CHAPTER XXI.

THE PRESS AND PROPAGANDA.

In the late World War, along with aeroplanes, tanks, poison gases and other marvels of military _technique_, a new and powerful weapon came to the fore, viz: _propaganda_. Strictly speaking, it was not altogether new, for as far back as 1826 Canning said, in the House of Commons: "Should we ever have to take part in a war we shall gather under our flag all the rebels, all those who, with or without cause, are discontented in the country that goes against us." But now this means of conflict attained an extraordinary development, intensity and organisation, attacking the most morbid and sensitive points of national psychology. Organised on a large scale, supplied with vast means, the propaganda organs of Great Britain, France and America, especially those of Great Britain, carried on a terrible warfare by word of mouth, in the Press, in the films and ... with gold, extending this warfare over the territories of the enemy, the Allies and the neutrals, introducing it into all spheres--military, political, moral and economic. The more so, that Germany especially gave grounds enough for propaganda to have a plentiful supply of irrefragable, evidential material at its disposal. It is difficult to enumerate, even in their general features alone, that enormous arsenal of ideas which, step by step, drop by drop, deepened class differences, undermined the power of the State, sapped the moral powers of the enemy and their confidence in victory, disintegrated their alliance, roused the neutral powers against them and finally raised the falling spirits of their allied peoples. Nevertheless, we should not attach exceptional importance to this external moral pressure, as the leaders of the German people are now doing, to justify themselves: Germany has suffered a political, economic, military and moral defeat. It was only the interaction of all these factors that determined the fatal issue of the struggle, which, towards its end, became a lingering death-agony. One could only marvel at the vitality of the German people, which, by its intellectual power and the stability of its political thought, held out so long, until at last, in November, 1918, "a double death-blow, both at the front and in the rear," laid it in the dust. In connection with this, history will undoubtedly note a great analogy between the parts played by the "Revolutionary Democracies" of Russia and of Germany in the destinies of these peoples. After the _débâcle_ the leader of the German Independent Social Democrats acquainted the country with the great and systematic work which they had carried on, from the beginning of 1918, for the breaking down of the German Army and Navy, to the glory of the social revolution. In this work one is struck by the similarity of method and _modus operandi_ with those practised in Russia.

While unable to resist British and French propaganda, the Germans were very successful in applying this means to their Eastern antagonist, the more so that: "Russia created her own misfortunes," said Ludendorff, "and the work which we carried on there was not too hard."

The results of the interaction of the skilful hand of Germany with the movements which arose, less from the fact itself of the Revolution than from the individual character of the Russian rebellion, exceeded the highest hopes of the Germans.

The work was carried on in three directions--political, military and social. In the first we note the idea, quite clearly and definitely formulated and systematically carried out by the German Government, _of the dismemberment of Russia_. Its realisation took shape in the proclamation, on November 15, 1916, of the Kingdom of Poland[20] _with a territory which was to extend eastward "as far as possible"_; in the creation of the States of Courland and Lithuania--"independent," but in union with Germany; in the sharing of the White Russian provinces between Poland and Lithuania, and, finally, in the prolonged and very persistent preparation of the secession of Little Russia, which took place later, in 1918. While the former facts had a meaning only in principle, concerning, as they did, territories actually occupied by the Germans and defined the character of the future "annexations," the attitude assumed by the Central Powers with respect to Little Russia exercised a direct influence on the stability of our South-Western front, creating political complications in the country and separatist tendencies in the Army. I shall return to this question later.

The German Headquarters included an excellently organised "press-bureau," which, besides influencing and directing the home Press, also guided German propaganda, which penetrated mainly into Russia and France. Miliukov quotes a circular issued by the German Foreign Office to all its representatives in neutral countries: "You are informed that on the territory of the country to which you are accredited, special offices have been instituted for the organisation of propaganda in the States, now fighting with the German coalition. The propaganda will be engaged in exciting the social movement and, in connection with the latter, strikes, revolutionary outbreaks, separatism, among the constituent parts of these States, and civil war, as well as agitation in favour of disarmament and the cessation of the present sanguinary slaughter. You are instructed to afford all possible protection and support to the directors of the said propaganda offices."

It is curious that, in the summer of 1917, the British Press took up arms against Sir George Buchanan and the British Propaganda Ministry for their inertness in the matter of influencing the Democracy of Russia and of fighting German propaganda in that country. One of the papers pointed out that the British bureau of Russian propaganda had at its head a novelist and literary beginners who had "as much idea of Russia as of Chinese metaphysics."

