The Moral Issue in Russia

MUCH has been written in criticism and condemnation of the American policy in Russia and Siberia. Many pages of pure propaganda, written, from one point of view or another, to help definite parties and factions, and much honest discussion, especially in liberal papers, in which theory has tended to become divorced from facts, and in which American standards and measures and American psychology are too often applied to Russian affairs, have tended to becloud the real issues of the struggle in Russia, and to leave the inquirer confused and disheartened in the face of a situation so far away, so terrible, and so complex. The tragedy and suffering throughout the length and breadth of Russia, which seem so useless, and which the ever-ready generosity of Americans longs to relieve, make many people impatient that no way has yet been found to end this terrible situation; and this very eagerness to help, this heartfelt sympathy for Russia, withheld by the nature of the case from its natural expression, render a cool and reasoned view of the situation tenfold more difficult.

The present article, based on continued residence in Soviet Russia and Siberia since the first day of the October Revolution (1917), when the Bolsheviki first came into power, may, it is sincerely hoped, serve to bring the discussion up to date, and to set forth clearly and simply the main outlines of the situation as it exists to-day.

To speak first in general terms — the situation is hopeful. Constant association with Russians of all sorts and classes indelibly impresses on one’s mind the fact that Russia is fundamentally democratic. Through all its failure, its misery and oppression, its mistakes and factional strife, bound down by the deadening ignorance of its masses and the incapacity for true self-government of those who should be its natural leaders, due largely to their lifelong training in conspiracy and plotting under the iron rule of their Tsars, the Russian people are reaching out for some sort of free government, some purely Russian expression of their national life. They have done forever with the old tyranny of which all the world knows, and they are weary and in revolt against the new tyranny of Lenin and Trotsky, and will in time, by their own force, overthrow it. It is a strange thing that, while they recognize their community of interest in the destruction of liberal forces everywhere, and, in a very real sense, their community of method, many Russian monarchists have been, and still are, able to work in utmost harmony with the Bolsheviki.

For those who have read the official words of Bolshevist leaders and of their supporters and apologists in America, and who are comparatively uninformed as to the manner in which Bolshevist rule actually works out in practice, it is natural to regard the Bolsheviki as a political party entitled to consideration equally with other parties. For those who have lived only in advanced self-governing countries, it is easy to say, ‘The Bolsheviki control most of Russia — they must have wide popular support, otherwise the people would overthrow them.’ For those wholly unacquainted with conditions in Siberia it will be equally easy to misinterpret the nature of the opposition to the Bolsheviki and glibly to say that it consists of a group of reactionaries little better than the Bolsheviki themselves. To all such persons the presence of American troops in Russia and Siberia must seem a wrong and uncalled-for interference in other people’s affairs; and the suggestion that all Russians cease fighting and agree upon a general armistice will seem only reasonable and right.

To meet these widely entertained points of view it is necessary to show — First, that the Soviet government is in no sense a popular or democratic government, and that it does not represent the majority of the people, or even a majority of the working-class. Second, that the political system developed under the Bolsheviki is not a natural outgrowth of established institutions. Third, that the Omsk government is not a reactionary government, and cannot be lightly swept aside as a mere political faction. Fourth, that an armistice among the Russians now contending for supremacy is both impossible and undesirable, because of the nature of the struggle.

After careful consideration of facts which can be adduced in support of these propositions it will be easier to estimate the value of the work now being done by the United States in Siberia, the necessity of the retention of American soldiers in Russia, and the significance of recent events there.

I

Lenin himself would be surprised to hear that Soviet government has found defenders in America or anywhere else on the ground that it is in any sense a popular or democratic form of government. The writer has been assured in Russia, not once, but many times, by Bolshevist officials and supporters, that Soviet government is something higher and better than democratic government; that Soviet Russia has passed through and beyond the elementary stage of democracy in which the United States, poor benighted country, is still enmeshed. The theory that elections to the Soviets are based upon an occupational franchise, in which every citizen is classified under a certain head, either as a hand-worker or as a brainworker, and votes with his economic group, excluding only the non-productive elements, is on the face of it attractive to those who are intensely conscious of the evils of our present system.

