NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16157, 11 March 1918, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

LENIN'S TREACHERY. | When, in the early part of last year ! Lenin, now Premier of the Bolshevjii ! Government, made liis first appearance I on the stage of the Russian revolution, his reception was such as held no I promise that in a few months he would ! occupy the place in Russian affairs thati he now holds. He had been living in Austria, where he remained in touch with his friends of the Russian Social Democratic Party, and came into close touch with tho leaders of the Ukrainian movement, which was being financed by Germany. Subsoquently, with the assistance of the Austrian authorities, he conducted an anti-Entente propaganda in Switzerland, and finally Germany sent nim to Petrograd. "Some knowledge of his activities had evidently reached the leaders of ihe revolution, for his reception. was of the coldest. Placards on the walls in Petrograd denounced him as a German agent and spy, tho garrison of one town refused to allow him to enter it, the miners of another district telegraphed to the Soviet demanding his arrest and threatening his life if ho did not desist from his work, while tho printers and compositors (>f Sevastopol refused to print any publications or proclamations of the Bolsheviks who v,c-re supporting Lenin. Eventually Iverensky chased him out of Russia, though he soon made his way back again. 'Jhe Provisional Government charged him with being one of a number paid by the enemy to carry on a propaganda designed to hamper Russia's military activities, and also with j organising an armed rising in Petri-' grau. A German spy who was arrested disclosed the names of 84 persons, including Trotzkv and Lenin, whom Germany had sent to Russia to pro-German propaganda. "For Lenin," he said, "there is always ready cash in Germany, and he can get >is much money as lis desires from that source."' 'WELL EARNED THEIR PAY. 1 ' I There were many, including a num-'

ber of foreign correspondents in Petrograd, who refused to believe that Lenin was anything more than a fanatical Socialist, and who scorned tho idea that he would tako German gold for treachery to his country. Even today Dt. Harold Williams believes in tho good faith of the Bolshevik leaders. ! But iverensky and his colleagues and tho ; Petrograd public held different views. A i Paris paper lately published some sen- ! sational documents showing the influ--1 ence of German bribes on the Bolshe- ; vik revolution. Largo sums wero paid to Lenin and Trotzky. Money was also provided for the publication pf Maximalist leaflets, and £6000 was said to have been placed at the disposal of Maxim Gorky, the Russian novelist, for the jjurpwase. One German financial institution placed £12,600 to Lenin's credit at Copenhagen, promising him another £7000 on his ! arrival in Finland. Stockholm banki ers' letters notified the opening of an ; account in Trotzky's favour. Tho i Imperial Bank of Germany instructed , its representatives in Switzerland that j "monev required for the pacifist propaganda in Russia be paid tlirough Finland to M. Lenin, M. Trotzky, and certain others." Another document showed that the secretary of the German Legation at Berno was instructed to sign the Bolsheviks' requisitions for money. A recent cable from Washington, which reports the receipt of authoritative advices that Lenin is trying to sell Russia into Germany's hands, only supports the cvidcnce that iias come to light regarding his nefarious plottings. The correspondent of *''lho i Times" at Petrograd, on August 6th, | stated that tho Crown Prosecutor had announced that the investigation of the vast German spying system throughout Russia had proved that Lenin was a German agent. The evidence uncovered _ close relationships between the Leninites and the Germans. by which Berlin provided .funds for propaganda amongst the workmen and troops. Tne retreat of the army was duo to German agents. The same correspondent, about the same Lime, reported that a German officer prisoner boasted that it had been arranged that the Russians would run away and tho Germans have a walkover. "Lenin and his crew," he said, "have well earned their pay.''

INDIGNATION IN RUSSIA. If everyone .had his deserts, Lenin, gtifor his gross treachery to the cause of the Allies, which, until ho gained his pre- £cp sent position, was also Russia's cause, -y would be hanged on the nearest lamppost. That fate may yet be his, when the humiliation of Germany's terms of , peace and the weight of Germany's hand begin to be felt acutely by the ; Russian people. Thero is still left to some of them sufficient patriotism for Russia to mako them indignant at y the way in which it has been sold by .y traitors. The as Gorky's v; paper says, is a criminal 6crap or . paper, 'but there is little hopo tn9t it will not be ratified in the end. The Soviets may r ago> i; v but Leninism has so disorganised- ■ the country that anything like an effee- | j tivo resistance is cut of the question. :c Even if ratification is refused on the due date, Germany has only to resume s . | her advance on Petrograd to secure all* ; | she wants. No one in history ever did r | exactly what Lenin, backed by German . | monov, has done. To reduce to hopoless anarchy a country with the area ■; and population of Russia, to destroy completely the military effectiveness of an army counted ?>v the million, is a feat which should ensure Lenin's memory being cxecrated by generations or Russians yet to come.