the leadership of an energetic and enlightened man, Pepelayev. It was too late and the administrative personnel too insufficient to avert the catastrophe. The eastern front gave way even before the southern one. Thousands of soldiers and refugees perished in the retreat through the icefields of Siberia in the winter of 1919-20; Kolchak and Pepelayev, who had sought the protection of the Czechoslovaks, were handed over to the Bolsheviks in pursuit with the consent of Gen. Janin, the com- mander of the Allied contingents, and shot; while the Czechs succeeded in extricating themselves and carrying off part of the gold reserve seized during the occupation of Kazan.
Allied Intervention. The action of the Allies in these deplor- able times was contradictory and ineffective. Large quantities of munitions and supplies were furnished to the patriotic armies; sometimes the consignments arrived late or were in damaged condition, while a good deal of pilfering and embezzling occurred, but, on the whole, it is certain that the White armies could not have held the field for a month without this material assistance. Huge sums of money were provided to help the Russian com- manders to tide over their financial difficulties, and it is esti- mated that the British spent about 100,000,000 in these trans- actions. But while so much was done in this direction, the diplomatic and strategic steps taken by the Allies were not only inadequate, but often mischievous. The policy of support for the patriotic movement in Russia lived, as it were, under a cloud: it was disturbed and hampered right through by the opposition of strong currents of opinion in western Europe and in the United States. There was, to begin with, the fear of infection of Allied troops by Bolshevik propaganda a fear justified to some extent by such facts as the conduct of French sailors and soldiers in Sevastopol and in Odessa, where the red flag was actually hoisted by French men-of-war, and certain battalions of the army of occupation showed a marked disin- clination to fight the Reds. This fear that war-weary soldiers of the Entente might not be proof against Communist propaganda led to the undignified scampering out of the Crimea and from the south-west. Even more important was the sympathy shown to the cause of the Bolsheviks by Socialists in France and the Labour party in England, a sympathy in which they were supported by influential organs of the Radical press. This feel- ing manifested itself in a variety of shapes and degrees: some regarded the violence and destruction of the Communist up- heaval as the beginning of a new era in social history character- ized by the overthrow of capitalism; others condoned terror- istic methods as a necessary means of revolutionary action; others again were prepared to admit that these methods were justified by the misrule of the Tsars that had provoked the vengeance of the people; all were inclined to balance the mis- deeds of the Reds by the excesses of the Whites and all objected to intervention in favour of the latter. The reorganization of Russia on Imperial lines was distasteful to many English Con- servatives who were still under the influence of the ideals of Disraeli. Last, but not least, there was a growing number of " realists " who contended that the Bolsheviks had proved their right to rule because they had defeated their opponents in the field and that in these circumstances it would be best to recog- nize facts and to draw from them such advantages as could accrue to business men from the needs of a great country.
The weaknesses and failings of the White organizations in Russia presented most convenient materials for the action of all these elements opposed to Allied intervention. The result was a series of inconsistent steps which contributed to the decline of the cause of reconstruction. In Jan. 1919 came the proposal of the " Big Four " that the belligerents of the civil war should meet in Prinkipo and discuss conditions of pacification a proposal that reflected in a striking manner the peculiar combination of unpractical idealism, superficial knowledge and the yielding to " happy thoughts," which formed one of the characteristics of the Versailles Conference. As the Arcadian perspectives of Prinkipo did not meet with the expected response on the part of the belligerents, schemes acknowledging the standing of the proletarian dictators began to crop up, in connexion with fa-
vourable reports by enterprising American journalists (Mr. Bullitt's mission). At the same time the British War Office countenanced the plan of a raid on Petrograd to be carried out by the victor of Sarikamish, Gen. Yudenich. This enterprise was attempted with insufficient forces (some 15,000 men); it was in the nature of a gamble, but even gamblers do not usually put stakes on opposite sides. In this case, however, the Allied High Commissioner, Gen. Sir Hubert Gough, paid more atten- tion to the aspirations of Esthonians, who were anything but keen to promote Yudenich's success, than to the requirements of the Russians. The climax of that form of intervention was reached when Gen. Cough's chief-of-Staff, Col. Marsh, gave the Russians three-quarters of an hour to form a North-Western Government and to recognize the independence of Esthonia. No wonder the expedition did not prosper.
By Nov. 1919 Mr. Lloyd George had come to the conclusion that it was advisable to renounce intervention and to leave Russia to her fate. Though doing lip service to the unforget- table services of Russia in the war, he submitted that it was not in the interest of Great Britain to assist in strengthening that country. This point of view prevailed definitely in 1920. When Denikin was forced to abandon the North Caucasian territory, British policy steered towards a liquidation of the Russian imbroglio. Wrangel made a last and gallant stand in the Crimea, but he was recognized and supported by the French only, while Great Britain took up an attitude of neutrality favourable to the Moscow dictators.
In the war which Poland waged rather imprudently when the danger of restoration of Imperial Russia had vanished, Great Britain was prepared to surrender Poland to Bolshevik hegemony, and when the tables were turned before Warsaw, thanks to the assistance of the French, British diplomacy employed itself in arranging an armistice between Poles and Bolsheviks which enabled the latter to concentrate their forces against Wrangel and to crush him. This cleared the way to a " complete con- trol " of Russia by the Communists, and enabled the British Premier to give effect to the plans of a resumption of commercial relations with " Sovdepia." There were, indeed, two aspects of Bolshevik policy to be considered the alluring prospect of exploitation of latent and immense natural sources offered by Mr. Krassin, and the uncompromising attitude of the Third International, founded in Moscow for the express purpose of revolutionizing the world by fair means or foul. While France and the United States refused to have anything to do with a " Government of assassins," realistic considerations prevailed with Great Britain and Italy. Communist propaganda was treated as a bogey, and disarmed by certain stipulations as regards India and by vague promises of a general nature. On the other hand the door was open to trade, not indeed on account of " bulging corn bins " in Russia (as Mr. Lloyd George had once suggested), but on account of her need of everything in the way of raw materials and manufactures. The dictatorship of the proletariat was recognized as the de facto Government of Russia, and its leaders encouraged to adopt a policy of renun- ciation of their doctrines in return for retention of power.
THE SOVIET CONSTITUTION
It remains for us to consider the internal evolution of this newly recognized member of European society, and the results achieved by its rule.
Apart from general declarations of principles, the construc- tive policy of the Communists may be said to have been initiated at the fifth Congress of Soviets which met at Moscow in July 1918. It consisted originally of 1,132 members with power to vote, of whom 745 were Bolsheviks, 352 belonged to the Social Revolutionary Left, 14 were Maximalists, 4 Anarchists, 4 Social Democrats of the Internationalist group, 10 were outside any party, 3 belonged to " miscellaneous groups." At a later stage the Social Revolutionaries disappeared in consequence of dis- agreement and risings, and the Congress was supposed to com- prise about 1,000 members. From a formal point of view the most important business transacted by this Congress was the