As for us, neither in our Government departments nor at the Stavka did we have any organ whatever which was even in some degree reminiscent of the mighty Western propaganda institutions. One of the sections of the Quartermaster-General's department had charge of technical questions, concerning relations with the Press, and was left without importance, influence, or any active task. The Russian Army, well or badly, fought in primitive ways, without ever having recourse to that "poisoning of the enemy's spirit," which was so widely practised in the West. And it paid for this with superfluous torrents of blood. But if opinions may differ regarding the morality of destructive propaganda, we cannot but note our complete inertness and inactivity in another and perfectly pure sphere. We did absolutely nothing to acquaint foreign public opinion with the exceptionally important part played by Russia and the Russian Army in the World War, with the enormous losses suffered and the sacrifices made by the Russian people, with those constant majestic deeds of self-sacrifice, incomprehensible, perhaps, to the cold understanding of our Western friends, which the Russian Army made whenever the Allied front was within a hair's-breadth of defeat.... Such a want of comprehension of the part played by Russia I have met with almost everywhere, in wide social circles, long after the conclusion of peace, in my wanderings over Europe.

The following small episode is a burlesque, but very characteristic instance of this. On a banner presented to Marshal Foch "from American friends" are depicted the flags of all countries, lands and colonies, which in one way or another came within the orbit of the Entente; the Russian flag occupies the forty-sixth place, after Hayti and Uruguay and immediately after San-Marino.

Is this ignorance or triviality?

We did nothing to lay a firm moral foundation for national unity during our occupation of Galicia, did not draw public opinion to our side during the occupation of Roumania by the Russian troops, did nothing to restrain the Bulgarian people from betraying the interests of the Slavonic races. Finally, we took no advantage of the presence on Russian soil of an enormous number of prisoners, to give them at least a correct idea of Russia.

The Stavka, firmly barricaded within the sphere of purely military questions connected with the carrying out of the campaign, made no attempt to gain any influence over the general course of political events, which agrees completely with the service idea of a national army. But, at the same time, the Stavka distinctly avoided influencing the public spirit of the country so as to lead this powerful factor to moral co-operation in the struggle. There was no connection with the leading organs of the Press, which was represented at the Stavka by men possessing neither weight nor influence.

When the thunderstorm of the Revolution broke and the political whirlwind swept up and convulsed the Army, the Stavka could remain inert no longer. It had to respond. The more so, that suddenly no source of moral power was to be found in Russia which might have protected the Army. The Government, especially the War Office, rushed irresistibly down the path of opportunism; the Soviets and the Socialist Press undermined the Army; the Bourgeois Press now cried "videant consules ne quid Imperio detrimenti caparet," now naïvely rejoiced at the "democratisation and liberation" which were taking place. Even in what might have been considered the competent spheres of the higher military bureaucracy of Petrograd there reigned such a variety of views, as plunged the public opinion of the country into perplexity and bewilderment.

It turned out, however, that for the conflict the Stavka possessed neither organisation nor men, neither technique nor knowledge and experience. And, worst of all, the Stavka was in some way or other shoved and thrown aside by the madly-careering chariot of life. Its voice grew weaker and sank into silence.

The second Quartermaster-General--General Markov--had a serious task before him--he had to create the necessary apparatus, to establish communications with the important papers, to supply the Stavka with a "megaphone" and raise the condition of the Army Press, which was leading a wretched existence and which the army organisations were trying to destroy. Markov took up the task warmly, but failed to do anything serious, as he only remained in office two months. Every step of the Stavka in this direction called forth from the Revolutionary Democracy a disingenuous accusation of counter-revolutionary action. And Liberal Bourgeois Moscow, to which he turned for aid, in the form of intellectual and technical assistance in his task, replied with eloquent promises, but did absolutely nothing.

Thus the Stavka had no means at all, not only for actively combating the disintegration of the Army, but for resisting German propaganda, which was spreading rapidly.

* * * * *

Ludendorff says frankly and with a national egotism rising to a high degree of cynicism: "I did not doubt that the _débâcle_ of the Russian Army and the Russian people was fraught with great danger for Germany and Austria-Hungary.... _In sending Lenin to Russia_ our Government assumed an enormous responsibility! This journey was justified from a military point of view; _it was necessary that Russia should fall_. But our Government should have taken measures that this should not happen to Germany."[21]

Even now the boundless sufferings of the Russian people, now "out of the ranks," did not call forth a single word of pity or regret from its moral corrupters....

With the beginning of the campaign, the Germans altered the direction of their work with respect to Russia. Without breaking their connections with the well-known reactionary circles at Court, in the Government and in the Duma, using all means for influencing these circles and all their motives--greed, ambition, German atavism, and sometimes a peculiar understanding of patriotism--the Germans entered at the same time into close fellowship with the Russian Revolutionaries in the country, and especially abroad, amongst the multitudinous emigrant colony. Directly or indirectly, all were drawn into the service of the German Government--great agents in the sphere of spying and recruiting, like Parvus (Helfand); provocateurs, connected with the Russian Secret Police, like Blum; propaganda agents--Oulianoff (Lenin), Bronstein (Trotsky), Apfelbaum (Zinovieff), Lunacharsky, Ozolin, Katz (Kamkoff), and many others. And in their wake went a whole group of shallow or unscrupulous people, cast over the frontier and fanatically hating the _régime_ which had rejected them--hating it to the degree of forgetfulness of their native land, or squaring accounts with this _régime_, acting sometimes as blind tools in the hands of the German General Staff. What their motives were, what their pay, how far they went--these are details; what is important is that they sold Russia, serving those aims which were set before them by our foe. They were all closely interlaced with one another and with the agents of the German Secret Service, forming with them one unbroken conspiracy.

