Chapter 30

"The project is puerile and your tactics are baleful. Your Ministers branded the Bolshevists as criminals, and the French government publicly announced that it would enter into no relations with them. In spite of that, all the Allied governments have now offered to enter into relations with them. Now you admit that you made a slip, and you promise to correct it if only we consent to save your face and go on a wild-goose chase to Prinkipo. But for us that journey would be a recantation of our principles. That is why we are unable to make it."

The Prinkipo incident, which began in the region of high politics, ended in comedy. A number of more or less witty epigrams were coined at the expense of the plenipotentiaries, the scheme, set in a stronger light than it was meant to endure, assumed a grotesque shape, and its promoters strove to consign it as best they could to oblivion. But the Sphinx question of Russia's future remained, and the penalties for failure to solve it aright waxed more and more deterrent. The supreme arbiters had cognizance of them, had, in fact, enumerated them when proclaiming the impossibility of establishing a durable peace or a solid League of Nations as long as Russia continued to be a prey to anarchy. But even with the prizes and penalties before their eyes to entice and spur them, they proved unequal to the task of devising an intelligent policy. Fitful and incoherent, their efforts were either incapable of being realized or, when feasible, were mischievous. Thus, by degrees, they hardened the great Slav nation against the Entente.

The reader will be prepared to learn that the overtures made to the Bolsheviki kindled the anger of the patriotic Russians at home, who had been looking to the Western nations for salvation and making veritable holocausts in order to merit it. Every observer could perceive the repercussion of this sentiment in Paris, and I received ample proofs of it from Siberia. There the leaders and the population unhesitatingly turned for assistance to Japan. For this there were excellent reasons. The only government which throughout the war knew its own mind and pursued a consistent and an intelligible policy toward Russia was that of Tokio. This point is worth making at a time when Japan is regarded as a Laodicean convert to the invigorating ideas of the Western peoples, at heart a backslider and a potential schismatic. She is charged with making interest the mainspring of her action in her intercourse with other nations. The charge is true. Only a Candide would expect to see her moved by altruism and self-denial, in a company which penalizes these virtues. Community of interests is the link that binds Japan to Britain. A like bond had subsisted between her and Tsarist Russia. I helped to create it. Her statesmen, who have no taste for sonorous phraseology, did not think it necessary to give it a more fashionable name. This did not prevent the Japanese from being chivalrously loyal to their allies under the strain of powerful temptations, true to the spirit and the letter of their engagements. But although they made no pretense to lofty purpose, their political maxims differ nowise from those of the great European states, whose territorial, economic, and military interests have been religiously safeguarded by the Treaty of Versailles. True, the statesmen of Tokio shrink from the hybrid combination of two contradictions linked together by a sentimental fallacy. Their unpopularity among Anglo-Saxons is the result of speculations about their future intentions; in other words, they are being punished, as certain of the delegates at the Conference have been eulogized, not for what they actually did, but for what it is assumed they are desirous of achieving. Toward Russia they played the same game that their allies were playing there and in Europe, only more frankly and systematically. They applied the two principal maxims which lie at the root of international politics to-day--_do ut des_, and the nation that is capable of leading others has the right and the duty to lead them. And they established a valuable reputation for fulfilling their compacts conscientiously. Nippon, then, would have helped her Russian neighbors, and she expected to be helped by them in return. Have not the Allies, she asked, compelled Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Jugoslavia to pay them in cash for their emancipation?

Russians, who have no color prejudices, hit it off with the Japanese, by whom they are liked in return. That the two peoples should feel drawn to each other politically is, therefore, natural, and that they will strike up economic agreements in the future seems to many inevitable and legitimate. One such agreement was on the point of being signed between them and the anti-Bolshevists of Omsk immediately after, and in consequence of, the Allies' ill-considered invitation to Lenin and Trotzky to delegate representatives to Prinkipo. This convention, I have reason to believe, was actually drafted, and was about to be signed. And the adverse influence that suddenly made itself felt and hindered the compact came not from Russia, but from western Europe. It would be unfruitful to dwell further on this matter here, beyond recording the belief of many Russians that the zeal of the English-speaking peoples for the well-being of Siberia, where they intend to maintain troops after having withdrawn them from Europe, is the counter-move to Japan's capacity and wish to co-operate with the population of that rich country. This assumption may be groundless, but it will surprise only those who fail to note how often the flag of principle is unfurled over economic interests.

