In the good old days, when the alliance with Russia was regarded as the salvation of France, Romanoffs frequently radiated from Deauville to other Norman watering-places. The honor of a visit from a Russian royal personage was commemorated in the favorite French fashion by municipalities where Socialists did not predominate. So at Houlgate, my summer home, the street leading to the Grand Hôtel used to be the Rue Marie Feodorovna. In the summer of 1917 we found that the name had been changed to Rue Prince Lvoff. Before the end of the summer it became Rue Kerensky in honor of the investigator of Brusiloff’s last offensive. That name, of course, was no longer possible in 1918. In the first summer of the victory, after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, events dictated Rue de l’Amiral Kolchak. It was replaced by Rue Wrangel, and then the street was taken away from Russia altogether!

I am not telling this as a funny story, but because it illustrates the tragedy of France torn from her moorings, aware of her inability to ride the storm alone on the high seas of recharted Europe, not knowing which way to turn, and instinctively cherishing the hope that the bond with Russia would not be definitely broken. Great Britain and the United States do not need alliances with other powers as the essential condition of national existence. Italy sees the door wide open to return to the Germanic alliance. But the Russian revolution confronted France with a problem that victory over Germany could not solve. Only with this fact constantly in mind can we discuss intelligently the internal evolution and foreign policy of Russia under the Soviets. For all that has happened in Russia since the overthrow of the Czarist Government is inextricably bound up with the attitude of the victors in the World War toward Russia. In the great volume of books and articles on the experiment with Communism one finds an almost universal failure to recognize this fact. Partisans pro and contra have given us pictures of Soviet Russia that are accurate enough impressions of confusion and anarchy, but that are lacking when the attempt is made to explain how and why these things have happened.

The Russian revolution, occurring at any other time than in the midst of a war affecting the interests of all nations, would have been regarded sympathetically, and its excesses would have been deemed inevitable. We should have awaited patiently the outcome, and it is doubtful whether any country would have shown active hostility to it or have been tempted to intervene. But, coming when it did, in western Europe and America the sole thought was to prevent the revolution from playing into the hands of Germany. Russia’s continued military coöperation was believed to be essential to victory; and, except for Germany’s stupidity in provoking the United States, the Entente Powers could not have won the war without Russia. Consequently, Entente diplomacy had only one thought, to keep the Russians in the fighting-line. It was natural, then, that the logical internal evolution of the movement was greeted with dismay. Public opinion in Allied countries read into the events of 1917 and 1918 a deliberate betrayal of the common cause, cleverly engineered by a common enemy, with the result that the Russians very soon came to be considered and treated as enemies.

Forgetting the sacrifices the Russians had made, the Allied and Associated Powers, without declaration of war, blockaded Russia, invaded Russia, supported counter-revolutionary movements, used against Russia the poison gas of propaganda, yielded to the temptation of taking advantage of Russia’s temporary helplessness to advance their own economic and political interests, and ignored Russia in all the treaties and agreements their victory gave them the power to make.

Of the leaders of the revolution, in its incipiency, we demanded the impossible. We insisted that they force upon the Russian people the continuance of the policies of the Czarist Government, policies which it had been the purpose of the revolution to discredit and destroy! None can study the relations of Russia with the Entente Powers during 1917, and not come to the conclusion that the Lvoff and Kerensky Governments were discredited and overthrown because they tried to keep Russia in the war without having secured from Russia’s allies a restatement of war aims. The revolution was anti-imperialist, and those who led it could keep the confidence of the people only by assuring them that the enemies of Germany were fighting for the destruction of imperialism, for which Germany stood. Germany was the enemy of civilization because she worshiped brute force as her god and was waging an unholy war to dominate the world and to force other peoples into subjection to her people, so that they might be exploited for the benefit of German industry. Czarist Russia, as had been proved by the secret treaties, had led the Russian people into a war, under false pretenses, for the same object as those that Germany hoped to attain.

Revolutionary Russia renounced all the loot of the secret treaties. She no longer wanted Constantinople and other portions of the Ottoman Empire. She was willing to withdraw from Persia and consent to the emancipation of Poland. Let Great Britain and France and Italy give the Russian people solemn assurances that they also renounce their shares of the hoped-for loot, and promise that they would apply the principle of self-determination to peoples subject to them, and the war would be continued. This proposal was refused. The refusal gave the Bolshevists their chance to get control of the revolutionary Government.