The work began with a widespread Revolutionary and Separatist (Ukrainian) propaganda among the prisoners of war. According to Liebknecht, "the German Government not only helped this propaganda, but carried it on itself." These aims were served by the Committee of Revolutionary Propaganda, founded in 1915 at The Hague by the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine in Austria by the Copenhagen Institute (Parvus's organisation), and a whole series of papers of a Revolutionary and Defeatist character, partly published at the expense of the German Staff, partly subsidised by it--the _Social Democrat_ (Geneva--Lenin's paper), _Nashe Slovo_ (Paris--Trotsky's paper), _Na Tchoozhbeenie_ (Geneva--contributions from Tchernoff, Katz and others), _Russkii Viestnik_, _Rodnaya Retch_, _Nedielia_, and so forth. Similar to this was the activity--the spread of Defeatist and Revolutionary literature, side by side with purely charitable work--of the Committee of Intellectual Aid to Russian Prisoners of War in Germany and Austria (Geneva), which was in connection with official Moscow and received subsidies from it.

To define the character of these publications it is enough to quote two or three phrases expressing the views of their inspirers. Lenin said in the _Social Democrat_: "The least evil will be the defeat of the Czarist monarchy, the most barbarous and reactionary of all Governments." Tchernoff, the future Minister of Agriculture, declared in the _Mysl_ that he had one Fatherland only--the International!

Along with literature the Germans invited Lenin's and Tchernoff's collaborators, especially from the editorial staff of _Na Tchoozhbeenie_, to lecture in the camps, while a German spy, Consul Von Pelche, carried on a large campaign for the recruiting of agitators for propaganda in the ranks of the Army--among the Russian emigrants of conscript age and of Left Wing politics.

All this was but preparatory work. The Russian Revolution opened boundless vistas for German propaganda. Along with honest people, once persecuted, who had struggled for the good of the people, there rushed into Russia all that revolutionary riff-raff which absorbed the members of the Russian secret police, the international informers and the rebels.

The Petrograd authorities feared most of all the accusation of want of Democratic spirit. Miliukov, as Minister, stated repeatedly that "the Government considers unconditionally possible the return to Russia of all emigrants, regardless of their views on the War and independently of their registration in the International Control List."[22] This Minister carried on a dispute with the British, demanding the release of the Bolsheviks, Bronstein (Trotsky), Zourabov and others, who had been arrested by the British.

Matters were more complicated in the case of Lenin and his supporters. Despite the demands of the Russian Government, the Allies would undoubtedly have refused to let them through. Therefore, as Ludendorff acknowledges, the German Government despatched Lenin and his companions (the first group consisted of seventeen persons) to Russia, allowing them free transit through Germany. This undertaking, which promised extraordinarily important results, was richly financed with gold and credit through the Stockholm (Ganetsky-Fuerstenberg) and Copenhagen (Parvus) centres and through the Russian Siberian Bank. That gold which, as Lenin expressed it, "does not smell."

In October, 1917, Bourtsev published a list of 159 persons brought through Germany to Russia by order of the German General Staff. Nearly all of them, according to Bourtsev, "were revolutionaries who, during the War, had carried on a defeatist campaign in Switzerland and were now William's voluntary or involuntary agents." Many of them at once assumed a prominent position in the Social Democratic party, in the Soviet, the Committee[23] and the Bolshevik Press. The names of Lenin, Tsederbaum (Martov), Lunacharsky, Natanson, Riazanov, Apfelbaum (Zinoviev) and others soon became the most fateful in Russian history.

On the day of Lenin's arrival in Petrograd the German paper _Die Woche_ devoted an article to this event, in which he was called "a true friend of the Russian people and an honourable antagonist." And the Cadet semi-official organ, the _Retch_, which afterwards boldly and unwaveringly waged war against the Lenin party, greeted his arrival with the words: "Such a generally acknowledged leader of the Socialist party ought now to be in the arena, and his arrival in Russia, whatever opinion may be held of his views, should be welcomed."

On April 3rd Lenin arrived in Petrograd, where he was received with much state, and in a few days declared his theses, part of which formed the fundamental themes of German propaganda: "Down with war and all power to the Soviet!"