There is, however, in the Bolshevist philosophy one cardinal doctrine, which changes the whole character of Soviet rule. It is not a chance doctrine, but one which has repeatedly been enunciated by Lenin, and which makes perfectly plain and logical many acts that Americans who desire to escape from the old system are apt to regard as altogether apart from the idea of Soviet rule as such, and as only the arbitrary acts of individuals. This doctrine is simply this: first, that the proletariat does not know what is good for its own welfare; second, that there is a small minority group which does know what is best for the proletariat, and, fully justified by this knowledge, not only ought, but is bound as a sacred duty, to act by force against the will of the majority of the workers if such will is, in their opinion, contrary to their best interests.

This doctrine is well summarized in a conversation between an American friend of the writer and a Bolshevist commissar¹ from Kazan, in which the American propounded this hypothetical question: —

‘If there were a Constituent Assembly elected under Bolshevist military control, but composed of three hundred and ninety-nine Social-Revolutionist delegates and one Bolshevist delegate, and the one Bolshevist were armed, would the latter be justified in dissolving the Assembly by force of arms, and thus constituting himself the whole Assembly?’

The commissar replied, ‘It would not only be his right but his duty, as he would be the only one of all those present who was a real friend of the proletariat.’

It is this doctrine of a Bolshevist ‘divine right,’ in essence no different from the ancient divine right of kings, which constitutes the Bolsheviki the only judges as to who is a friend of the people, who shall be elected to the Soviets, and who shall constitute the electorate; which doctrine, carried out in practice to its ultimate conclusion, has resulted in so complete an identification of the Soviets and the Bolsheviki as to destroy any validity in the view taken by many Americans, that they are two very different things. This distinction is not now made in Russia at all.

Three instances may serve to illustrate the way in which the above doctrine works out in practice. The first was the dissolution by force of arms of the Constituent Assembly elected in November, 1917, for the sole and simple reason that, although the elections had been held under complete Bolshevist control, an overwhelming majority of Social-Revolutionist candidates was elected.

The second was the following. In March, 1918, the writer attended the Congress of All-Russian Soviets of Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies in Moscow. After the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the election of the Central Executive Committee, the administrative body which was to carry on the government for the next year, was carried out according to a prearranged plan. This body was to elect the People’s Commissars. After all this had been accomplished, a SocialRevolutionist delegate, Martov, — one of the seventy-five or so admitted for the sake of form, the controlled Bolshevist representation amounting to not less than 600, -— rose to speak. He made the suggestion that, inasmuch as the Congress was the representative of all Russian Soviets, — the body in which the ultimate sovereignty of the Russian proletarian government was supposed to be lodged, — it would be well that the People’s Commissars, elected by its Executive Committee, should be required to present monthly accounts of the vast sums of the people’s money they handled — at least, to the Executive Committee. Martov pointed out that this was merely a continuation of the practice followed when the Bolsheviki were represented in Kerensky’s cabinet, and that now they were in full power, he did not see why it should be abolished. At a signal from the Bolshevist leaders a storm of protest arose. The speaker was howled down, branded as a counter-revolutionist, and was not allowed to finish his speech. In other words, the Bolshevist leaders acted upon the doctrine set forth above, namely, that the self-constituted minority group in power must be free from any control whatsoever, even from those very members of the proletariat who they had decided were entitled to vote. Democratic principles, even in so purely formal and elementary a form as that suggested by Martov, were not to be tolerated for a moment.

The third instance is taken from a typical small provincial town and serves to show that the same doctrine was acted upon in all parts of the country. The writer attended, in May, 1918, an election to the local Soviet in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. The occupational group taking part in the election was that of clerks and office-workers. At the meeting held to elect the twelve representatives allotted to this group in the Soviet, not one person who was not a humble wage-earner was present. It was in every respect a proletarian meeting. Early in the proceedings it became evident that the Social-Revolutionists were in the majority. A test vote was taken on a question of credentials and the Bolsheviki were defeated three to one.

