Working men under Bolshevism, 
 196-208 
 
 Wrangel, General, 168, 174, 176- 
 186 
 
 Yakovlev, 384 
 
 Yudenich, General, 174-176 
 
 Zimmerwald Conference, 98 
 Zinoviev, 101, 112

 
 A 000 674 703 "