The Soviet régime would probably have followed the lot of all extremist groups and been drowned in its own bloodshed had it not been for the support given by the Entente Powers to various counter-revolutionary movements and to the invasion of Russia at various points by Entente armies. The Russians came to believe that the rest of the world was conspiring to destroy them. They rallied around Lenin and Trotzky, moved by the instinct of every people to repel the invader. French, British, Italians, Greeks, Americans, Japanese thus voluntarily took their place with Germans as enemies of Russians. Hundreds of thousands in every part of the country would have welcomed the counter-revolutionary movements and have stuck by them until the Bolshevists were overthrown had they not become convinced that outside nations were supporting the counter-revolutionists, not for Russia’s sake, but to feather their own nests. All that happened in 1918, 1919, and 1920 tended to confirm this impression. We accuse the Russians of having deserted the common cause during the war. The Russians accuse us of having involved them in a war, in which their losses were greater than those of any other belligerent, by territorial bribes to the old Czarist Government, and then, when regenerated Russia spoke for an idealistic peace, of having turned against them.

In dealing with the internal evolution and foreign policy of Russia during the years following the World War, we must get away from the belief that Boshevism and Russia are synonymous and from the comfortable feeling that Russia’s ills and the international troubles those ills have created for us, are due to the attempt of the Communists to set up in Russia a Soviet form of government and to impose their doctrines upon the rest of the world. This is only one factor, and not the most important, in the great problem of Russia’s internal and international relations. The difficulties arose before the Communists got control of the Government. They continued during the period of the Communists’ attempt to demonstrate the practicability of their doctrines. They remain, now that Communism has proved a failure in a country where it had a better chance of success than in any other great nation.8

It is fruitless to maintain, as some zealots do, that Communism was not given a fair chance and that its failure is due to the hostility of the world. The complete disintegration of society in Russia, when the incentive of reward for production was removed, demonstrates the visionary character of the experiment. By successive modifications of some of their ideas and the abandonment of others, the leaders of the movement themselves have confessed that they were unable to make a go of their communistic theories. Honest foreign investigators, no matter how prejudiced they were when they went, did not need much time to be convinced that the theories did not work out in practice. After six years, the Russian people, from Lenin down to the humblest peasant, know that the Government does not function when private and personal ownership of the machinery of production is not acknowledged and safeguarded. Brains and arms alike are used only when their possessors know that their efforts bring them some tangible reward. There will be no surplus over the day’s needs unless there is an assured title to that surplus. And this means that no usufruct, for an individual or a community, is ever created unless definite and inviolate ownership has induced the creation.

Soviet theories temporarily destroyed capital or drove it to cover. But as soon as it was seen that capital was essential to keep the country going, the laws passed in the first enthusiasm were not enforced, and were modified and repealed as quickly as could be done without losing face. Trading was resumed, and the Government began to give the necessary assurances to its own people first, and then to nationals of foreign countries, that the right to amass and transfer possessions would no longer be denied.

That the workmen could be a privileged class in the community, even though it was upon them that the revolution, begun and maintained in the cities, depended, was soon proved to be a fallacy. Food came from the country; and the peasants could not be forced to raise more than enough for their own needs unless they got something for their pains. Once the confiscated stocks gave out, the workmen in the cities discovered that they would have to produce what could be given in exchange for food or they would starve. The artificial limits set by law on the working day could no longer be maintained. First of all, an eight-hour day was established, soon followed by a six-hour day; wages were constantly raised; piece-work was prohibited; overtime was not allowed; and unskilled laborers were given the same pay as skilled workmen. Four years of this régime convinced the labor leaders that productive wealth could not be created by legal measures. To get good workmen back to the factories and to make possible the payment of wages that would buy food, virtually all the dreams of the early days were abandoned. Work on Saturday afternoons was restored, as well as piece-work and overtime. The pendulum has swung the other way. The labor day is now from ten to fourteen hours in most industries. Nearly fifty thousand workmen in the “Gozma,” a state factory, found themselves compelled to work sixteen hours; and, when they tried to leave, they were told that they were militarized, and were kept at work under threat of court martial with capital punishment.

Bolshevist propaganda abroad was a failure from the beginning. It was evident that a Government which could not succeed in establishing the communistic theory in its own country had nothing to offer to the rest of the world. There never would have been even a Bolshevist scare if other Governments had not professed to take seriously the sending out of emissaries from Moscow to unite the workers of the world in a common movement against capitalism. Had the Bolshevist movement been ignored it would never have made the stir it did. The horrible example of conditions in Russia was sufficient counter-propaganda. The saving grace of common sense has been enough to checkmate any attempts to foment a world revolution. Bolshevist propaganda fell on deaf ears, for it could not give a plausible answer to the argument, “Physician, heal thyself!”

So much for Bolshevism in its social aspect. Although the Moscow Soviet still controls, more strongly than ever, the destinies of Russia, Bolshevism has passed into history.