Lenin's first actions seemed so absurd and so clearly anarchistic that they called forth protests not only in the whole of the Liberal Press, but also in the greater part of the Socialist Press.

But, little by little, the Left Wing of the Revolutionary Democracy, reinforced by German agents, joined overtly and openly in the propaganda of its chief, without meeting any decisive rebuff either from the double-minded Soviet or the feeble Government. The great wave of German and mutinous propaganda engulfed more and more the Soviet, the Committee, the Revolutionary Press, and the ignorant masses, and was reflected, consciously or unconsciously, even among those who stood at the helm of the State.

From the very first Lenin's organisation, as was said afterwards, in July, in the report of the Procurator of the Petrograd High Court of Justice, "aiming at assisting the States warring against Russia in their hostile actions against her, entered into an agreement with the agents of the said States to forward the disorganisation of the Russian Army and the Russian rear, for which purpose it used the financial means received from these States to organise a propaganda among the population and the troops ... and also, for the same purpose, organised in Petrograd, from July 3rd to 5th, an armed insurrection against the Supreme Power existing in the State."

The Stavka had long and vainly raised its voice of warning. General Alexeiev had, both personally and in writing, called on the Government to take measures against the Bolsheviks and the spies. Several times I myself applied to the War Office, sending in, among other things, evidential material concerning Rakovsky's spying and documents certifying the treason of Lenin, Skoropis-Yoltoukhovsky and others. The part played by the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine (of which, besides others, Melenevsky and V. Doroshenko were members)[24] as an organisation of the Central Powers for propaganda, spying and recruiting for "Setch Ukraine units," was beyond all doubt. In one of my letters (May 16th), based on the examination of a Russian officer, Yermolenko, who had been a prisoner of war and had accepted the part of a German agent for the purpose of disclosing the organisation, the following picture was revealed: "Yermolenko was transferred to our rear, on the front of the Sixth Army, to agitate for a speedy conclusion of a separate peace with Germany. Yermolenko accepted this commission at the insistence of his comrades. Two officers of the German General Staff, Schiditzky and Lubar, informed him that a similar agitation was being carried on in Russia by the sectional president of the Union for the Liberation of the Ukraine, A. Skoropis-Yoltoukhovsky, and by Lenin, as agents of the German General Staff. Lenin had been instructed to seek to undermine by all means the confidence of the Russian people in the Provisional Government. The money for this work was received through one Svendson, an employee of the German Embassy in Stockholm. These methods were practised before the Revolution also. Our command turned its attention to the somewhat too frequent appearance of "escaped prisoners." Many of them having surrendered to the enemy, passed through a definite course of intelligence work, and having received substantial pay and "papers," were permitted to pass over to us through the line of trenches.

Being altogether unable to decide what was a case of courage and what of treachery, we nearly always sent all escaped prisoners from the European to the Caucasian Front.

All the representations of the High Command as to the insufferable situation of the Army, in the face of such vast treachery, remained without result. Kerensky carried on free debates in the Soviet with Lenin on the subject whether the country and the Army should be broken down or not, basing his action on the view that he was the "War Minister of the Revolution," and that "freedom of opinion was sacred to him, whencesoever it might proceed." Tzeretelli warmly defended Lenin: "I do not agree with Lenin and his agitation. But what has been said by Deputy Shulgin is a slander against Lenin, _Never has Lenin called for actions which would infringe upon the course of the Revolution. Lenin is carrying on an idealist propaganda._"

This much-talked-of freedom of opinion extremely simplified the work of German propaganda, giving rise to such an unheard-of phenomenon as the open preaching in German, at public meetings and in Kronstadt, of a separate peace and of distrust of the Government, by an agent of Germany, the President of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal Conference, Robert Grimm!...

What a state of moral prostration and loss of all national dignity, consciousness, and patriotism is presented by the picture of Tzeretelli and Skobelev "vouching" for the _agent provocateur_; of Kerensky importuning the Government to grant Grimm the right of entry into Russia; of Tereshtchenko permitting it, and of Russians listening to Grimm's speeches--without indignation, without resentment.

During the Bolshevik insurrection of July the officials of the Ministry of Justice, exasperated by the laxity of the leaders of the Government, decided, with the knowledge of their Minister, Pereverzev, to publish my letter to the Minister of War and other documents, exposing Lenin's treason to his country. The documents being a statement signed by two Socialists, Alexinsky and Pankratov, were given to the printers. The premature disclosure of this fact called forth a passionate protest from Tchkheidze and Tzeretelli, and terrible anger on the part of the Ministers Nekrassov and Tereshtchenko. The Government forbade the publication of information which sullied the good name of comrade Lenin, and had recourse to reprisals against the officials of the Ministry of Justice. However, the statement appeared in the Press. In its turn the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates exhibited a touching care, not only for the inviolability of the Bolsheviks, but even for their honour, by issuing on July 5th a special appeal calling on people "to refrain from the spreading of accusations reflecting dishonour" on Lenin and "other political workers" pending the investigation of the matter by a special commission. This consideration was openly expressed in a resolution passed by the Central Executive Committees (on July 8th), which, while condemning the attempt of the Anarchist-Bolshevist elements to overthrow the Government, expressed the fear that the "inevitable" measures to which the Government and the military authorities must have recourse ... would create a basis for the demagogic agitation of the counter-Revolutionaries who, for the time being, gathered round the flag of the Revolutionary régime, but who might pave the way for a military Dictatorship."

