Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/175

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE ALLIES

TO speak of the conduct of the Allies during the struggle for peace is a very delicate and responsible task, and I am very reluctant to undertake it. But unfortunately the part played by the Allied diplomacy was so significant and so active that it is quite impossible to pass it over in silence. All that took place in Russia after the Revolution cannot be understood without a detailed explanation of the part played by the diplomacy of the Allies. I have already mentioned the disappointment caused in Russia by the cold, strange, and unfriendly attitude of the Allies to the Russian Revolution. The cold reception of the Revolution in England was undoubtedly a severe blow to Anglo-Russian friendship. But, after all, that is unimportant in comparison with what happened afterwards. I recall these initial blunders of the Allies,^[1] since they

↑ Among these minor blunders I may indicate two which especially agitated the democracy. First there was the altogether unjustifiable interference of the British and French authorities in regulating the return of revolutionary exiles and selecting which should be allowed to return and which should not, a process which became known as "infiltration." The second was the insufficiently cautious observance of diplomatic usage by the Allied embassies. For instance, the British Ambassador received deputations from the Cossacks and made speeches to them which were interpreted as an interference in the internal political conflicts of Russia. Under the heading, "Sir Buchanan and the Cossacks," the Novaia Zhizn of October 18, writes: "What sort of leading articles would have appeared in the Times and the Morning Post if the Russian Ambassador in London had received a delegation of Sinn Feiners and expressed his hope that they would rescue the country from a grave crisis? … Why, then, do English usages appear so susceptible of modifications on Russian soil? Why does Sir Buchanan find it possible to make exactly such speeches to the representatives of the Cossacks, one of the factions in the present political conflict in Russia? … Perhaps he wants to act in harmony with that section of the English Press which in the very moment of

[p163-1] Among these minor blunders I may indicate two which especially agitated the democracy. First there was the altogether unjustifiable interference of the British and French authorities in regulating the return of revolutionary exiles and selecting which should be allowed to return and which should not, a process which became known as "infiltration." The second was the insufficiently cautious observance of diplomatic usage by the Allied embassies. For instance, the British Ambassador received deputations from the Cossacks and made speeches to them which were interpreted as an interference in the internal political conflicts of Russia. Under the heading, "Sir Buchanan and the Cossacks," the Novaia Zhizn of October 18, writes: "What sort of leading articles would have appeared in the Times and the Morning Post if the Russian Ambassador in London had received a delegation of Sinn Feiners and expressed his hope that they would rescue the country from a grave crisis? … Why, then, do English usages appear so susceptible of modifications on Russian soil? Why does Sir Buchanan find it possible to make exactly such speeches to the representatives of the Cossacks, one of the factions in the present political conflict in Russia? … Perhaps he wants to act in harmony with that section of the English Press which in the very moment of

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