Had the present rulers of Russia been loyal to their own economic doctrines, they would have long ago disappeared. But they are politicians first, and have had in mind from the beginning the aim of politicians, which is to govern in such a way as to remain in power. It must be confessed that their success in subordinating doctrines to realities, their knowledge of controlling the people, and the growth of their qualities as statesmen have enabled them to prevent the political disintegration of Russia against great odds. The errors of their colleagues of Entente countries and the United States have helped them over rough places. Most important of all, the outlawing of Russia and the disregard of her sovereign rights and world interests by other nations have given Lenin and his associates the impulsion to defend Russia as their country against the contemptuous rapacity of other nations. Their activities in this direction won the approval of all Russians, and gradually they began to see that their foreign policy was their best card in appealing for popular support. They modified, and then abandoned, their early theories of international relations as cleverly as they abandoned their early theories of internal government.

This curious fact is not so curious after all when we consider that the Russians are human beings, ignorant perhaps, but not at all unintelligent, and that their reactions to the treatment their country has received are what ours would be, were we in their place. The instinct of self-preservation showed them the fallacy of the Bolshevist economic theories. Our blockade and non-intercourse policy helped to open their eyes to social and economic laws. Similarly, the Entente policy of grab, of ignoring Russian interests, of punishing Germany, of tolerating Poland’s inordinate territorial ambitions, taught the Soviet leaders the absurdity of playing a lone hand at internationalism in a world where none would follow their example but simply where all would use their profession of disinterestedness to Russia’s disadvantage. Signor Nitti knew what he was talking about when he said:

Russian hatred is growing more and more bitter towards those who, during the war, drove her to the greatest sacrifices, but, when she was crushed by force, took advantage of her fall, the fall of a friendly people, to attempt to restore the most brutal absolutism by reactionary armies, and then tried to impose a system of capitulations, in order to obtain the monopoly of her raw materials and hidden resources. In the future, even if Bolshevism has to sustain the grave charge of having reduced Russia to extreme misery by its experiments in Communism, it will have the glory of having defended the liberty of the Russian people, and of having renounced every offer of credit rather than forfeit or curtail Russian liberty in the face of the foreigner.

The great economist who, as Italy’s premier, was one of the Big Three during the eventful year after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles saw underneath the surface and was able to realize that the manner in which the Entente Powers were abusing their victory over Germany was welding the Russian people together once more into a powerful and united nation, convinced that its salvation lay in rallying round the Soviet Government, arms in hand. Overboard went the absurd theory of an army in which all the soldiers had an equal part in the discipline and the determination of policy and strategy!

In 1918 the Moscow Soviet emphasized the right of self-determination and encouraged the non-Russian peoples of the empire to establish their independence on the theory that the new world was going to consist of small nations, in which all peoples would have equal opportunities, based on inherent rights, and not on the strength of their armies. With what result? The French and British came into the Baltic states, the French into Poland, and French and Greeks into Ukrainia, the British into the Caucasus and northern Persia, and the Japanese into Siberia. The Entente Powers, joined by the United States, seized Archangel, aided the reactionaries in the Crimea, and took over the Transsiberian Railway as a military line for operations against Moscow. Everywhere they went these precious Allies declared that they were only trying to deliver Russia from Germany. After Germany was beaten they said they were remaining in order to restore order. But secretly they were all the time trying to grab oil and coal and copper and wheat and timber, and to organize the liberated peoples against Russia. While this was going on, the Peace Conference was held at Paris, and it was seen that none of the victors had any idea of applying the principle of self-determination except against the vanquished and Russia. The whole Paris settlement, including the League of Nations, read like a scheme to eliminate Russia equally with Germany from the list of great powers. Followed the continuation conferences in Europe and the Washington Conference. Surely no European nation had greater interest than Russia in the Near East and the Far East. Surely Russia was the European nation most vitally interested in the creation of Poland, Greater Rumania, the zone of the Straits, and the future of China; was equally interested with Great Britain in the future of Persia; and had as vital rights in the Pacific naval armaments as Japan, the United States, and Great Britain. And could the League of Nations be regarded as an honest effort to ameliorate international conditions without providing a permanent place for Russia on its Council?

The thesis adopted by the victors was that the Soviet Government did not represent the Russian people. But was it less representative than the old Czarist Government, to which France and Great Britain had allied themselves on equal terms? Was Lenin less entitled to speak for Russia than a member of the British Cabinet for India? Were the Poles more entitled to independence than the Irish? By what right did the Entente Powers presume to give Bessarabia to Rumania? Why were British armies in the Caucasus and northern Persia?

Wholly aside from its internal economic experiment, which was proving a lamentable failure, the Moscow Government realized that Russia was doomed to a worse fate than that of the conquered nations unless these schemes were checkmated. Theories of international relations had to be thrown overboard. Self-determination could not be used as a cloak by the enemies of Russia for undermining the Russian Empire while they refused to entertain self-determination as a principle to be applied within their own empires.

