The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1920. THE RUSSIAN DRAMA

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 98, 20 January 1920, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1920. THE RUSSIAN DRAMA

In their total effect the latest reports from .Russia picture a state of affairs which contains all the elements of catastrophe. The armies under Kolciiak and Denikin, which last year were pressing forward towards Moscow from the east and from the south, no longer exist. They have been eliminated as com-, pletely as the smaller force with which Yijdexitcii was hoping not long ago to reach and capture Petrograd. As reports stand, the Soviet Government is in command of nearly all the territory formerly included in European and Asiatic .Russia, On the west there is nothing between the Bolshevik armies and the frontiers of the buffer locates. The lteds' are in possession of nearly all Siberia, though the Allies arc' still at Vladivostok, and detachments, some of them, it is said, isolated and cut off, are still holding out at some inland posts. Of the .Russian anti-Bolshevik forces some remnants which arc now contemplating' a stand at Odessa arc apparently all that remain. Koi,- j ciiax, if he is still alive, is to-day a hunted fugitive, as Kekensky was before him, and in spite of some brave words by Denikin, the hope of a determined effort by the Russian people to cast off the Bolshevik tyranny is lower now than it has been since the Bolshcyiki effected their usurpation. There is no suggestion that the collapse of the antiBolshevik forces means that the Russian people arc approaching the establishment of stable Government capable of eliciting general approval and,sup|'ort. It seems; on the contrary, impossible to doubt that the present condition of Russia is one in which all really constructive effort has failed. The sue-, cess of the Keels is th 6 triumph of a terrorism which is spreading want, misery,' and death through Russia and Siberia. It is to be feared that the Daily Mail is within the ni'ark in its statement that the collapse of the White forces means the massacre of thousands, accompanied by hideous tortures. Had they .been endowed with a developed sense of nationhood, the Russian people undoubtedly would long ago have cast off the frightful incubus under which they are crushed. They owe their dreadful plight primarily to their utter want of unity and to the fact that a vast proportion of them arc. hopelessly illiterate and ignorant.

Exactly what dangers to the outside world arc implied in the state of affairs reached in Russia it is impossible to say with confidence. Manifestly, however, the Bolshoviki arc now a power to be reckoned with from the military standpoint, despite the fact that their armies consist largely of unwilling conscripts, and arc not maintained without free recourse to the methods' of terrorism in labour and supplies from the' Russian population. The Bolshevists arc lormidablc also in their enterprising development of a corroding propaganda which is concentrated with forethought on the weakest elements in war-weary nations and on hackward races in Central Asia and the Middle East. Though they are as far from carrying a. genuine message to the masses of Asia as to the people of advanced democracies, suggestive evidence is available that in Asia the Bolsheviki have found a receptive soil for their propaganda. The menace thus offered to India has yet to be measured, but some recent reports imply that in Great Britain this and immediately related clangers are _ regarded as the j worst and most serious raised by the late turn of events in Russia. 80lIshevik activities in Asia, facilitated j not only by ignorance but_ by religious fanaticism, arc certainly giving rise to urgent and perplexing problems. But in addition the possibility is raised that the Red armies, now that the Russian antiBolshevik forces arc eliminated, may turn against Poland and other small States on their west. Completely as half-hearted intervention iii Russia has failed, it is self-evi-dent that if the Allies withhold adequate support from these States they will be inviting the indefinite spread of Bolshevism over Europe. If the tide of Bolshevism cannot bo stemmed on the Polish frontiers and on the frontiers of other States to the north and south, there will be so much the poorer prospects of stemming it further west. Presumably it will hardly be necessary to raise this consideration. The | Allies are bound to safeguard the. I integrity and independence of the 1 nations liberated in the. war, and jt is not to he believed that they wIT!

allow the security of these States to be violated by the terrorists to whom Russia owns her martyrdom. The problems thus raised arc all the more difficult, however, since it is a vital matter to prevent Germany taking advantage of the condition to which lUissia is reduced. Much, of course, depends on the attitude taken up by the Bolsheviki now that they have so completely prevailed for the time being over internal opposition to their tyranny. Current reports regarding the policy they intend to pursue are in conflict, ''and explicit information on the subject is, 'of course, hardly to be expected. Trotsky is said to be planning an early campaign against tlm Poles; on the other band a Moscow wireless message nsjscrts that the Soviet Government is | now proposing to lay aside "the [ weapon of terror, which will only lie renewed if the Entente attempts ! armed intervention." One of today's messages goes so far as lo as- ' sert that the British Cabinet is tending towards peace with the Eolsheviki. It is observed in this coni nection that recent interviews with

Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders indicate a concentration of energies upon economic organisation, but tjm hopes thus raised are at best faint and dubious. It is true that Lenin and other Soviet spokesmen have on various occasions declared their readiness to conclude peace with the Entente. In November, for instance, Lenin informed an American interviewer that the Bolshevik Government was prepared to make peace and pay all debts owing by Russia to France and other Powers. But on the same occasion he spoke with pride and satisfaction of the mischief-making propaganda conducted by his satellites in Asia, and professed to believe (.hat "Denikin, Kolciiak, Yudenitcii, and Co." were merely puppets of the Entente. Adding to this the features of the Communist creed as it has been stated and applied in Russia, it seems impossible that peace with the Bolsheviki could ever be more than a poor and precarious subterfuge. It is possible, however, that such a peace may yet mark one stage in a slow approach by the Russian people to the conditions of democratic government.