However, the exposure of the direct criminal participation of the leaders of Bolshevism in acts of mutiny and treason may have obliged the Government to begin repressions. Lenin and Apfelbaum (Zinoviev) escaped to Finland, while Bronstein (Trotsky), Kozlovsky, Raskolnikov, Remniov, and many others were arrested. Several Anarchist-Bolshevist newspapers were suspended.

These repressions, however, were not of a serious character. Many persons known to have been leaders in the mutiny were not charged at all, and their work of destruction was continued with consistency and energy.

* * * * *

While carrying the war into our country the Germans persistently and methodically put into practice another watchword--peace at the Front. Fraternisation had taken place earlier as well, before the Revolution; but it was then due to the hopelessly wearisome life in the trenches, to curiosity, to a simple feeling of humanity even towards the enemy--a feeling exhibited by the Russian soldier more than once on the battlefield of Borodino, in the bastions of Sevastopol, and in the Balkan mountains. Fraternisation took place rarely, was punished by the commanders, and had no dangerous tendencies in it. But now the German General Staff organised it on a large scale, systematically and along the whole Front, with the participation of the higher Staff organs and the commanders, with a detailed code of instructions, which included the observation of our forces and positions, the demonstration of the impressive armament and strength of their own positions, persuasion as to the aimlessness of the War, the incitement of the Russian soldiers against the Government and their commanders, in whose interest exclusively this "sanguinary slaughter" was being continued. Masses of the Defeatist literature manufactured in Germany were passed over into our trenches, and at the same time agents of the Soviet and the Committee travelled quite freely along the Front with similar propaganda, with the organisation of "exhibition fraternisation," and with whole piles of _Pravda_, _Trench Pravda_, _Social Democrat_, and other products of our native Socialist intellect and conscience--organs which, in their forceful argumentation, left the Jesuitical eloquence of their German brethren far behind. At the same time a general meeting of simple "delegates from the Front" in Petrograd was passing a resolution in favour of allowing fraternisation for the purpose of revolutionary propaganda among the enemy's ranks!

One cannot read without deep emotion of the feelings of Kornilov, who, for the first time after the Revolution, in the beginning of May, when in command of the Eighth Army, came into contact with this fatal phenomenon in the life of our Front. They were written down by Nezhintsev, at that time captain of the General Staff and later the gallant commander of the Kornilov Regiment, who in 1918 fell in action against the Bolsheviks at the storm of Ekaterinodar.

"When we had got well into the firing zone of the position," writes Nezhintsev, "the General (Kornilov) looked very gloomy. His words, 'disgrace, treason,' showed his estimate of the dead silence of the position. Then he remarked:

"'Do you feel all the nightmare horror of this silence? You understand that we are watched by the enemy artillery observers and that we are not fired at. Yes, the enemy are mocking us as weaklings. Can it be that the Russian soldier is capable of informing the enemy of my arrival at the position?'

"I was silent, but the sacred tears in the eyes of this hero touched me deeply, and at this moment I vowed in my mind that I would die for him and for our common Motherland. General Kornilov seemed to feel this. He turned to me suddenly, pressed my hand, and turned away, as if ashamed of his momentary weakness.

"The acquaintance of the new Commander with the infantry began with the units in the Reserve, when formed in rank, holding a meeting and replying to all appeals for the necessity of an advance by pointing out how useless it was to continue a Bourgeois war, carried on by 'militarists.' When, after two hours of fruitless discussion, General Kornilov, worn out morally and physically, proceeded to the trenches, he found a scene there which could scarcely have been foreseen by any soldier of this age.

"We entered into a system of fortifications where the trench-lines of both sides were separated or, more correctly, joined by lines of barbed wire.... The appearance of General Kornilov was greeted ... by a group of German officers, who gazed insolently on the Commander of the Russian Army; behind them stood some Prussian soldiers. The General took my field-glasses and, ascending the parapet, began to examine the arena of the fights to come. When someone expressed a fear that the Prussians might shoot the Russian Commander, the latter replied:

"'I would be immensely glad if they did; perhaps it might sober our befogged soldiers and put an end to this shameful fraternisation.'