Germany, powerless, had to submit to the dictates of the victors. Russia did not. Warding off this danger, of course, meant the abandonment of the ideals preached in 1917 and 1918. It meant the return of militarism, of centralization of power in Moscow, and probably of the old Czarist Imperialism. There was no choice, however. The leaders of the Soviets soon became autocrats, militarists, imperialists. As in their internal affairs, they continued to preach cautiously the original doctrine, but in practice they fought fire with fire. And they began to see that the new Russia, internally and internationally, could not exist with policies radically different from those of the old Russia unless the other nations changed at the same time.

The first move was to get rid of the counter-revolutionary insurrections. Successively Yudenitch, Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel were utterly defeated. The next move was to bring back under the central authority of Moscow the outlying provinces whose independence was being used as a means of stealing Russia’s natural wealth and organizing counter-revolutionary movements. The Soviet form of government was successfully established in Ukrainia, the Caucasus states, including Armenia, the central Asiatic emirates, and throughout Siberia. This took several years, but, with the exception of Poland, Bessarabia, and the Baltic states, it was accomplished before the end of 1922 and entailed the evacuation of Siberia by the Japanese and of the Caucasus by the British. The ill fated Archangel expedition was allowed to freeze itself out.

Along with this astoundingly successful policy of reunifying Russia, vigorous diplomatic campaigns were carried on, the first to bring within the orbit of Russian influence the Asiatic neighbors, alliance with whom was necessary to prevent a recurrence of the effort to destroy the empire; and the second to reëstablish peace with European neighbors and secure recognition from the larger powers, trade with whom was necessary for the revival of Russian prosperity. The two campaigns were carried on simultaneously, and the Asiatic objectives were skilfully used to bring about the European ones.

Soviet Russia has not yet succeeded in coming to an understanding with China, because of the continuance of civil war in that country. But the policy of Moscow since the Washington Conference leaves no room for doubt as to the complete change from the attitude of 1918, when Russia gave up voluntarily all the rights and ambitions of the czarist régime. Now that the Russians are back in Vladivostok and have resumed through service on the Transsiberian Railway, they have once more taken over the military control of Mongolia and are beginning to insist on their rights in Northern Manchuria. It sounds like old times to read Comrade Joffe’s answer to the protest of Peking:

There is none who could prove or so much as sincerely believe that Russia pursues any selfish or imperialistic interests whatsoever in this Mongolian question. The stationing of our troops there concerns Chinese interests no less than Russian; and while, in the name of my people, I reject energetically the demand for their withdrawal from Urga, the only reason is that I am totally convinced that not only would this be impossible at present from the point of view of Russian interests, but that it would be impossible also from the point of view of real Chinese interests, rightly understood, let alone those of the good people of Mongolia.

No Czarist minister at his prime, no present-day Curzon or Poincaré could have done better!

When the Bolshevists announced in the early part of 1918 their intention of withdrawing from countries where Russia had no business to be, Persia was the nation to whom an amende honorable was most due. Against no people had Czarist Russia sinned more than against the Persians. In 1907 Petrograd had virtually partitioned Persia with London, and by the secret treaty of 1915, in return for Constantinople, the Czarist ministers agreed to let Great Britain have the middle zone, which was to be maintained as neutral when the Russians occupied the north and the British the south.

But Lenin and his associates soon discovered that their renunciation of a sphere of influence in Persia, just as their recognizing the independence of the Caucasus states, did not mean freedom for the natives. The Germans, and then the British, occupied the Caucasus. When the Russians withdrew from northern Persia, the British accepted this as a sign of weakness and not as the initiation of a new policy. British troops overran northern Persia, attempted to invade the Transcaspian province and used the Persian port of Enzeli on the Caspian Sea as a base of naval and military operations against Moscow. Then, after having prevented the Persian delegation at the Peace Conference from getting a hearing, the British intimidated the Teheran Government into signing an agreement on August 9, 1919, placing Persia completely in the power of Great Britain.

As soon as they had defeated the counter-revolutionary movements, the Bolshevists forced the British to evacuate the Caucasus and aided the Persians to expel the British from northern Persia. The treaty with the British had not been ratified by the Persian Parliament. A new treaty was concluded in 1921, this time with Moscow, which reëstablished Persia as an independent nation, master of its own destinies.

British military weakness also enabled the Soviet leaders to encourage Afghanistan to throw off the veiled British protectorate that had existed for several decades. The Russo-Afghan treaty signed at Moscow on October 16, 1920, was a success the Czarist Government had never been able to attain. After the collapse of the Kolchak insurrection and the restoration of Russian authority in Siberia the British Government was compelled to recognize the independence of both Persia and Afghanistan and to conclude treaties with these two countries on terms as liberal as those granted by Russia. Consequently the Persians were able to turn again to the United States in 1922 for a financial commission, and the Afghans established legations at European capitals and Washington.