The delegates were not all discouraged by their discomfiture over the Prinkipo project. Some of them still hankered after an agreement with the Bolshevists which would warrant them in including the Russian problem among the tasks provisionally achieved. President Wilson despatched secret envoys to Moscow to strike up an accord with Lenin,[268] but although the terms which Mr. Bullitt obtained were those which had in advance been declared satisfactory, he drew back as soon as they were agreed to. And he assigned no reason for this change of attitude. Whether the brightening of the prospects of Kolchak and Denikin had modified his judgment on the question of expediency must remain a matter of conjecture. It is hardly necessary, however, to point out once more that this sudden improvisation of schemes which were abandoned again at the last moment tended to lower the not particularly high estimate set by the ethnic wards of the Anglo-Saxon peoples on the moral guidance of their self-constituted guardians.

An ardent champion of the Allied nations in France wrote: "We have never had a Russian policy which was all of one piece. We have never synthetized any but contradictory conceptions. This is so true that one may safely affirm that if Russian patriotism has been sustained by our velleities of action, Russian destructiveness has been encouraged by our velleities of desertion. We joined, so to say, both camps, and our velleities of desertion occasionally getting the upper hand of our velleities of action ... we carry out nothing."[269]

Toward Kolchak and Denikin the attitude of the Supreme Council varied considerably. It was currently reported in Paris that the Admiral had had the misfortune to arouse the displeasure of the two Conference chiefs by some casual manifestation of a frame of mind which was resented, perhaps a movement of independence, to which distance or the medium of transmission imparted a flavor of disrespect. Anyhow, the Russian leader was for some time under a cloud, which darkened the prospects of his cause. And as for Denikin, he appeared to the other great delegate as a self-advertising braggart.

These mental portraits were retouched as the fortune of war favored the pair. And their cause benefited correspondingly. To this improvement influences at work in London contributed materially. For the anti-Bolshevist currents which made themselves felt in certain state departments in that capital, where there were several irreconcilable policies, were powerful and constant. By the month of May the Conference had turned half-heartedly from Lenin and Trotzky to Kolchak and Denikin, but its mode of negotiating bore the mark peculiar to the diplomacy of the new era of "open covenants openly arrived at." The delegates in Paris communicated with the two leaders in Russia "over the heads" and without the knowledge of their authorized representatives in Paris, just as they had issued peremptory orders to "the Rumanian government at Bucharest" over the heads of its chiefs, who were actually in the French capital.

The proximate motives that determined several important decisions of the Secret Council, although of no political moment, are of sufficient psychological interest to warrant mention. They shed a light on the concreteness, directness, and simplicity of the workings of the statesmen's minds when engaged in transacting international business. For example, the particular moment for the recognition of new communities as states was fixed by wholly extrinsical circumstances. A food-distributer, for instance, or the Secretary of a Treasury, wanted a receipt for expenditure abroad from the people that benefited by it. As a document of this character presupposes the existence of a state and a government, the official dispenser of food or money was loath to go to the aid of any nation which was not a state or which lacked a properly constituted government. Hence, in some cases the Conference had to create both on the spur of the moment. Thus the reason why Finland's independence received the hall-mark of the Powers when it did was because the United States government was generously preparing to give aid to the Finns and had to get in return proper receipts signed by competent authorities representing the state.[270] Had it not been for this immediate need of valid receipts, the act of recognition might have been postponed in the same way as was the marking off of the frontiers. And like considerations led to like results in other cases. Czechoslovakia's independence was formally recognized for the same reason, as one of its leading men frankly admitted.

One of the serious worries of the Conference chiefs in their dealings with Russia was the lack of a recognized government there, qualified to sign receipts for advances of money and munitions. And as they could not resolve to accord recognition to any of the existing administrations, they hit upon the middle course, that of promoting the anti-Bolshevists to the rank of a community, not, indeed, sovereign or independent, but deserving of every kind of assistance except the despatch of Allied troops. Assistance was already being given liberally, but the necessity was felt for justifying it formally. And the two delegates went to work as though they were hatching some dark and criminal plot. Secretly despatching a message to Admiral Kolchak, they put a number of questions to him which he was not qualified to answer without first consulting his official advisers in Paris. Yet these advisers were not apprised by the Secret Council of what was being done. Nay, more, the French Foreign Office was not notified. By the merest chance I got wind of the matter and published the official message.[271] It summoned the Admiral to bind himself to convene a Constituent Assembly as soon as he arrived in Moscow; to hold free elections; to repudiate definitely the old régime and all that it implied; to recognize the independence of Poland and Finland, whose frontiers would be determined by the League of Nations; to avail himself of the advice and co-operation of the League in coming to an understanding with the border states, and to acquiesce in the decision of the Peace Conference respecting the future status of Bessarabia. Kolchak's answer was described as clear when "decipherable," and to his credit, he frankly declined to forestall the will of the Constituent Assembly respecting those border states which owed their separate existence to the initiative of the victorious governments. But the Secret Council of the Conference accepted his answer, and relied upon it as an adequate reason for continuing the assistance which they had been giving him theretofore.