As is always the case when the Bolsheviki are outvoted, they refused to abide by the decision. Their leaders called upon all Bolshevist sympathizers to leave the room immediately, branding the Social-Revolutionists as enemies of the people. After all the Bolsheviki had left the hall, it was found that a quorum still remained, and twelve Social-Revolutionist members were elected to the Soviet. The next morning the election was declared illegal, a new meeting was held, from which all anti-Bolshevist members were excluded, and twelve Bolshevist members were elected and seated in the Soviet.

Such methods can be successfully carried out by the Bolsheviki for the simple reason that might is stronger than right. They have possession of all the arms and ammunition, having come into control in the beginning by cleverly capitalizing the longing of the people for land and peace, and having then organized a highly paid, mercenary Red army.

In accordance with this doctrine, then, and in this manner, the Soviet in Russia has become an instrument of political tyranny.

II

The preceding paragraphs will serve to show that it is rather a stretch of the imagination to regard Soviet government, as found in Russia to-day, as a natural outgrowth of that fundamental ancient Russian institution, the village council, or Mir. Let us analyze the Soviet government of Siberia at the time of its overthrow by the Czechs in June, 1918. It was modeled by Bolshevist emissaries from Moscow closely on the Soviet organization of European Russia. At the centre of the government, as supreme administrative, and in practice also as supreme legislative body, there was a small permanent committee known as Centro Sibir. This committee elected the People’s Commissars for Foreign Affairs, the Interior, etc., for Siberia, and was itself elected by a general Siberian convention of Soviets — a large body meeting for a few days at rare intervals, to act on carefully prepared agenda. This convention was composed of delegates from three different types of political organizations — the Soviets, or Councils, of certain independent industrial groups, such as the workmen in large factories, and in isolated industries, etc.; the city Soviets, representing the proletariat of the cities; and the county congresses of Soviets, representing the country districts.

These three types of Soviet were about equally represented at the General Siberian Convention, giving the cities a two-to-one majority over the peasants. But the county congresses of Soviets were not the direct representatives of the peasants: they were composed of delegates from the cantonal or district congresses of Soviets. And not even the cantonal congresses were the direct representatives of the peasants, but were composed in turn of delegates from the village councils, or Soviets, which, in the last analysis, did directly represent the peasants. By an ingenious provision in the constitution of this Soviet republic, each of these Soviets, from the bottom up, was given the ‘privilege’ of electing one or more outsiders as advisers, on the theory that the peasants were not competent to understand the way in which a Soviet should be run and were not sufficiently conversant with the principles of the economic revolution. This, of course, meant that the Bolsheviki of the central organization had their own representative in control of every Soviet in the whole step-ladder.

We have, then, a structure in which the working-class, in Russia an exceedingly small percentage of the people, is given overwhelming representation in the (so-called) general legislative body, and is directly represented therein, while the peasants, the great mass of the people, have only a minority representation, diluted through two extra elections. The peasants and the workers, without participation in the administrative power, are represented in the central government only in a body whose function is confined to meeting a few days in the year to act as a rubber stamp.

Such a scheme of government can by no means be explained as a natural outgrowth of the old village Soviet, which was first introduced into Russia to give the peasants some chance to express their grievances. The city Soviets, — representing a small minority of the people, — which are given such preponderance in the scheme of government analyzed above, are adaptations of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils which sprang up here and there after the 1905 Revolution. This great superstructure, grafted upon and submerging the original village Soviet, was so far from being a natural evolution of an already established Russian institution that the Bolshevist leaders were obliged to establish schools for agitators, to teach their own agents what it was all about, so as to fit them for the work of instructing the people. This agitation, based entirely on the well-known principle of advertising, that a thing repeated often enough and categorically enough will come to be believed, has always been the chief instrument of the spread of Bolshevism throughout Russia, if we leave out of the account the more forcible arguments used by the Red Army and the committees of Poverty.

In Perm the writer noticed the prospectus of one of the Bolshevist schools for agitators, offering courses in Soviet government, the Red Army, the World-Revolution, and the like. A regular diploma was offered, as in any other institution of learning. Such a method as this would not be necessary if this form of government were natural to Russia.