Russia was freed of the constant menace of counter-revolutionary movements originating in Persia and Afghanistan. On the other hand, her new diplomatic position at Teheran and Kabul enabled her to bargain with Great Britain. In return for the renewal of economic intercourse, the Moscow Soviet promised the British to refrain from nationalist propaganda against them in India and Mesopotamia.

This Anglo-Russian bargain shows how far from their original ideals the Soviet leaders had traveled. The rights of peoples to determine their own destinies had been the slogan of Bolshevist propaganda abroad. It was to be the irresistible weapon to strike down capitalistic imperialism in Asia. But Lenin, when he found that Russia simply had to trade with England, played the game of world politics in the old way. When the British lifted the embargo against trade with Russia, the Russians were ready to stop the preaching, to the detriment of the British Government, of their doctrines that were to emancipate a world in slavery to capitalism!

The most signal—and cynical—success of the Bolshevists in forsaking internationalism for nationalism has been the triumphant reëntry of Russia as a factor in Near Eastern affairs. We have seen elsewhere how the Entente Powers, after ignoring Russia in drawing up the treaties that were to make the new map of Europe, believed that it was in their power to settle the devolution of the Ottoman Empire. Rid, as they thought, of the embarrassment of Russian claims to Constantinople and to a sphere of influence in Asia Minor, they acted on the assumption that the interests of three powers alone needed to be considered when, at San Remo, they decided upon the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. Even if they had preserved a united front, it would have been difficult to ignore Russia. With the divergence of interests among them, the San Remo compromise, leaving out Russia, was as absurd as it was futile.

This was soon discovered. The Turkish Nationalists at Angora naturally appealed to Moscow for aid to prevent the dismemberment of their country. A Russo-Turkish treaty was concluded in the autumn of 1920, which was revised and strengthened in 1921 and 1922. Artillery, airplanes, motor-lorries, gasoline, timber, and ammunition were given to the Angora Government, which enabled Mustafa Kemal Pasha to drive the French out of Cilicia and to check the advance of the Greeks in Asia Minor. The Nationalists were thus enabled to become much stronger than the intrigues of France and Italy had planned that they should become. Owing to Russian support, the Turks at the Lausanne Conference at the end of 1922 were defiant and refused to accept a modification of the Treaty of Sèvres which would safeguard Entente economic interests in the Ottoman Empire.

Foreign Minister Tchitcherin, who represented Russia at Lausanne, was denied a seat at the peace table. The Entente Powers went to the point of declaring that the future of the Straits was not Russia’s business. This policy had unexpected results. Tchitcherin retaliated against the attempt to exclude Russia by encouraging the Turks to refuse the modified terms and the successive concessions of the Entente delegates. Then he informed the Entente Powers that Russia’s consent was essential if the new treaty was to be any more successful than the Treaty of Sèvres had been.

Russian influence over the Turks was maintained, however, at the price of giving up the one idealistic phase, the one redeeming feature, in Russia’s traditional policy in the Near Eastern question. In the nineteenth century Russia had defended the Christians of Turkey and the Balkans, most of them of her own faith, against Mohammedan oppression, and had been instrumental in securing the liberation, against the wishes of the other Powers, of millions of Christians from the Ottoman yoke. This glorious tradition was sacrificed in the alliance of the Moscow Soviet with the Angora Nationalists. Talking recently with a high-minded Russian, I deplored this. His answer was instructive.

“Your reproach amazes me,” said my Russian friend. “In the face of what has happened since the World War, I do not see how you have the audacity to make it. The Moscow Government does not pretend to have any interest in Christianity. You other nations not only profess to be Christian, but you reproach us for the anti-religious character of the Bolshevist movement. But our relations with Angora are inspired by the justifiable instinct of national self-preservation, and we do not pretend to be Christians any longer. You have tumbled over yourselves to placate the Turks, to make concessions to them of every kind, and to get into their good graces. You have condoned the Armenian and Greek massacres, and you have abandoned to the mercy of the Turks your fellow-Christians, who are also your allies, and whom you encouraged to provoke the Turks. You began by promising Christians emancipation, and you have ended by inviting the Turks to join your League of Nations. Your motive for all this—what is it? Simply to fill your pocketbooks.”

With European countries and the United States, Soviet Russia has not been so successful as with Asiatic countries. It is true that in the Paris treaties we struck at the principle of the inviolability of private property, and that by our consent to the actions of the French in the Ruhr we have seemingly approved the Communist theory that the property of individuals belongs to the state. It is true that in the past we have repudiated national obligations and that at the present time there are international debts unpaid and unfunded greater than those that Russia owes abroad. Therefore, we might have forgiven Russia for doing as we have done. But we cannot forgive her for preaching subversive doctrines. A government can practise whatever it pleases. But it must not preach that what it practises is right! This is the fundamental principle of international relations that ostracizes Soviet Russia. Other nations cannot be blamed for taking this attitude. Good manners are the sine qua non of harmonious intercourse. We are right in insisting upon a radical change in Russia’s manners before we take her back into our good society. How the philosophy of form does rule and regulate us!

