can ever defeat another movement which at any rate knows its own mind and allows of no compromise.
A definite positive movement alone can defeat another definite movement. Even the Russian peasants understand this better than the Allied statesmen and the politicians. When Denikin was making his rapid advance on Moscow the enthusiasm of the peasants of the liberated territories was unbounded. They marched out in procession to greet their deliverers, bearing at their head their Holy Eikons and the portrait of the Tzar. Imagine their perplexed chagrin when the astute political officers in Denikin's retinue told them to bury their baubles, carefully explaining that their "little quarrel with the Bolshies" had nothing to do with the Tzar, in fact they really agreed with them about the Tzar; they had not yet had time to make up their minds as to exactly what it was they did want to subtsitute for the Bolshevik Show. Anyhow they would see when they got to Moscow, and everyone must trust them because they were thoroughly "democratic." No one could dispute that, because they said so themselves. Are you surprised that the peasants went away sadly shaking their heads and saying, "We thought you had come to save us from the Bolsheviks, if you don't want Bolsheviks obviously you must have a Tzar, but now we see you are only another brand of Bolshevik after all?"
The so-called "policy" of the "Whites" and "anti-Bolsheviks" was very characteristically set forth in a series of articles by Mr. Paul Dukes in the Times, in October and November, 1919.[1]
Mr. Dukes explained very clearly and explicitly that
- ↑ See especially concluding article of Nov. 12th.