In a captured box-car used as an office by the Bolsheviki, and taken by the Siberian army, the writer found last December, a printed questionnaire for the use of Bolshevist agitators sent out to convert the villages. Prominent among the questions to be answered were the following: —

‘Is there a Soviet in this village?’ ‘Is there any sentiment in favor of a Soviet?’ ‘Do the people understand how to organize a Soviet?’ ‘Do you recommend sending organizers from Perm to organize a Soviet here?’ ‘Who are the men who might be used in a Soviet organization here?’ ‘Who are the rich peasants in the village?’ and so forth.

Such questions show clearly that the Soviet form of government was not a universal or natural one in Russian villages; and the fact that it was necessary for the Bolsheviki to send out their organizers from the city to the villages themselves, to form Soviets there, implies very strongly that the Soviet system as it actually exists was built from the top down, and not from the bottom up.

Such is the highly autocratic political weapon which the Bolsheviki have forged for themselves, which they have used and are using in conjunction with the Red Army for the destruction, root and branch, of the modern economic system of production and distribution, and of the entire class representing that system, including the people who represent such truly Russian and democratic institutions as the City Councils and Zemstvos.

III

Opposing the Soviet government by force of arms in Siberia there is the AllRussian government, headed by Admiral Kolchak, with its seat in Omsk. The history of the development of this government is as follows. After the dispersal by the Bolsheviki of the November (1917) Constituent Assembly in Moscow, many of the members found their way into Siberia, and maintained their organization secretly under the Bolshevist régime. On the liberation of Central Siberia by the Czechs, in May and June, 1918, this group elected an Executive Council of Ministers, set up a government known as the Temporary Siberian Government, and immediately set about organizing a Russian anti-Bolshevist army. Delegates from this group managed to reach Vladivostock, and on the overthrow of the Bolsheviki there, declared themselves to be the representatives in the Far East of the Temporary Siberian Government, deriving their authority from the undeniable fact that they were the only duly elected representatives of the people on the scene. Coördination between this group and the Temporary Siberian Government in Central Siberia, under the leadership of Vologodski, was rendered almost impossible by the total lack of direct communication due to the existence of three separate military fronts between Vladivostock and Central Siberia; the front between Semeonov and the Bolsheviki and Germans on the Western Manchurian border; the front between Kalmikov and the Bolsheviki and Germans on the Eastern Siberian border; and the front between the Czechs and the Bolsheviki and Germans near Nikolsk.

Late in July, 1918, the capture of Nikolsk by the Czechs and the consequent liquidation of the Kalmikov front opened up communication, through Manchuria, with the Semeonov front. This was followed at once by the proclamation of General Horvat, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Eastern Railroad and, in effect, dictator of Manchuria, setting himself up as supreme ruler of Russia. This proclamation, coming shortly before the joint Allied declarations on intervention, aside from being an interesting incident, created an impasse between the Temporary Siberian Government representatives and General Horvat on the question who represented the legitimate power in Eastern Siberia.

Early in September the heroic Czechs, advancing eastward on the Trans-Siberian line after capturing Chita, took the Bolshevist forces opposing Semeonov from behind. The Germans and Austrians, deserted by the Russian part of the Red Army, were forced to give way, and on September 6, 1918, communication was at last established between Vladivostock and the Urals, when Gaida and Semeonov effected a junction.

Then for the first time it became generally known that there was in Omsk a Russian government, based on liberal principles, and commanding a growing army, which was gradually beginning to lend real help to the Czechs, and around which, although slowly, a real national sentiment was forming. The sphere of direct influence of the Vologodski government at Omsk was at first not great, and a more radical governmental group was formed, first at Ekaterinburg and then at Ufa, in which the radical Avksentiev was the leading figure. In the meantime, Semeonov had moved out to Chita, and had established himself there.