The Bolshevists made no progress during six years with the United States. The Wilson administration declared that the Moscow Soviet did not represent Russia and could not be recognized in any way because its doctrines and practices were incompatible with those of civilized nations. Bolshevist emissaries were deported. The matter ended there. It has been easy for the United States under the Harding administration to maintain the same policy. We have taken a generous humanitarian interest in feeding the Russian people, but we do not feel impelled to have anything to do with Lenin and his associates. We can wait years longer, maintaining rigidly the policy of non-intercourse, because we do not have important economic and political interests at stake.

With the Entente Powers the situation is different. They have been called upon, separately and collectively, to decide their attitude toward the Moscow Soviet. France, Italy, and Great Britain, being in Europe and a part of Europe, and Japan, being in Asia and a part of Asia, have not been able to maintain the fiction that the Moscow Soviet is not the Russian Government. They know it is. Ostracizing Russia cuts off their goods from vast markets. Ignoring Russia, as we have seen above, makes uncertain of fulfilment, if not invalid, the results of all diplomatic negotiations among themselves and with the neighbors of Russia.

The British, admirable realists in international politics, were first to grasp the cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the-face danger of keeping Russia in Coventry. British trade was suffering, and the Russians were in a position, which was daily growing stronger, to stir things up unpleasantly against the British in India and Mesopotamia. A Soviet delegation was received in London, and as soon as the British saw that Kolchak had followed the fate of Yudenitch and Denikin they signed a trade agreement and brought into court a test case to convince the Bolshevists that what they exported would not be confiscated for claims against the former Government. The British began to trade with Russia, and British and Russians mutually promised to abstain from propaganda against one another.

Italy and smaller countries soon followed suit. France made the mistake of backing Baron Wrangel, still one more will-o’-the-wisp, and the question of the enormous debt of the Czarist régime, most of it widely distributed among French peasants, made it impossible for the French Government to renew relations with Russia. On the other hand, France’s persistence in backing counter-revolutionary movements, her support of Poland, her effort to control the Little Entente, her commercial treaty with Finland, her rôle at the Genoa Conference, and her treatment of Germany combined to increase the bitterness between the closely allied nations of pre-war days. In the summer of 1922 France began to make overtures to Moscow; but these did not go far. The invasion of the Ruhr, following upon the Lausanne Conference, widened the breach.

The first of the post-war conferences to which Russia was invited was that of Genoa in the spring of 1922. At the very beginning of the conference, however, France insisted that Russia, as the price of political recognition, accept conditions that no delegates, having the interest either of their country or political party at heart, could have accepted. The opening sessions of the Genoa Conference were so arranged as to give the Russian delegates the suspicion that the conference was intending to discredit them. They resented the effort to make them appear, as the Germans had been made to appear at Versailles, as criminals and debtors. The financial proposals of the Entente Powers they believed would reduce Russia to economic servitude, and they refused to accept them.

The Russians at Genoa were confronted with the same unilateral application of a principle as had confronted the Germans at Versailles. They were told that the return of Russia into the family of nations was dependent upon the recognition of the pre-war debt of Russia, upon repayment of the sums borrowed by the Russian Government from the Allies during the war, and upon the settlement of claims of foreigners for property nationalized by the Soviet. The Russians answered that they would be willing to do this if the Entente Powers would recognize Russia’s equal right to participate in all the pecuniary and other advantages of their victory, which these sums had been spent to obtain. As for the claims of foreigners against the Soviet, Russia would pay these if the Allies would pay for the confiscation of money and the damages done by the anti-Soviet generals, Kolchak, Denikin, and Wrangel, who had been armed by the Allies against Russia. The Russian claims for damages were far greater than those presented by the Entente Powers.

Soviet counter-claims were indignantly rejected. The Entente Powers had no idea of admitting reciprocity, and insisted that Russia would have to pay. Her claims against the Entente Powers were thrown out of court.

For several months Russia had been negotiating a treaty with Germany, with whom there were claims on both sides to be adjusted. Since Germany had been compelled by the Treaty of Versailles to renounce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, there had been no new document to take its place. Before Russians and Germans arrived at Genoa, the treaty had not taken final form. But when the representatives of the two nations saw that the Entente Powers intended to settle their affairs for them by decisions secretly taken in pre-conference meetings from which they were excluded, they withdrew to Rapallo, where the treaty was signed. This disturbing news for the Entente Powers was announced on Easter Sunday. The Russo-German treaty provided for mutual waiving of war claims, with the stipulation that Russia should make no agreement with a third power except on similar terms, and for the resumption of full diplomatic relations.