"At the positions of a neighbouring regiment the Commander of the Army was greeted by the _bravura_ march of a German Jaeger regiment, to whose band our 'fraternising' soldiers were making their way. With the remark, 'This is treason!' the General turned to an officer standing next him, ordering the fraternisers from both sides to be told that if this disgraceful scene did not cease at once he would turn the guns loose on them. The disciplined Germans ceased playing and returned to their own trenches, seemingly ashamed of the abominable spectacle. But our soldiers--oh! they held meetings for a long time, complaining of the way their 'counter-Revolutionary commanders oppressed their liberty.'"

In general I do not cherish feelings of revenge. Yet I regret exceedingly that General Ludendorff left the German Army prematurely, before its break-up, and did not experience directly in its ranks those inexpressibly painful moral torments which we Russian officers have suffered.

Besides fraternisation, the enemy High Command practised, on an extensive scale and with provocatory purpose, the dispatch of flags of truce directly to the troops, or rather to the soldiers. Thus, about the end of April on the Dvinsk Front there came with a flag of truce a German officer, who was not received. He managed, however, to address to the crowd of soldiers the words: "I have come to you with offers of peace, and am empowered to speak even with the Provisional Government, but your commanders do not wish for peace." These words were spread rapidly, and caused agitation among the soldiers and even threats to desert the Front. Therefore when, a few days later, in the same section, _parliamentaires_ (a brigade commander, two officers, and a bugler) made their appearance again, they were taken to the Staff quarters of the Fifth Army. It turned out, of course, that they had no authorisations, and could not even state more or less definitely the object of their coming, since "the sole object of the pseudo-_parliamentaires_ appearing on our Front," says an order of the Commander-in-Chief, "has been to observe our dispositions and our spirit, and, by a lying exhibition of their pacific feelings, to incline our troops to an inaction profitable to the Germans and ruinous to Russia and her freedom." Similar cases occurred on the Fronts of the Eighth, Ninth, and other Armies.

It is characteristic that the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern German Front, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, found it possible to take a personal part in this course of provocation. In two radiograms, bearing the systematic character of the customary proclamations and intended for the soldiers and the Soviet, he stated that the High Command was ready to meet half-way "the repeatedly expressed desire of the Russian Soldiers' Delegates to put an end to bloodshed"; that "military operations between us (the Central Powers) and Russia could be put an end to _without Russia breaking with her Allies_"; that "if Russia wants to know the particulars of our conditions, let her give up her demand for their publication...." And he finishes with a threat: "Does the new Russian Government, instigated by its Allies, wish to satisfy itself whether divisions of heavy guns are still to be found on our Eastern Front?"

Earlier, when leaders did discreditable things to save their armies and their countries, at least they were ashamed of it and kept silence. Nowadays military traditions have undergone a radical change.

To the credit of the Soviet it must be said that it took a proper view of this provocationary invitation, saying in reply: "The Commander-in-Chief of the German troops on the Eastern Front offers us 'a separate truce and secrecy of negotiations.' But Russia knows that the _débâcle_ of the Allies will be the beginning of the _débâcle_ of her own Army, and the _débâcle_ of the Revolutionary troops of Free Russia would mean not only new common graves, but the failure of the Revolution, the fall of Free Russia."

* * * * *

From the very first days of the Revolution a marked change naturally took place in the attitude of the Russian Press. It expressed itself on the one hand in a certain differentiation of all the Bourgeois organs, which assumed a Liberal-Conservative character, the _tactics_ of which were adopted by an inconsiderable part of the Socialist Press, of the type of Plekhanov's _Yedinstvo_; and on the other in the appearance of an immense number of Socialist organs.

The organs of the Right Wing underwent a considerable evolution, a characteristic indication of which was the unexpected declaration of a well-known member of the _Novoye Vremya_ staff, Mr. Menshikov: "We must be grateful to destiny that the Monarchy, which for a thousand years has betrayed the people, has at last betrayed itself and put a cross on its own grave. To dig it up from under that cross and start a great dispute about the candidates for the fallen throne would be, in my opinion, a fatal mistake." In the course of the first few months the Right Press partly closed down--not without pressure and violence on the part of the Soviets--partly it assumed a pacific-Liberal attitude. It was only in September, 1917, that its tone grew extremely violent in connection with the final exposure of the weakness of the Government, the loss of all hope of a legal way out of the "no thoroughfare" which had arisen, and the echoes of Kornilov's venture. The attacks of the extremist organs on the Government passed into solid abuse of it.