In October, 1918, there had emerged from the complete economic and mental confusion left by the Bolsheviki in Siberia four major governmental groups, all strongly anti-Bolshevist, but inspired by radically different ideas, and separated physically by immense distances and very slow communications. These groups were: 1. The Temporary Siberian Government at Omsk; 2. The Ufa Convention under Avksentiev;

3. General Horvat in the Far East;

4. Semeonov in Chita. The problem of reconciling and unifying these four groups, hopeless as it seemed at first, has been met and solved in very large measure. The magnificent constancy of the Czechs held things together at the front and along the railroad line, until the shattered Russian forces could be gathered together under unified leadership. Four months ago the last Czech forces left the Ural front, and the Russians themselves assumed the full burden of the war of liberation.

The political and economic unification of the vast and varied territories between Krasnoyarsk and Vladivostock has not yet been thoroughly carried out. Especially is this true of the Far East, where tremendous outside world-forces are constantly at play, preventing anything like a normal development. The steadying influences of the Czech army and the Allied forces in this territory is still an important factor. It is true, however, that immediately on the liberation of Siberia by the Czechs, the real Russian organs of local government, the City Councils and Zemstvo Unions, everywhere resumed their legitimate essential and constructive work. In every city and town from Vladivostock to the Urals we have now functioning purely Russian institutions, whose parallel is not found in other countries, which have grown up to fill the needs of Russian life, and which are carrying on the work of local government in which they were interrupted by the autocratic power of the Moscow Council of the People’s Commissars. Newspapers of every shade of political opinion, except outand-out Bolshevist papers, are published everywhere, in strong contrast to the complete destruction of freedom of speech in Bolshevist Russia.

The process of unification of the sane elements of Russia against the Bolshevist tyranny has not been accomplished without many arbitrary acts, many heart-burnings, bitter recriminations, and disappointed personal and party hopes. From these has sprung much of that unfortunate division of opinion among anti-Bolshevist Russians, both in Siberia and in the United States, which has tended to confuse the issues and perplex the onlooker.

The steps by which this unification was finally achieved were as follows. After prolonged negotiation, an arrangement was reached between the Ufa Convention and the Temporary Siberian Government in Omsk, by virtue of which a directorate of five, including both Avksentiev and Vologodski, was formed at Omsk, and the Ufa government was liquidated. This was from the first a makeshift. On November 18, 1918, the Directorate was overthrown by a coup d’état, and the Ufa elements in it, headed by Avksentiev, were arrested and exiled, and a new government, under Admiral Kolchak as supreme ruler, was set up in its place. Kolchak, as head of the government, was made responsible to a Council of Ministers, with Vologodski — the man who had been through so many months a guiding power in holding together the organization of the dispersed members of the Constituent Assembly and then in organizing the first Russian anti-Bolshevist army —still at its head. Every order of Kolchak must be countersigned by the secretary of this Council of Ministers.

The coup d’état of November 18 was defended as absolutely necessary to avoid a Bolshevist military victory at the front, as the Avksentiev group was pursuing a strictly partisan and extremely radical policy, hampering the work of reconstruction and impairing the morale of the army. This view was first expressed to the writer the morning after the coup d’état by the editor of Zarya (in Omsk), the most important coöperative paper now published in Russia, and was afterwards repeated many times by independent Russian sources.

A competent American officer, after a trip to Ufa at this time, told the writer that in his personal opinion, based upon a purely military point of view, the extreme radicalism of the Ufa government had been largely responsible for the loss of that city to the Bolsheviki. The desertion to the Bolsheviki of Chernov, who, while not a member of the Directorate, had been closely identified with the Ufa group, tends to bear out this assertion. At any rate, it was obvious that an irreconcilable breach existed in the Directorate, and that a strong man was needed to hold things together.

On assuming power, Admiral Kolchak pledged himself to call a Constituent Assembly at the first possible moment, for the determination of the future government of Russia. From this determination he has never wavered. In personal conversation with Russians Kolchak has repeatedly said that he is primarily an officer in the navy, and has taken up the immense burden laid upon him only in order to hold things together until an opportunity is found to call a Constituent Assembly through the military defeat of the Bolsheviki; and that after that he intends to resign. That Kolchak is not, and never has been, in favor of the old régime has been admitted to the writer by some of the bitterest opponents of his government in Vladivostock; and this fact is abundantly testified to by his unpopularity among those in power in the navy under the Tsar, who consistently opposed his promotion and blocked his progress, on the ground that he was too radical.