The Entente statesmen protested vigorously against the conclusion of a direct agreement of this character both to Dr. Rathenau and M. Tchitcherin, asserting that it anticipated and prejudiced the general principle of settlement with Russia, in which Germany’s interests were the same as those of the other nations. The Germans were accused of bad faith and the Russians of duplicity. Loudest in denunciation were Mr. Lloyd George and M. Barthou. When Germans and Russians both answered that the negotiations had begun long before the Genoa Conference, but that anyway, even if they had not, the two delegations, excluded from the secret conferences of the preceding fortnight, had only followed the example given them by the British and French delegations, there was a wrathful outburst.

The assumption was that Great Britain and France had the right to do what they denied to Germany and Russia. Germany was a defeated nation. Russia was an outlaw nation. They should not forget their complete dependence upon the Entente Powers. There was truth in this contention in so far as Germany was concerned. Germany was at the mercy of the Entente Powers for the time being. But Russia was not at their mercy, and the Russian delegates did not see why any such illusion should be entertained by the Entente statesmen. When they demanded reciprocity in adjusting claims for damages and obligations contracted during the war, it did not occur to them that they were “insolent,” as Mr. Lloyd George put it, or “impudent,” as M. Barthou said. The only positive result of the Genoa conference was the Russo-German treaty. Tchitcherin and his colleagues rejected the conditions of the Entente Powers and left Genoa, declaring that they would never sign any agreement except on the basis of reciprocity in the fullest sense of the word. They did not intend to barter Russia’s economic independence for political recognition.

The year following the Genoa Conference was one of rebuffs and disillusion for Russia in her attempt to secure recognition from the Entente Powers and the United States. Up to the Genoa Conference it had seemed as if the Moscow Soviet was going to win out in the fight for re-entrance into the family and councils of the great powers. Great Britain and Italy had modified their original attitude; and after the conference France appeared to be considering the negotiation of a trade agreement. The French were greatly exercised over the Russo-German treaty, and the French press began to warn the Government that it would be foolish to allow Germany and Great Britain to secure a favored commercial position in the country that had been so long and so intimately connected with France. From the very fact of the large French investments, was the policy followed at Genoa a wise one? And could France afford to stand by and make no effort while Berlin established intimate relations with Moscow? M. Herriot, senator and former mayor of Lyons, made a visit to Moscow, which was not unfavorably commented upon in newspapers that had been most bitterly anti-Bolshevist. Those Frenchmen who were interested in the Near East kept insisting that France could not afford to let Soviet Russia become too powerful at Angora any more than at Berlin.

The olive branch was withdrawn, however, soon after the opening of the Lausanne Conference. French statesmen felt that Tchitcherin was a potent factor for mischief with the Turkish delegation, and should at no costs be allowed to have any say in the conference. The encouragement given by Russia to Germany in the passive resistance in the Ruhr demonstrated the futility of the hope entertained for a few months that a rapprochement with Russia might prove politically and commercially advantageous to France.

Great Britain and France stood together in deciding to exclude Russia from active participation in the Lausanne Conference with the approval of the new government in Italy. The Fascisti had always been anti-Bolshevist, and Mussolini reversed the policy of his predecessors. Tchitcherin was told that Russia would be allowed to sign the convention concerning the Straits, to be embodied in the new treaty with Turkey, but could have no part in drafting the convention or in discussing other provisions of the treaty. Since Russia was more interested in the Lausanne decisions than any other great power, the policy of refusing her active participation in making the treaty, especially the clauses relating to the Straits, angered the Russians. They became a powerful factor in encouraging Ismet Pasha. The conference broke up. The Entente Powers were incensed, and did not invite Russia to send a delegation when the conference met again in April, 1923. Notwithstanding this the Soviet minister at Rome was ordered to Lausanne, where he was assassinated in a restaurant. This tragedy led to a renewed declaration that whatever agreement was reached at Lausanne would be considered null and void by Russia.

At the same time public opinion all over the world was aroused because of the execution of two high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, and the persecution of Orthodox clergy, following demonstrations against religion in Petrograd and Moscow that were reminiscent of what had happened in Paris during the French Revolution. Moscow became embroiled also with Great Britain over fishing rights on the Mourman coast and alleged infractions of the agreement to refrain from nationalist propaganda in Asia. The British Foreign Office sent an ultimatum, threatening to break off trade relations. Tchitcherin answered, requesting a new conference to discuss moot questions.