Though differing in a greater or lesser degree in its understanding of the social problems which the Revolution had to solve, though guilty, perhaps, along with Russian society, of many mistakes, yet the Russian Liberal Press showed an exceptional unanimity in the more important questions of a constitutional and national character: full power to the Provisional Government, Democratic reforms in the spirit of the programme of March 2nd,[25] war until victory along with the Allies, an All-Russia Constituent Assembly as the source of the supreme power and of the constitution of the country. In yet another respect has the Liberal Press left a good reputation behind it in history: in the days of lofty popular enthusiasm, as in the days of doubt, vacillation and general demoralisation, which distinguished the Revolutionary period of 1917, no place was found in it, nor in the Right Press either, for the distribution of German gold....

The appearance, on a large scale, of the new Socialist Press was accompanied by a series of unfavourable circumstances. It had no normal past, no traditions. Its prolonged life below the surface, the exclusively destructive method of action adopted by it, its suspicious and hostile attitude towards all authority, put a certain stamp on the whole tendency of this Press, leaving too little place and attention for creative work. The complete discord in thought, the contradictions and vacillation which reigned both within the Soviet and also among the party groups and within the parties, were reflected in the Press, just as much as the elemental pressure from below of irresistible, narrowly egotistic class demands; for neglect of these demands gave rise to the threat, which was once expressed by the "beauty and pride of the Revolution," the Kronstadt sailors to Tchernov, the Minister: "If you will not give us anything, Michael Alexandrovitch will." Finally, the Press was not uninfluenced by the appearance in it of a number of such persons as brought into it an atmosphere of uncleanness and perfidy. The papers were full of names, which had emerged from the sphere of crime, of the Secret Police and of international espionage. All these gentlemen--Tchernomazov (a provocator in the Secret Police and director of the pre-Revolutionary _Pravda_), Berthold (the same and also editor of the _Communist_), Dekonsky, Malinovsky, Matislavsky, those colleagues of Lenin and Gorky--Nahamkes, Stoutchka, Ouritsky, Gimmer (Soukhanov), and a vast number of equally notorious names--brought the Russian Press to a hitherto unknown degree of moral degradation.

The difference was only a matter of scope. Some papers, akin to the Soviet semi-official organ, the _Izvestia of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates_, undermined the country and the Army, while others of the _Pravda_ type (the organ of the Bolshevik Social Democrats) broke them down.

At the same time as the _Izvestia_ would call on its readers to support the Provisional Government, while secretly ready to strike a blow at it, the _Pravda_ would declare that "the Government is counter-Revolutionary, and therefore there can be no relations with it. The task of the Revolutionary Democracy is to attain to the dictatorship of the proletariat." And Tchernov's Socialist Revolutionary organ, the _Delo Naroda_, would discover a neutral formula: all possible support to the Coalition Government, but "there is not, and cannot be, any unanimity in this question; more than that, there must not be, in the interests of the double defence."

At the same time as the _Izvestia_ began to preach an advance, but without a final victory, not abandoning, however, the intention of "deciding over the heads of the Government and the ruling classes the conditions on which the War might be stopped," the _Pravda_ called for universal fraternisation, and the Socialist Revolutionary, _Zemlia i Volia_, alternately grieved that Germany still wished for conquest, or demanded a separate peace. Tchernov's paper, which in March had considered that, "should the enemy be victorious, there would be an end to Russian freedom," now, in May, saw in the preaching of an advance "the limit of unblushing gambling on the fate of the Fatherland, the limit of irresponsibility and demagogy." Gorky's paper, _Novaya Zhizn_, speaking through Gimmer (Soukhanov), rises to cynicism when it says: "When Kerensky gives orders for _Russian soil to be cleared of enemy troops_, his demands far exceed the limits of military _technique_. He calls for a political act, one which has never been provided for by the Coalition Government. For clearing the country by an advance signifies 'complete victory'...." Altogether the _Novaya Zhizn_ supported German interests with especial warmth, raising its voice in all cases when German interests were threatened with danger, either on the part of the Allies or on ours. And when the advance of the disorganised Army ended in failure--in Tarnopol and Kalush--when Riga had fallen, the Left Press started a bitter campaign against the Stavka and the commanding personnel, and Tchernov's paper, in connection with the proposed reforms in the Army, cried hysterically: "Let the proletarians know that it is proposed again to give them up to the iron embrace of beggary, slavery and hunger.... Let the soldiers know that it is proposed again to enslave them with the 'discipline' of their commanders and to force them to shed their blood without end, so long as the belief of the Allies in Russia's 'gallantry' is restored." The most straightforward of all, however, was afterwards the _Iskra_, the organ of the Menshevist Internationalists (Martov-Zederbaum), which, on the day of the occupation of the island of Oesel by a German landing-party, published an article entitled "Welcome to the German Fleet!"

