RUSSIA-HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1928, Page 4

RUSSIA-HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

SORE PROFOUND LI'XSOXS. BY FRANCIS LOYELL-OLDH.UI History lias a way of repeating i sell. People sometimes thoughtless! talk as if the hell that is Russia ti day were a unique phenomenon in tli annals of humanity. As a matter c fact, however, a striking paralh could be drawn between the Frew Revolution and the Russian one. For six long years—from 1780 t 1795—France was in the very lowes depths, just as Russia has been froi; the autumn of 1917 down to the pro sent day. The French rose, agains absolutism under Louis XVI. just a the Russians did against the nbsolu tism under Nicholas IT. The Frond were driven to madness by a crush ing burden of taxation, the Russian by defeats in the war, due to oorrup tion in high places. The populace and the soldiers supported the French Revolution just a: the same elements supported the Rushan Revolution. The French mob; Attacked the Bastille of dread mommy just as the Russian mobs attack*d the Fortress of Peter and Paul ol equally sinister memory. Jlirabeau i weak demagogue, was swept aside >y the more turbulent French elenents, just as Kerensky, a weak denagogue. was swept aside by the TToliheviks. The French Commune filled lie tumbrils and kept the guillotine msy just as the Tcheka In Russia has ent to the scaffold and the firing quad some of the noblest and best imong Russian men and women." All he brains and talent and aristocracy if France escaped to foreign counties just as the same elements made heir escape from Russia. The ‘'enures’ ’ of France hoped for foreign inervention to put down the French {evolution, just as for years the Rusian emigres vainly hoped for effective oreign intervention in Russia. Rut there is a vast difference in the wo sets of emigres. The French ristocracy were never cosmopolites, ‘aris was their world. The Russian ristocracy, in the days of its fortune as always different. They were noirious lovers of Paris. Their dazzling ntertainments in the French capital ere famous. To-day—broken, impovrislied. struggling to live—they arc littered all over the world, ft is itimated that there are 2,000,000 •lissians living outside their country ; 10,000 are in Germany, -100.000 in oland, 65,000 in Turkey, 50,000 in ugoslavia, 65,000 in France, 25,000 Finland, and 15,000 in England, lev include not only the Russian and dukes and the other noblemen id women, but officers and soldiers the defeated "White armies, poli•ians, professors, teachers, doctors, ivyers, authors, musicians, artists, gineers. bankers, industrialists—all e foest brains of the unfortunate untry. Some of them were fortute enough to have funds abroad, hers, not so happy, have had to rk. Princesses have become dressikers and milliners, generals and onels are working ns waiters and :i-drivers in Paris. Thousands of •angeVs army are labouring as peasb farmers in the Balkans, waiting the day when their leaders call m to take arms and march into ssia. Toni the Russian national standnt the sad thing is that there is I v one unity among all these hull- j Is thousands of cajniUlo peophi.* j

an undying hatred oi' Bolshevism and all its works. But- they are divided in their allegiances, they are divided in their polities and policies, they are divided in their programme for their fatherland. There are men, like Kerensky, who say the only future for Russia, is to he a Republic. There are others who dream of a restoration of the monarchy. The trouble is that they cannot agree among themselves as to who that monarch shall be. The Grand Duke Nicholan Nicholaitviteh. who at one time was commander-in-, chief of the Russian armies, has his. l adherents. The other wing of the monarchists has crystallised around the Grand Duke Cyril, who has proclaimed himself Emperor of all the Russias. As a results there are two rival camps. The Cyrilists look to Coburg, where Cyril dwells. The other group looks to the Cliateu of Clioignv. near Paris, where Nicholas lives. But the truth is that neither side hopes for an early collapse oi Bolshevism. Theirs is an attitude ot hopeless waiting. They have ceased to expect miracles. They no longer expect other nations to intervene and impose a stable government on Russia. In every place where high-born Russians foregather one hears the same tiling; “Bolshevism is a poison which must work out of the system ol the Russian people. When the peasants grow tired of the tyranny, when the small workers realise they are enslaved by the 600,000 who really constitute the Bolshevik party, they will overthrow it and call in sane leaders.”