In the last year of the World War the Bolshevist movement failed to carry with it Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland, and Bessarabia. The Ukraine was a battle-field for nearly two years. In this the largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the republics that proclaimed their separation from the empire following the 1917 revolution, the Bolshevists, from the beginning of their rule, managed to keep a close connection with Moscow. The fiction of separate national existence was maintained, and Ukrainia had her own delegations at peace conferences and in whatever dealings Russia had with the outside world. But, as in the Caucasus, the term “Federated Soviet Republics” did not mean real independence. Moscow came more and more to dominate as Petrograd had done in Czarist days. This held true also in Siberia as the Bolshevists gradually won back for Russia the vast regions from Samara to Vladivostok.

Throughout 1919 Soviet Russia was at war with Finns, Esthonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. The Finns were in a fortunate geographical position, and had behind them a separate national existence which made comparatively easy the formation of their state. The principal difficulty with the Soviets, once the Bolshevist insurrection had failed in the interior of Finland, was the fixing of the frontier. Conditions in the other three Baltic provinces were complicated because there were no historic frontiers, and Lithuanians and Poles were both claiming the district of Vilna, the majority of whose inhabitants were neither Lithuanians nor Poles but White Russians. Also, the Entente Powers tried to use Esthonia and Latvia as bases for fomenting and launching counter-revolutionary movements. Russia would probably have succeeded in Bolshevizing Esthonia and Latvia, and in winning the support of Lithuania, had it not been for the hostility of these Baltic races to Bolshevist economic doctrines and for the failure of the Bolshevist armies to subdue Poland. Moscow concluded treaties with her four former Baltic provinces, recognizing their independence, and concentrated her attention upon Poland.

The one great military disaster of Soviet Russia has been the sudden change from victory to defeat in the drive against Warsaw in the summer of 1920. Polish delegates had already appeared at Minsk to conclude peace upon favorable terms when the fortune of arms changed. The Russian armies were routed, and Moscow changed rôles with Warsaw. The would-be dictators of peace had to accept harsh terms. The Treaty of Riga, signed on October 12, 1920, is discussed elsewhere. It gave Poland a boundary far east of the line proposed at the Paris Conference, which the friends and allies of Poland had so drawn as to include all the territory that might be regarded, on the most liberal calculations, as having “an indisputably Polish ethnic majority.” Poland exacted of Russia fifty-five thousand square miles, inhabited by seven million people, of whom only 4 per cent were Poles. In addition to this loss of territory, the Russians were required to reimburse the Poles with gold for requisitions made during the war and to return to Poland historic treasures, archives, pictures, and manuscripts that had been in Russian state museums since 1772.

There was historic justice in these restitutions, and the Bolshevists did not resist the demands. But the terms of the Treaty of Riga incensed the Russian intellectuals, who hate Poles worse than Bolshevists. The defeat before Warsaw, far from causing the Moscow Soviet to collapse, resulted in rallying round Lenin, especially for the army, elements whose support he had not before been able to command. The territorial greed of Poland, afterward demonstrated to the disadvantage of the Ukrainians by the incorporation of Eastern Galicia, increased the hatred of the Russians and contributed in large measure to the new nationalism which has become so unexpected a development in the Soviet régime.

Czechoslovakia, created by the Peace Conference without consulting Russia, has managed to keep on good terms with her big Slav cousin. The Czechoslovak Legion did great harm to the Bolshevists in Siberia, but, as it had been launched before the birth of Czechoslovakia, the Prague Government was not held responsible for it. During the Russian drive on Poland in 1920 Czechoslovakia, like Germany, declared her neutrality. The premier, Dr. Benes, like Premier Nitti of Italy, believed that the Bolshevists could not help being recognized as the party indisputably in the saddle. Czechoslovak policy, therefore, dictated the wisdom and prudence of de facto relations with Russia; and after the Genoa Conference Prague and Moscow exchanged trade missions, with diplomatic immunity and the right to issue passports.

After the collapse of Germany, Rumania had renounced the Treaty of Bucharest and received delegates in her Parliament, elected by a Bessarabian assembly, which had declared the union of this Russian province with the Rumanian Kingdom. In March, 1920, the union was recognized by the Entente Powers without consultation with Russia. This was one of the most important decisions taken by the former allies of Russia. For it was the first one by which they arrogated to themselves the right to dispose of a Russian province summarily. Moscow, of course, declared the decision null and void, and the status of Bessarabia has yet to be definitely settled.

In this brief survey I have tried to show how the question of Russian national unity has not been subordinated to the Bolshevist régime but has rather dominated it. The economic theories of Bolshevism died of their own inherent impracticability. In view of the policies adopted by the Entente Powers, the idealistic world policy of the Bolshevists had to give way to aggressive nationalism. Russia is becoming again a capitalistic country. She has strong reasons for insisting upon a revision of the peace settlements, and she is slowly building up her army and her international affiliations with the intention of demanding a new deal, in which her interests as a great power will be considered as equal to those of the other great powers, not as a matter of right or logic, but because her force will once more match the force of other great powers.