About the person of Kolchak it ought to be superfluous to say more than that he is an upright citizen of energy and resolution, as patriotic as Fabricius, as disinterested and unambitious as Cincinnatus. To his credit account, which is considerable, stands his wonder-working faith in the recuperative forces of his country when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb. With buoyancy and confidence he set himself the task of rescuing his fellow-countrymen when it looked as hopeless as that of Xenophon at Cunaxa. He created an army out of nothing, induced his men by argument, suasion, and example to shake off the virus of indiscipline and sacrifice their individual judgment and will to the well-being of their fellows. He enjoined nothing upon others that he himself was not ready to undertake, and he exposed himself time and again to risks greater far than any general should deliberately incur. Whether he succeeds or fails in his arduous enterprise, Kolchak, by his preterhuman patience and sustained energy and courage, has deserved exceptionally well of his country, and could afford to ignore the current legends that depict him in the crying colors of a reactionary, even though they were accepted for the time by the most exalted among the Great Unversed in Russian affairs. One may dissent from his policy and object to some of his lieutenants and to many of his partizans, but from the single-minded, patriotic soldier one cannot withhold a large meed of praise. Kolchak's defects are mostly exaggerations of his qualities. His remarkable versatility is purchased at the price of fitfulness, his energy displays itself in spurts, and his impulsiveness impairs at times the successful execution of a plan which requires unflagging constancy. His judgment of men is sometimes at fault, but he would never hesitate to confer a high post upon any man who deserved it. He is democratic in the current sense of the word, but neither a doctrinaire nor a faddist. A disciplinarian and a magnetic personality withal, he charms as effectually as he commands his soldiers. He is enlightened enough, like the great Western world-menders in their moments of theorizing, to discountenance secrecy and hole-and-corner agreements, and, what is still more praiseworthy, he is courageous enough to practise the doctrine.

When the revolution broke out Kolchak was at Sebastopol. The telegram conveying the sensational tidings of the outbreak was kept secret by all military commanders--except himself. He unhesitatingly summoned the soldiers and sailors, apprised them of what had taken place, gave them an insight into the true meaning of the violent upheaval, and asked them to join with him in a heroic endeavor to influence the course of things, in the direction of order and consolidation. He gaged aright the significance of the revolution and the impossibility of confining it within any bounds, political, moral, or geographical. But he reasoned that a band of resolute patriots might contrive to wrest something for the country from the hands of Fate. It was with this faith and hope that he set to work, and soon his valiant army, the reclaimed provinces, and the improved Russian outlook were eloquent witnesses to his worth, whose testimony no legendary reports, however well received in the West, could weaken.

How ingrained in the plenipotentiaries was their proneness for what, for want of a better word, may be termed conspirative and circuitous action may be inferred from the record of their official and unofficial conversations and acts. When holding converse with Kolchak's authorized agents in Paris they would lay down hard conditions, which were described as immutable; and yet when communicating with the Admiral direct they would submit to him terms considerably less irksome, unknown to his Paris advisers, thus mystifying both and occasioning friction between them. In many cases the contrast between the two sets of demands was disconcerting, and in all it tended to cause misunderstandings and complicate the relations between Kolchak and his Paris agents. But he continued to give his confidence to his representatives, although they were denied that of the delegates. It would, of course, be grossly unfair to impute anything like disingenuousness to plenipotentiaries engaged upon issues of this magnitude, but it was an unfortunate coincidence that they were known to regard some of the members of the Russian Council in Paris with disfavor, and would have been glad to see them superseded. When Nansen's project to feed the starving population of Russia was first mooted, Kolchak's Ministers in Paris were approached on the subject, and the Allies' plan was propounded to them so defectively or vaguely as to give them the impression that the co-operation of the Bolshevist government was part of the program. They were also allowed to think that during the work of feeding the people the despatch of munitions and other military necessaries to Kolchak and his army would be discontinued. Naturally, the scheme, weighted with these two accompaniments, was unacceptable to Kolchak's representatives in Paris. But, strange to say, in the official notification which the plenipotentiaries telegraphed at the same time to the Admiral direct, neither of these obnoxious riders was included, so that the proposal assumed a different aspect.

