RUSSIA'S EVIL GENIUS

Taihape Daily Times, 26 November 1918, Page 2

RUSSIA'S EVIL GENIUS

CAREER OF LENIN", *|'.] j UNSCRUPULOUS METHODS, Seldom lias a man's career shown more promise and fallen to greater indignity than that of Lenin, writes Dr. David Soskice (in the London server. I well remember my first meeting with him, some 10 years ago. He was then living as a political exilo in Switzerland, and we met in his house, situated on the very shores oflg* the Lake of Geneva. I was struck his appearance; lie was prematurely bald, red-bearded, and plain; his eyes betrayed fixity of purpose and in- | domitable will. In our discussion wc touched upon the whole range of political and philosophical questions which were then (agitating the mind of Young Russia, and I was impressed by the broadness of his views, the depth of his knowledge and the alertness of his intellect. In his simple, refined manners one detected a man of good birth. But, even then, the flame of insatiable ambition was burning deep in his soul. Already I had heard that intensity of his restrained passage for asserting himself led him at times to resort to the most unscrupulous methods. And very soon he became the

evil genius of Russia. In 1903 he f formed a scheme for the "dictator- i ship of the proletariat'' which Trotzky j at the time hi? bitter opponent, per- ' spicaciously declared to be really a scheme for establishing "Lenin's dictatorship over the proletariat." Lenin split the Social Democrat Party to which ihe and ever «ijtec then all the powers of his intellect, all' the brilliancy of his pen and tongue he has devoted to 'disuniting the pro- j gressive forces struggling for the free- [ dom of Eussia. He ruined the chances of -the revolution of 1905 by inciting the working men to a bitter antiag- ! onisin towards every other class and ' every other democratic party, thus i isolating them and rendering them im- j potent. During the ten years of re- j action preceding the revolution of 1917 j he, living in safe retirement abroad, I guided the policy of his party in such a manner as to prevent the union of ! democratic forces, and always to remain the leader of the extremists. I I saw Lenin again ir. Pctrograd in ■ June, 1917, at the first All-Russian ; Congress of Soviets. When he came , on to the platform and began his j speech I was amazed at the stupendous change which had taken place in him during the fifteen years since our last meeting. His beard and hair were now carefully trimmed, but his face had grown coarse, strikingly hard devoid of iany human feeling. And the expression of fixed, invincible purpose in his eyes had become intensified almost to one of madness. He no longer spoke like a man anxious to' make his convictions clear. His speech was that of a demagogue, pandering to the lowest instincts of the masses, seeking to gain the crowd by means fair or foul. It was obvious, to me that iLenin, with his clear intellect, could ■ not believe in a single item of the mad programme of social reconstruction, which he then developed to his hearers, or in the venomous charges he brought against Provisional Government and all political parties excepting his own. It was not the speech of ia sincere and honest man. And his fiendish disregard 'of human life displayed subsequently during the riots of July, land which won him power in the November coup d'etat, proved clearly that; all feelings of humanity in Lenin's soul had ■ been finally stifled by one dominant passion—the thirst for power