However, to gain the support of the older officers, whose professional services were essential to the success of the army, and to obtain the allegiance of Horvat, the de facto power in the Far East, Kolchak made certain concessions to the reactionary elements, which alienated many liberal and patriotic persons. Especially is this true of the appointment of certain military governors in interior cities, whose disregard of local institutions and whose arbitrary acts, especially those of General Ivanov-Rinov (since removed from power by Kolchak) in Vladivostock, have done much to foster the impression that the Omsk government is a thoroughly reactionary one. But the monarchists have been far from satisfied, and it is established on the very best authority that there have been two, or perhaps three, serious attempts to capture the Omsk government for the monarchists. Kolchak has successfully resisted them all, and recently the radical Socialist groups in Siberia, the central organs of all the Siberian coöperators, and the Central Union of the Zemstvos have united in a public declaration of support of the Kolchak government so long as it holds true to its pledge to summon a freely elected Constituent Assembly. This declaration was followed by a very noticeable consolidation of Russian Socialist groups in the United States and in Paris, including the coöperators and Babushka Breshkovskaya. This latter development, which took place early in May, 1919, very materially strengthens the hands of the liberals in the Omsk government and shows the growth of popular belief that Kolchak, strengthened and confirmed in his position as a national and not a purely local or regional leader by the allegiance of the governments of Deniken and Tschaikowski, will carry out his pledge in this essential matter.

Semeonov in the meantime has descended to the level of a mere irresponsible bandit, playing the game of organized speculation and exploitation of his country’s misery as long as he can safely and profitably play it.

IV

The Omsk government, many as its defects are admitted to be, is one in which liberal and decent elements in Russian life are struggling, not only against the Bolsheviki at the front, but also against the reactionaries in their own midst. The liberal elements have thus far kept control. They feel that they are waging a war of liberation of their country from a hideous tyranny. They are having their first fruits of success. They stand for the idea of nationality, while the Bolsheviki’s fundamental principle denies the validity of the idea of nationality and scoffs at patriotism as a scheme of capitalism to oppress the poor. They stand for the payment of Russia’s foreign debt; the Bolsheviki openly repudiate that debt, but are willing to use the promise to honor it as a bribe to other countries. They stand for a government that will give the whole nation freedom to express its will and continue its natural national development; the Bolsheviki stand for the old principle of government by the knout. They believe the Siberian army to be an army of liberation, destined to free the common people from intolerable economic oppression, and to rescue the last remnants of the educated, the intelligent, and the cultivated from annihilation under the heel of ruthless and cruel despotism; while the Bolsheviki are obliged by the inexorable logic of their position to refuse the offer made by neutral countries to feed the hungry and the suffering in the great cities; for they cannot feed and strengthen those whom they are pledged to destroy, and still retain their power.

That the Siberian army is, in fact, regarded as an army of liberation was brought home to the writer most impressively when he entered the city of Perm three days after its capture from the Bolsheviki by the Siberian troops. The empty streets, the closed stores, the empty markets, the hungry and hunted faces of the people, the joy they expressed at being spoken to as friends, and at the hope of getting bread and something to read other than constant and venomous abuse of all that decent people hold sacred and honorable, their stories of the brutal execution of their friends and their anxious inquiries as to the fate of the hostages, all tended to produce an impression that here were people freed from slavery and given the chance to live anew. Is it to be wondered at that the suggestion, heard so often in America, that all Russian ‘ factions ’ should conclude a general armistice, comes to such men as a shock and an insult, born of an almost unbelievable misunderstanding of the situation? For both sides it is civil war, war to the death. A just estimate of Russian reaction to American policies requires an appreciation of the fact that the psychology of the conflict in Russia is a psychology of civil war. It is, furthermore, a civil war toward which it is not honorable to preserve a neutral attitude. There is a tremendous moral obligation upon the Allies not to desert Russia, on account of her five million dead in the war. Nearly every decent man admits this, but says, ‘Alas, there is little choice between the factions. Where does that obligation lie?’ To one who knows the facts, there is little doubt as to where the choice of a truly liberal man should fall.