Another example of these singular tactics is supplied by their _pourparlers_ with the Admiral's delegates about the future international status of Finland, whose help was then being solicited to free Petrograd from the Bolshevist yoke. The Finns insisted on the preliminary recognition of their complete independence by the Russians. Kolchak's representatives shrank from bartering any territories which had belonged to the state on their own sole responsibility. None the less, as the subject was being theoretically threshed out in all its bearings, the members of the Russian Council in Paris inquired of the Allies whether the Finns had at least renounced their pretensions to the province of Karelia. But the spokesmen of the Conference replied elusively, giving them no assurance that the claim had been relinquished. Thereupon they naturally concluded that the Finns either still maintained their demand or else had not yet modified their former decision on the matter, and they deemed it their duty to report in this sense to their chief. Yet the plenipotentiaries, in their message on the subject to Kolchak, which was sent about the same time, assured him that the annexation of Karelia was no longer insisted upon, and that the Finns would not again put forward the claim! One hardly knows what to think of tactics like these. In their talks with the spokesmen of certain border states of Russia the official representatives of the three European Powers at the Conference employed language that gave rise to misunderstandings which may have untoward consequences in the future. One would like to believe that these misunderstandings were caused by mere slips of the tongue, which should not have been taken literally by those to whom they were addressed; but in the meanwhile they have become not only the source of high, possibly delusive, hopes, but the basis of elaborate policies. For example, Esthonian and Lettish Ministers were given to understand that they would be permitted to send diplomatic legations to Petrograd as soon as Russia was reconstituted, a mode of intercourse which presupposes the full independence of all the countries concerned. A constitution was also drawn up for Esthonia by one of the Great Powers, which started with the postulate that each people was to be its own master. Consequently, the two nations in question were warranted in looking forward to receiving that complete independence. And if such was, indeed, the intention of the Great Powers, there is nothing further to be said on the score of straightforwardness or precision. But neither in the terms submitted to Kolchak nor in those to which his Paris agents were asked to give their assent was the independence of either country as much as hinted at.[272]

These may perhaps seem trivial details, but they enable us to estimate the methods and the organizing arts of the statesmen upon whose skill in resource and tact in dealing with their fellows depended the new synthesis of international life and ethics which they were engaged in realizing. It would be superfluous to investigate the effect upon the Russians, or, indeed, upon any of the peoples represented in Paris, of the Secret Council's conspirative deliberations and circuitous procedure, which were in such strong contrast to the "open covenants openly arrived at" to which in their public speeches they paid such high tribute.

The main danger, which the Allies redoubted from failure to restore tranquillity in Russia, was that Germany might accomplish it and, owing to her many advantages, might secure a privileged position in the country and use it as a stepping-stone to material prosperity, military strength, and political ascendancy. This feat she could accomplish against considerable odds. She would achieve it easily if the Allies unwittingly helped her, as they were doing.

Unfortunately the Allied governments had not much hope of succeeding. If they had been capable of elaborating a comprehensive plan, they no longer possessed the means of executing it. But they devised none. "The fact is," one of the Conference leaders exclaimed, "we have no policy toward Russia. Neither do we possess adequate data for one."

They strove to make good this capital omission by erecting a paper wall between Germany and her great Slav neighbor. The plan was simple. The Teutons were to be compelled to disinterest themselves in the affairs of Russia, with whose destinies their own are so closely bound up. But they soon realized that such a partition is useless as a breakwater against the tidal wave of Teutondom, and Germany is still destined to play the part of Russia's steward and majordomo.

How could it be otherwise? Germany and Russia are near neighbors. Their economic relations have been continuous for ages, and the Allies have made them indispensable in the future; Russia is ear-marked as Germany's best colony. The two peoples are become interdependent. The Teuton will recognize the Slav as an ally in economics, and will pay himself politically. Who will now thwart or check this process? Russia must live, and therefore buy and sell, barter and negotiate. Can a parchment treaty hinder or invalidate her dealings? Can it prevent an admixture of politics in commercial arrangements, seeing that they are but two aspects of one and the same transaction? It is worthy of note that a question which goes to the quick of the matter was never mooted. It is this: Is it an essential element of the future ordering of the world that Germany shall play no part whatever in its progress? Is it to be assumed that she will always content herself with being treated as the incorrigible enemy of civilization? And, if not, what do all these checks and barriers amount to?