The World Significance of the Russian Revolution/Section 1
THE WORLD SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
I. The Policy of Unconcern.
The last phase of the—by no means unforeseen—collapse of the White anti-Bolshevist forces which may be said to have begun with the failure of Yudenitch to take Petrograd in October, 1919, and ended with the capture of Kolchak in the East, the retreat of Denikin in the South, the new threat to Poland and Central Europe in the West and to Persia and India in the East, had, at least, one signal merit; it at last brought us face to face with the reality of the situation—a situation which compels a total re-examination of our attitude and policy towards it, and which makes the once fashionable attitude of complacent indifference, not only ludicrous, but impossible.
It is easy to hear of an outbreak of cholera in some far distant land with becoming composure, and even, in the fullness of one's heart, to send two shillings to the fund for supplying Christian Hottentots with medical and spiritual comforts. In the same spirit of magnanimity it has been easy to watch from afar the conflagration in Russia, and, under the blissful delusion that it is no concern of ours, to mumble with decorous complacency, "Russia must work out her own salvation without interference from outside," or "Hands off Russia, business as usual." It is true that not very long ago Western Europe, engrossed as she was with a little quarrel of her own (purely about a matter of abstract principle—as to whether the world should, or should not, be made safe for Democracy) was yet able to take so strong and "disinterested" an interest in Russia that she vowed that never, under any circumstances, would she leave Russia to her fate. Did we not all with the fervour of Sir Galahads re-echo the noble words of President Wilson? "The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves for ever from an autocratic government and to become the master of their own life."[1] Could words exceed the sonorous fatuity, the profound and cynical inepitude, of such a message at such a time?
And now the much belauded "glorious Revolution" has freed them so satisfactorily from the autocratic Government of the Tzar only to place them under the heel of a far more autocratic government of Alien Internationalists and Jews, who, unlike the Tzar's Government, massacre by the hundred thousand, employ gangs of Chinese torturers and executioners to kill people who have never been tried for any offence, who proscribe Religion by torturing priests, who "free" workmen from "wage-slavery" in order to subject them to a far more besotting slavery without wages or a sufficiency of food, and who deliberately starve to death all who do not join them unquestioningly in their criminal folly. And yet—in this country there are still simpletons who in their innocence think that this régime of forced labour and organized rape, which they are told is the longed for "dictatorship of the proletariat," has given any class, except the clique of Alien adventurers, Revolutionaries and criminals, more freedom!
It was from this very rabble of petty extortioners and psycho-pathic anarchists that the monarchial government protected the peasants, who, war-weary and easily inflamed, were allowed by their instigators and exploiters the initial freedom necessary to do away with all the Russian elements capable of ruling, in order that they (the revolutionary Jews) might take the vacant place and exercise despotic sway.
Is this how men become "masters of their own lives?"
There is something exquisitely humorous in the "Hands off Russia" cry in the face of Lenin's declaration of war against the civilized world. We may, it is true, profess to have no further concern in the affairs of Russia, but Lenin and his international Jewish satellites have no intention of replying in the same lofty spirit "Hands off Western Europe." On the contrary they announced with exultant effrontery their intention of making predatory onslaughts upon Poland, Persia and India. Whether or not our "whole heart is with the Russian people" we shall be forced before long to contribute more than pious phrases towards a solution of the problem; neither can that solution be found in panic-stricken attempts to placate an implacable foe by supplying him with the weapons he needs to continue his war against us.
- ↑ Vide President Wilson's telegram to the American Consul at Moscow, dated March 11th, 1918.