"Not Quite Sane."
Even so tliere v/ers more questions to ask. "How could the 1 men at the top, Lenin, Trotsky, and. the rest,, Lenin at all events, supposed to have some intelligence and humanity, sit thei'e and let this go on? Were they... devils cr maniacs?" Mr. Keeling had not put the question to himself in this precise way. To those who live under it, Bolshevism, I gather, has become a kind of vast .impersonal fatality, Mr. Keeling thought a little, and'then replied: "I suppose you woulo say they 'were not'. quite sane, according to'our notions. But, as things are, they, can't help themselves,' and couldn't stop ■it if they chose. They have made the monster, and are as helpless in its hands as everyone else." . "Bolshevism," in fact, I summed up, "has become a vested interest for its privileged class, and Lenin and Trotsky obliged to go on feeding the few, starving the many, and shooting the objectors, ■ "That's just about it," said Mr. Keeling. ' _ . I pressed for a little more detail. Lenin -and Trotsky were only two out of hundreds and thousands in the great starving conspiracy, and how could men be found who would, go on day after day administering this diabolical system, with this spectacle of helpless misery under their eyes? • ... ■ "Most of them," said Mr. Keeling, "are quite young, some are notorious had characters, and many are - mere' boys whom we sjiould call hooligans ill London. One boy of seventeen I knew was Commissar with power of life and death over forty villages. He goes about armed with- a Mauser pistol, and one day thrust it in my fixes threatening to shoot moon the 6pot. I know hoiv to deal with him, but Russian peasants do not, and dozens of such, lads, a", very little older, are terrorising whole districts.j' What the Peasants Are Doing/ "What, then, are the peasants doing?" "The peasants have got rid of tlve landlords and sat down and divided the land. They quarrelled a good deal, but, on the' whole, did it quite sensibly, each taking a bit of the best land, and then Another bit of the worse, and so on, and in the same way arranging the forest rights between thorn. But the trouble is that while there is plenty of land in one village there is flothing like enough in another, so the distribution is very uneciual, and there is great discontent in consequences. This gets worse, because, instead of having the splendid time they hoped for, they find there is nothing to buy. and thev'are always being worried and threatened by the Bolsheviks. ihey iiave no tea —only dried leaves for a sub-stitute-no vodka and.no tobacco, rhey feel the loss of tobacco especially, and seemed to walk about in a dazed condition. like mon used to drugs who have ha<l suddenly to go without.- Peasants have implored me to give them tobacco, and will do almost anything for you for one pipe-full." - ' "But are they doing any work? "Onlv just as much <is they must kcqp themselves alive, and many of tliein are likelv to live all this year on last year s harvest, and what is being hoarded, the next harvest is likely to be very ■ bad, nnil then the famine which is now in the towns will begin to spread to the country. and ono dare not thmk what will happen then." , ■ ••But don't the Soviets seo this Don t at least the people at Moscow, Lenin and Trotsky, and the higher Soviet, see what must happen?" :
"It is Terrible to Live In Russia." "llv own belief is that they know tho name is up. but don't know how to get out of it or what to do. Tho slightest. Btan of weakening and they nro done. So thev simply go ahead, working their machine round mid round, and grinding out everybody they think dangerous. Lvon advanced Socialists are beginning w sneak of tho Tsardom as I he "good old times.' No one is safe. It used to bo thought that they didn't shoot Jews, for so many of them are Jews themselves. But two acquaintances of_ mine, both Jews, were shot a short time before I came awav. and they had dono nothing except try a little private trading. It is terrible to live in Russia in these times. As you walk about Petrograd vou never see anyone . laugh or smile. Men and women are like shadows, and little children so wasted that they seem to "be all eyes. And all the time poople i are disappearing, and nobody knows
what becomes of them. Five years ago I'etrograd had a population of 2,400,000. Now thero are scarcely 700,000." "Well, then, Mr. Keeling," I said, fin■Tlly. "what do you want ®e to Bay about
. ' I want you first to say that. this mtcrviow is not copyright, and that anyone may take the whole of it and reprint it and distribute it in any way he likes. I have 110 personal animosity I against the Bolshoviki. They treated mo as well as they could, and I have nothing to complain of on my own accuunt. But I am a working man and a trade unionist, and I don't like to hear British working men talking as if Bolshevism wore a great and splendid experiment, to be copied in other countries, or as if they were helping the working people in Russia by saying 'No' to ail proposals sot before the Allies for dealing with it. I want to convince them that it is not a question of politics or theory at all, but just a question of humanity, in which wo Have got to do our duty and help, I have my own ideas of what ought to bo done, but at this moment I want most to got into people's mipds that thora is enormous sufferiiMr and misery which we ought to stop, if we can; And I want to-say also that it -won't do Socialism any good to mix it, up -with Bolshevism, or lo make people think that if Socialism is tried, it must end in wholesale murder and starving millions of people lo death. But this is what will happen if working people confuse Socialism with Bolshevism, and suppose that a Socialist must support the Bolsheviki. The British working people wouldn't stand -Bolshevism for one day themselves, and the.v must take care that they are not helping to force it on (he Russian working people."
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 177, 22 April 1919, Page 5
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1,085"Not Quite Sane." Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 177, 22 April 1919, Page 5
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