80

[?] Rep.

The Bolshevik Idea

If the bolsheviki have made trou-
ble for us we may find some consola-
tion in the fact that they make
trouble for the eremy also and are
likely to make more. Only the other
day a Prussian general told the
Reichstag committee that soldiers who
had been in Russia had become so in-
fected with the ideas of the bolshe-
viki that special measures had to be
taken to keep the infection from
spreading in the rest of the army,
Whether or not we can find anything
meritorious in these ideas, they are ev-
idently extremely contagious, and are
exerting an influence which cannot be
ignored and which may perhaps be
turned to account.

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To understand the remarkable
spread of bolshevism in eastern and
central Europe, it is necessary to think
of it as a kind of religion, passed along
by an ever-swelling multitude of new
proselytes. We are too apt to think of
it in merely personal terms as made
up of the words and acts of the Le-
nine-Trotzky government. This is ev-
idently too simple and too clear a
conception and it is rather unfor-
tunate that the same name should
be applied to the small group of lead-
ers at Moscow, and to the masses in
Russia and in other countries who
have accepted, like a new religion, the
confused and turgid ideas to which the
revolution has given vogue.

In short, the bolshevik ideas appear
to be no longer dependent on the for-
tunes of the Lenine-Trotzky gov-
ernment. They have shown a remark-
able vitality and power of self-propa-
gation, and on general principles we
must assume that there is something
in them that meets a need. Very like-
ly living in a free country we cannot
fully appreciate how powerfully a fa-
natical new doctrine based on free-
dom has affected oppressed nationali-
ties. As a matter of fact the bolshe-
viki have in practice been as despotic
and arbitrary as other dictators, and
have refused to submit to a popular
vote, but they excuse themselves on
the ground that the people have not
yet been prepared for voting on such
matters, and that a larger measure of
liberty than they would claim must be
thrust upon them.

At all events the bolshevik idea
which has most taken hold of Europe
is the idea of liberty for all nations
it is a third answer to the insistent
problem of world organization. Our an-
swer is a league of nations. The Gar-
man answer is Mittel Europa. The
bolshevik answer is the self-determi-
nation of nationalities and the equal-
ty of nations great and small. with
perfect freedom for all. The sharp
conflict between the first two is well
understood; it is not so well under-
sood that the third is in some ways
opposed to both the others. At one
extreme lies the Prussian concept of
the superstate, of organization and ef-
ficlency carried to the nth power. At
the other extreme is the bolshevik
ideal of self-determination, noninter-

vention and the loose federal union of
perfectly free peoples. Between these
lies the doctrine of - league of na-
tions as they are. each with its own
institutions and its own measure of
internal liberty, all yielding gomething
of their present liberty in interna-
tional relations for the sake of main-
taining the peace.

To discuss abstractly the merits of
these rival ideals would be rather fut-
tile when the issue is being fought
out on the bloodiest battlegrounds of
history. One would restore the past,
another would bring in the millenni-
um, the third, which is our own, seeks
to do the best possible with the meas-
ure of progress which the nations have
made. One Is aggressive, one passive,
one defensive. Germany would organ-
ize by force, the allies by agreement
among governments, the bolshevikl by
the spontaneous growth of new rela-
tlonships. War, peace and revolution
sum up the three ideals, though both
militarism and revolution are extolled
as roads to peace; the advocates of a
league of nations want a shorter road,
Involving neither a social cataclysm
nor a periodical "blood bath." But the
vital point is that all three are alike in
regarding the old order as no longer
tenable and in seeking a better and
more stable world organization,

Fallure to appreciate the complex-
ty of the situation has cost the al-
ties dear, but it may not be too late
straighten things out. In time of
war triangular relationships are per-
plexing and irritating. "For us or
'against us?" is the first question asked,
and we recognize only slowly and
painfully a great force cutting across
an angle and upsetting all cal-
culations. We continued to think of
free Russia as logically our ally when
it was merely logically the enemy of
German militarism, which is not at all
the same thing. German statesman-
ship has often enough been obtuse,
but this time it was quick to sense
the wind blowing from the east and
to trim its sails accordingly. It
should have been a fair wind for us. if
not wholly to our liking. but by
clever navigation on troubled seas
the enemy got a long start.

But let us not be discouraged. Even
now, if we can avold the disastrous
folly of making war on the revolution.
it promises to be our most powerful
weapon. The great menace to the al-
lies is Mittel Europa, and to defeat
that scheme we must have the co-
operation of the peoples of Europe
whom Germany would use as mere
blocks of building stone for its im-
pregnable fortress. Let popular re-
sistance be carrled beyond a certain
pitch, and the whole project must col-
lapse. Germany might conquer the
weak and divided masses of Europe,
or it might hold its own on the west-
ern front against a world in arms: it
cannot possibly do both.

It is at this point that entente
statesmanship has shown a certain
defect of vision. It has inclined to
see the war in the east as well as in
the west as a military problem, when
Russia had ceased to be a military
factor but might still be made a politi-
cal ally. If it be said that without
a Russian army the task is too great.
the answer is that a Rusaian army
cannot be counted upon. and that the
allies simply have to set their teeth
and hold on. Russia if wisely treated
may still give great help, even if not
in the way of military force.

From all that can be learned Aus-
tria-Hungary is in a very bad way--
In 2 very good way, that is, for us
and for the bolsheviki if we make
common cause to the extent of desir-
ing the Austrian people to go over to
the revolution. Some conservative
people in entente countries have not
desired this; they would have pre-
ferred to insure the Hapsburg realms
by a separate peace with Emperor
Charles. Their nervousness over the
revolution can be understood, but to
end the war on those terms could risk
all that the allies are fighting for.
We need the co-operation of the peo-
ples of Europe, and our hostility to
Lenine and Trotzky should not blind
us to the fact that the most potent
force in stirring the subject nations to
revolt is the bolshevik idea. It takes
hold much more strongly than our
own idea of a league of nations, just
because it is popular and revolution-
ary. One is statesmanship, the other
is a kind of religion, leading to ex-
cesses but also to fervor. The im-
portant practical question for us is
not what we think of the bolsheviki,
but how we can use the ferment
which their ideas are causing in Eu-
rope. Germany uses the infernal art of
a Machiavelli in deluding and divid-
ing the peoples subject to this new
influence. It is for the allies to use
for good ends a little of Machiavelli's
worldly wisdom. Let us think less of
how we dislike the bolsheviki, and
more of how William II hates and
uses them. It is still possible to use
the bolshevik idea to smash Mittel
Europa and to win the war in a sense
in which it cannot be won by our
armies on the western front.

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