The Army had its own military Press. The organs of the Army staffs and of those at the Front, which used to appear before the Revolution, were of the nature of purely military bulletins. Beginning with the Revolution, these organs, with their weak literary forces, began to fight for the existence of the Army, conscientiously, honestly, but not cleverly. Meeting with indifference or exasperation on the part of the soldiers, who had already turned their backs on the officers, and especially on the part of the Committee organs of the "Revolutionary" movement, which existed side by side with them, they began to weaken and die out, until at last, in the days of August, an order from Kerensky closed them altogether; the exclusive right of publishing Army newspapers was transferred to the Army Committee and the Committees of the troops at the Front. The same fate befell the _News of the Active Army_, the Stavka organ, started by General Markov and left without support from the weighty powers of the Press of the capital.

The Committee Press, widely spread among the troops at the expense of the Government, reflected those moods of which I have spoken earlier in the chapter on the Committees, ranging from Constitutionalism to Anarchism, from complete victory to an immediate conclusion of peace, without orders. It reflected--but in a worse, more sorry form, as regards literary style and content--that disharmony of thought and those tendencies towards extreme theories which characterised the Socialist Press of the Capital. In this respect, in accordance with the personnel of the Committees, and to some extent with their proximity to Petrograd, the respective Fronts differed somewhat from one another. The most moderate was the South-Western Front, somewhat worse, the Western, while the Northern Front was pronouncedly Bolshevist. Besides local talent, the columns of the Committee Press were in many cases opened wide to the resolutions not only of the extreme national parties, but even of the German parties.

It would be incorrect, however, to speak of the immediate action of the Press on the masses of the soldiers. It did not exist any more than there were any popular newspapers which these masses could understand. The Press exercised an influence principally on the semi-educated elements in the ranks of the Army. This sphere turned out to be nearer to the soldiers, and to it passed a certain share of that authority which was enjoyed earlier by the officers. Ideas gathered from the papers and refracted through the mental prism of this class passed in a simplified form to the soldiery, the vast majority of which unfortunately consisted of ignorant and illiterate men. And among these masses all these conceptions, stripped of cunningly-woven arguments, premises and grounds, were transformed into wondrously simple and terrifically logical conclusions.

In them dominated the straightforward negation: "Down!"

Down with the Bourgeois Government, down with the counter-Revolutionary Commanders, down with the "sanguinary slaughter," down with everything of which they were sick, of which they were wearied, all that in one way or another interfered with their animal instincts and hampered "free will"--down with them all!

In such an elementary fashion did the Army at innumerable soldiers' meetings settle all the political and social questions that were agitating mankind.

* * * * *

The curtain has fallen. The Treaty of Versailles has for a time given pause to the armed conflict in Central Europe. Evident to the end that, having regained their strength, the nations may again take up their arms, so as to burst the chains in which defeat has fettered them.

The idea of the "world-peace," which the Christian churches have been preaching for twenty centuries, is buried for years to come.

To us, how childishly naïve now seem the efforts of the humanists of the nineteenth century, who by prolonged, ardent propaganda sought to soften the horrors of war and to introduce the limiting norms of International Law! Yes, now, when we know that one may not only infringe the neutrality of a peaceful, cultured country, but give it to be ravaged and plundered; when we can sink peaceable ships, with women and children on board, by means of submarines; poison people with suffocating gases and tear their bodies with the fragments of explosive bullets; when a whole country, a whole nation, is quoted by cold, political calculation merely as a "Barrier" against the invasion of armed force and pernicious ideas, and is periodically either helped or betrayed in turn.

But the most terrible of all weapons ever invented by the mind of man, the most shameful of all the methods permitted in the late World War was _the poisoning of the soul of a people_!

Germany assigns the priority of this invention to Great Britain. Let them settle this matter between themselves. But I see my native land crushed, dying in the dark night of horror and insanity. And I know her tormentors.

Two theses have arisen before mankind in all their grim power and all their shameless nakedness:

_All is permissible for the advantage of one's country!_

_All is permissible for the triumph of one's party, one's class!_

All, even the moral and physical ruin of an enemy country, even the betrayal of one's native land and the making on its living body of _social experiments_, the failure of which threatens it with paralysis and death.

Germany and Lenin unhesitatingly decided these questions in the affirmative. The world has condemned them; but are all those who speak of the matter so unanimous and sincere in their condemnation? Have not these ideas left somewhat too deep traces in the minds, not so much perhaps of the popular masses as of their leaders? I, at least, am led to such a conclusion by all the present soulless world policy of the Governments, especially towards Russia, by all the present utterly selfish tactics of the class organisations.

This is terrible.

I believe that every people has the right to defend its existence, sword in hand; I know that for many years to come war will be the customary method of settling international disputes, and that methods of warfare will be both honourable and, alas! dishonourable. But there is a certain limit, beyond which even baseness ceases to be simply baseness and becomes insanity. This limit we have already reached. And if religion, science, literature, philosophers, humanitarians, teachers of mankind do not arouse a broad, idealistic movement against the Hottentot morality with which we have been inoculated, the world will witness the decline of its civilisation.