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IV.
RUSSIAN HATRED OF GER-
MANY GROWS.

SPECIAL CABLE TO THE DAILY NEWS.
[Copyright 1918, the Chicago Daily News Co.]
Moscow, Russia, April 13 (delayed).—

The soviet pledged itself to the peace
program. The program was impossible
of fulfillment. The soviet tried it and
found it wanting. The soviet was forced
to sign a peace which even itself regarded
as shameful. The peace negotiations and
their result caused the scales to fall from
the Russian eyes, and the truth is grad-
ually being driven home. The peace ne-
gotiations showed Germany in her true
light and proved her greedy desire for
aggrandizement. The peace program re-
sulted in disaster.

Now the soviet admits that its policy
was wrong. Its other extreme ideals are
gradually being modified or discarded as
wholly impracticable. Workmen's con-
trol of industry, repudiation of the na-
tional debt and nationalization of the
banks are all sliding toward a less radi-
cal position. Through bitter experience
the soviet is learning that many of its
projects are absolutely impracticable,
but once the impracticability of a scheme
is demonstrated the soviet shows a ten-
dency to abandon it in favor of a more
moderate plan or else it abandons the
scheme altogether.

German Poison Soon Reacted.

Germany pumped extreme socialism
into Russia, which received it with such
unexpected rapidity and violence that the
poison reacted and poured back into
Germany, causing alarm in Berlin. Many
of Germany's 3,200,000 socialist voters
were susceptible to maximalist argu-
ments, and Berlin had strikes. Austria,
the weak sister, was already tainted
with the same poison that destroyed old
Russia. If Russia again goes to war we
can rely upon her conducting a gigantic
revolutionary campaign against Ger-
many. The German people are probably
too sensible to listen to her seriously,
but one must remember that the popu-

—20—

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lation of Austria to mainly Slavic and
akin to the Russian Slavs. The Russian
Slavs fell hard for extreme socialism.
Why should not the Austiran Slavs do
so as well?

We now come to the present day phase
of the situation. The soviet is as power-
ful as ever, despite its signature to a
shameful peace treaty and its evacua-
tion of the capital. The soviet govern-
ment to-day is as real as the Russian
people. There exist within the country
no visible forces that can oust the so-
viet from power. The soviet pledged it-
self to a program of peace. The soviet
made peace and now finds that it is a
peace in name only and not in fact. The
soviet remembers the threat of Gen-
Hoffman, the German peace delegate,
who said that Germany Invaded Russia
for the purpose of exterminating the bol-
heviki (the soviet) who endangered
civilization.

Germany Wars on Russian People.

The soviet is not deceived by the false
peace which Germany dictated or the
present existing calm. It expects fur-
ther attention from the German army as
soon as things are quiet on the western
front. Germany’s war against the soviet
means war against the Russian people.

For the first time the Russian people
see Germany as a menace to themselves
individually. Formerly they saw the
Germans only as a menace to their czar.

Consequently there is growing up
throughout the country, in every village
and every household, the knowledge that
peace is impossible and that if Russia
is to avoid a return to autocracy Ger-
many must be beaten.

In the early days we might have
brought this home through education.
Experience, although it has nearly
wrecked the nation in the process, has
convinced the Russians with more vivid-
ness than education ever could have
done.

The bolsheviki are decidedly unpleas-
ant bedfellows. They are extremely hard
to work with. The soviet is a new,
crude, extremely narrow and uncompro-
mising government, but the soviet is
convinced that further war with Ger-
many is unavoldable.

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