Part 20

To those who read the collection of laws issued by the Bolshevik government many institutions appear not only reasonable, but also full of interest and justice. Also many laws of the absolute governments of past regimes appear intelligent and noble. But the law has not in itself any power of creation; it regulates relations, does not create them. It can even take away wealth from some and give it to others, but cannot create the wealth. When the individual interest begins to lack, work, which is sorrow and pain, lags and does not produce. To begin with, it weakens in the short days when energy is avoided, and then it stops through incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which indicate work have the same root as the words which denote pain. Among the great mass of man work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus of individual interest which excites the production of wealth. They work for wealth; and therefore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion and power.

Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion of others, to consent to the Italian Socialists visiting Russia. I was convinced that nothing would have served better to break in Italy the sympathy for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolutionaries, as the spectacle of famine and disorder would. Never did the Press of my country, or the greater part of it, criticize with more violence a proposal which I considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad to state that I was right, and that, maybe through the uncertainties and the lessons of those who had spread the illusions, the Italian Socialists returned from Russia were bound to recognize that the communist experiment was the complete ruin of the Russian people. No conservative propaganda could have been more efficacious than the vision of the truth.

I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and almost persecution, on the part of the Entente rather helped the Bolshevik government, whose claims to discredit were already so numerous that it was not necessary to nullify it by an unjust and evident persecution.

The Bolshevik government could not be recognized: it gave no guarantees of loyalty, and too often its representatives had violated the rights of hospitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited people to extend the revolution. Revolution and government are two terms which cannot co-exist. But not to recognize the government of the Soviet does not mean that the conditions of such recognition must include that the War debt shall be guaranteed, and, worse still, the pre-War debt, or that the gold resources and the metals of Russia shall be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, exclusively financial and plutocratic, cannot be the base of international relations in a period in which humanity, after the sorrows of the War, has the annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and of which very few in the early days understood the dangers.

Even when there was a tendency favourable to the recognition of the republic of the Soviet, I was always decidedly against it. It is impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. Even when, yielding to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid--in the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 1919 not only the Socialists, but above all the Catholic popular party and the party of Rinnovamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed part, voted unanimously an order of the day for the recognition of the actual government of Russia--I did not think it right to give, and did not give, effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which would have invested Italy with the responsibility of recognizing, even if it were de facto, the government of the Soviet.

I have always, however, rebelled and would never give my consent to any military undertakings against Russia, not even to a participation in the undertakings of men of the old regime. It was easy to foresee that the population would not have followed them and that the undertakings were doomed to failure. However, all the attempts at military revolts and counter-revolutions were encouraged with supplies of arms and material. But in 1920 all the military undertakings, in spite of the help given, failed one after another. In February the attempt of Admiral Koltchak failed miserably, and in March that of General Judenic. Failed has the attempt of Denikin. All the hopes of the restoration were centred in General Wrangel. The only Grand Duke with any claim to military authority also sent to tell me that this was a serious attempt with probability of success. General Wrangel, in fact, reunited the scattered forces of the old regime and occupied a large territory in power. France not only recognized in the government of Wrangel the legitimate representative of Russia, but nominated her official representatives with him. In November, 1920, even the army of Wrangel, which appeared to be of granite, was scattered. Poland, through alternating vicissitudes, claimed the power of resistance, but has shown that she has no offensive power against Russia. So all the attempts at restoration have broken, one after another.

One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been to treat Russia on many occasions, not as a fallen friend, but as a conquered enemy. Nothing has been more deplorable than to have considered as Russia the men of the old regime, who have been treated for a long time as the representatives of an existing State when the State no longer existed.

Let us suppose that the Bolshevik government transforms itself and gives guarantees to the civilized nations not to make revolutionary agitations in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she assumes, and to respect the liberty of citizens; the United States of America, Great Britain and Italy would recognize her at once. But France has an entirely different point of view. She will not give any recognition unless the creditors of the old regime are guaranteed.

In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to purchase indispensable goods. Millerand, President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian gold ferait acte de receleur. He then telegraphed to the Minister of Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion in Sweden were tending to consider the revendications juridiques of the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian gold. He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent to Sweden.

This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of conception.

The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize it until it gives serious guarantees. But if the government of Moscow sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of the creditors of the old regime?

The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the debts of the old regime and annul them. It is not for that that we have no relations with it.

We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation. It is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150 or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is done for bills of exchange. And for this should we not treat with Germany?

The new plutocratic conception, which marks the policy of a section of the Entente, is not lasting, and the people have a justifiable diffidence towards it.

Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, cannot be judged by our western eyes: it is not a popular and revolutionary movement; it is a religious fanaticism of the orthodox of the East hoisted on the throne of Tsarist despotism.

Italy is the country which suffers most from the lack of continuous relations with Russia in so far that almost all Italian commerce, and in consequence the prices of freight and goods, have been for almost half a century regulated by the traffic with the Black Sea.

Ships which leave England fully laden with goods for Italy generally continue to the Black Sea, where they fill up with grain, petroleum, etc., and then return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes in Italy and especially iron in Spain. It was possible in Italy for long periods of time to obtain most favourable freights and have coal at almost the same price as in England. The voyages of the ships were made, both coming and going, fully laden.

The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy. Great Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.

Although Italy has a particular interest in reopening relations with Russia, the Italian Government has understood that the best and shortest way is not to recognize the government of Moscow. But Italy will never subordinate her recognition to plutocratic considerations. Whatever government there may be in Italy, it will never associate itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by democracies which say they are civilized.

The fall of the communistic organization in Russia is inevitable. Very probably from the immense revolutionary catastrophe which has hit Russia there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of small landed proprietors. Whatever is contrary to human nature is not lasting, and communism can only accumulate misery, and on its ruins will arise new forms of life which we cannot yet define. But Bolshevik Russia can count still on two elements which we do not habitually take into account: the apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, and the strength of the military organization on the other. No other people would have resigned itself to the intense misery and to the infinite sufferings which tens of millions of Russians endure without complaint. But still in the midst of so much misery no other people would have known how to maintain a powerful and disciplined army such as is the army of revolutionary Russia.

The Russian people have never had any sympathy for the military undertakings which the Entente has aided. During some of the meetings of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new States, especially those from the Caucasus. They were all agreed in considering that the action of the men of the old regime, and especially Denikin, was directed at the suppression of the independent States and to the return of the old forms, and they attributed to this the aversion of the Russian people to them.

Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where there exists no longer a free Press and the people have hardly any other preoccupation than that of not dying of hunger. Although it is a disastrous organization, the organization of the Soviet remains still the only one, which it is not possible to substitute immediately with another. Although the Russian people can re-enter slowly into international life and take up again its thread, a long time is necessary, but also it is necessary to change tactics.

The peasants, who form the enormous mass of the Russian people, look with terror on the old regime. They have occupied the land and will maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of the Entente, which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent, thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime, the return of which no honest man desires.

An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts of purely Russian territory.

There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente towards Russia has constituted a permanent danger.

But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a sufficiently serious position.

With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000 children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition. In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment 151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217 suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva are terrible.

Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult to think how Hungary and Austria can live and carry out, even in the smallest degree, the obligations imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox, besides living they must indemnify the victors, according to the Treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon, for all the damages which the War has brought on themselves and which the victors have suffered.