EVENTS IN RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 250, 10 July 1918, Page 4

EVENTS IN RUSSIA

To-day's news strengthens the impression that Allied intervention ,in Siberia may coincide with a rising or series of risings, in European Russia against the Germans and the Bolsheviki. As yet the hopes and prospects raised are tentative. The miracle that would be needed to suddenly establish a reliable service of news from Russia has not been But reports as they stand distinctly suggest that great sections of the Russian nation are at last stirring in revolt against the twin evils- of German domination and Bolshevik rule under which it now labours, and that it is not too late for the Allies to intervene with results of far-reaching benefit. It is noteworthy that Lenin, as head of the Bolshevik Government, has lost no_ time in assuring Germany of his indignation at the assassination of her. Ambassador at Moscow and in promising that extraordinary measures will bo taken to apprehend the assassins. His action and its probable results arc not to be measured by ordinary standards. By such standards the murder of an ambassador is an abominable crime, but it is fairly certain that a great majority of the people in Russia for whom Mirbach's end will carry any meaning at all regarded him not as an ambassador, but as the agent of a brutal and unscrupulous tyranny which aims at subjecting Russia to every wrong and degradation that a nation can suffer. It has a considerable practical bearing on the situation also that Lenin and his associates professedly aim at tho destruction of the German Government. Lenin's submission to Berlin is therefore well calculated to fan the embers of revolt in Russia, and tho reported exclusion of all the Moderate Socialists and Social Revolutionaries from tho Soviet Government is very possibly an indication of the general course of events.

Much will now depend upon , the line of action Germany adopts, but unless current news is hopelessly misleading she is faced by a vast and complcx problem which will not become easier of solution as time goes on. It is no doubt in ber power, at tho cost of a comparatively limited military effort, to in''Vt new humiliations on Russia. She might, for instance, occupy Moscow and impose additional demands and exactions. But action on these'lines is more likely to aggravate than to simplify' her csser tial problem. Cn the other hand, an attempt to effectively dominate the country and make a revival impossible would even now entail military effort on an enormous scalesuch an effort as would seriously weaken Germany in h?r Western campaign. These are the essential aspects of a situation upon which it seems likely that much additional light will be cast in the near fu-

turc. Such measures as the Allies arc now. stated to have definitely agreed upon—the dispatch to Siberia of an economic mission, supported by a police force of Allied troops to establish order—may powerfully stimulate the general movement against the Germans and the Bolshcviki, and the assistance of tl.ic Czecho-Slovaks who have gained control of considerable sections of the Siberian railway should contribute appreciably to the same end. _ But it is decidedly the most promising feature of the situation that events are conspiring more and more to throw the Bolshevik extremists and the Germans into a partnership which is a vile offence and provocation to every patriotic RusThe Bolshcviki have long been playing Germany's game, and it is as well that the partnership should be visibly perfected in order that the least discerning of their countrymen may sec where Ihcy stand. The practical possibilities now raised arc measured by the fact that tin; Bolshcviki have never in any sense represented the popular wili They dispersed the first Constituent Assembly with bayonets, and have been careful not to repeat the expel iment of an appeal to the electorate. Mr. A J. Sack, Director ol the Russian Information Bureau in the united States, wrote of them not long ago:

A power which strives to destroy Bussia, can co-operate with the Bolshcviki because they themselves are destroying Russia. The Germans might paraphrase the famous aphorism of Voltaire l>v saving, It the Bolshcviki did not exist it would bo necessary to invent them."' A power which strives for Russia's resurrection cannot co-operato with the Bolshcviki, becauso this co-operation would, at least temporarily, strengthen the Bolsheviki rule, already tottering, while Russia s reconstruction is possible only Ihronsih their disappearance. Russia or tho Bolsheviki-that is the alternative. If the Bolshcviki remain in power another few months, little will be left of Russia, Tf the miracle of Russia's resurrection will occur, • the Bolsheviki will have to disappear. The existence of one means the death of the other.

Even if we knew nothing of the continuous and terrible disintegration _ of Russia under the Bolshevik regime, these contentions would be very largely borne out by current developments. The Allies, and particularly America, have apparently been chary of intervening in Russia against the will of any government existing in that country, oven on sufferance, but it is sufficiently obvious that the ejection of the Bolshcviki is as much a condition of Russia's recovery as the defeat of German schemes.