America has openly recognized this obligation, and in giving practical encouragement to those who are struggling to re-create a Russian state on a liberal and sound basis, she has recognized the fact that in this struggle in Russia one side is right and the other wrong. The most important of all the methods by which America, in conjunction with her allies, is trying to discharge her obligation to Russia is in the rehabilitation of the Trans-Siberian Railway. On the successful carrying out of this work depends the economic reëstablishment of Russia. The conclusion of the international agreement and the beginning of actual work on the railway by the Stevens Commission brought joy and hope to thousands of the disheartened and discouraged among the patriotic liberal elements of Russia. Any American along the TransSiberian road can to-day answer in the affirmative the oft-repeated question, ‘Have the Americans started to restore the railroad?’ asked anxiously by all classes of men, and will receive in return a smile of relief and pleasure which will make him proud that America has undertaken this great work.

To protect this railroad against organized and semi-official bandits like Semeonov at Chita, and against wandering bands of Bolshevist sympathizers, it is necessary to have troops. The Czechs are doing much of this policing work, and the other Allies have some part in it. America is doing her share. Every American in uniform who has traveled over the Trans-Siberian Railway can testify to the eagerness with which the people crowded about him and asked if at last the longawaited American soldiers were coming; and he will not easily forget the disappointment in their faces when he had to say that they were not. This eagerness to see the American soldiers is due to the fact that in them is seen a guaranty that the country will not again be given over to Bolshevism, that the actual work of rehabilitation of the railroad is begun, that the day of Semeonov and the other semi-independent Cossack hetmans is over, and that the normal flow of goods will be resumed. The writer can confidently testify to the desire on the part of all classes, except monarchists, to have the Americans come to help them in their fight for liberation, if not at the front, at least in economic and police duties at the rear. The monarchists know that they look in vain for any help from American sources.

There is, however, a reason more selfish than the carrying out of our obligation toward the sane and liberal elements in Russia why it is necessary and justifiable to have American troops in Russia. This grows out of the very nature of Bolshevism. The great hope of the Bolsheviki has always rested in the world-revolution. The Spartacus outbreak and the Communist revolution in Hungary gave hope and life to the Bolsheviki. Lenin has said that Bolshevism cannot live in Russia alone. Unless the Bolshevist world-revolution follows, his ‘great experiment’ fails. Therefore the Bolsheviki cannot stop their foreign propaganda for the overthrow of foreign governments, and they hate the American government as much as the German Imperial government, for in weakening it and in weakening France, Italy, and Great Britain lies their only hope.

When we went to war with Germany, Germany did not threaten us directly as she threatened France, but we knew that a German-controlled Europe would be a terrible menace to American democracy. Bolshevism does not threaten us directly, as it threatens Central Europe, Germany, France, and Italy, but we know that a Bolshevik-controlled Europe would be a great menace to American institutions and principles. By retaining our soldiers in Russia and Siberia and by sending there our Red Cross and our engineers, we are not only in part liquidating our debt to loyal and patriotic Russians by assisting them in their effort to save their country, and carrying out the obligation we have entered into with our allies: we are also, by forming part of the iron ring which has been drawn about the Russian Soviet government, contending against a highly organized force which, from the nature of the peculiar philosophy underlying it, cannot cease to wage relentless war upon the very institutions which are the hope of a self-determining and free Russia. These institutions are the agencies of local self-government which have their roots in Russian history and meet Russian needs. They are institutions which can develop in harmony and coördination with the development of liberal institutions elsewhere, and add their own peculiar Russian contribution to the general progress of mankind toward a better and more perfectly organized world-society. As the Siberian army advances, in one freed town after another the City Councils and Zemstvos, Coöperators, and other real Russian political and economic organizations take up anew their interrupted work. By opposing the Bolsheviki with armed force, therefore, we are helping in a very fundamental way in the liberation of Russia and bringing nearer the lasting peace which cannot come to pass until that country is powerful and free.