Editorial: The Saviours of Russia (1918)

Editorial from the September 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

The hand of the capitalist is slowly but surely revealing itself in Russian affairs. It will be remembered with what haste the capitalist Governments rushed to congratulate their triumphant (as they thought) fellow thieves upon their overthrow of the monarchy. They did not then stop to lecture on the enormity of “internal dissention” in the midst of war. No, they tumbled over each other in their anxiety to deliver their congratulations — because the “victors” were of their own kidney.

They made a mistake, however. In the ultimate it proved to he more than the revolutionary capitalist class in Russia could do, once they had broken the tyrannical organisation which had kept the conscripted forces in subjection, to regain for themselves control of those forces. It was not for the want of trying that they failed. They soon got busy butchering soldiers who refused to go on with the war which they had not made, which they had never wanted, and which they realised could bring them no benefit. So the revolutionary capitalists, who were never for a moment strong enough to establish their authority over the forces and powers of State, were “recognised” and accepted by their fellow capitalists as the “representatives of the Russian people,” as the Russian people, as the natural successors, quite as a matter of course, to Bloody Nick and his crew. That they had no power as a Government made no difference.

How different, however, was the conduct of the capitalist Governments toward the Bolsheviks when the latter took the reins from the palsied grasp of the “triumphant bourgeoisie"! Their accredited envoys received only “unofficial recognition, for the purpose of communication.” The London representative was even permitted to be turned out of his office, and the law was strained order to prevent that Russian representative enjoying the use of the premises he was in perfectly legal possession of.

Thus it is seen that from the very commencement the capitalist governments have been bitterly antagonistic to the Bolshevik Government. They have refused to receive their accredited representatives, they have declined to recognise them as a government, they have deprived their ambassadors or envoys (of course, they will quarrel over the terms) of the common means and conveniences for carrying on their work, even to the extent of interrupting their communications.

Nor is this by any means the worst. Fearful that if the Bolshevik enterprise should meet with success it might prove contagious, they have determined to crush it and restore their friends and allies, the Russian capitalists, to dominance. So we have a “league of nations” in being against the Bolshevik Government. Under the plea that they are going to save Russia from the Germans they invade the country at various points. “We come as the friends of Russia,” they declare, and disown any intention of interfering with “the internal politics of the country.”

But the shallow falsity of all these claims is quite easy to see. No efforts of the Allies in Russia can “save Russia from Germany,” for the force which they can send into that country must be expended, not against Germany, but against new enemies the allied invasion must necessarily raise up—the Bolsheviks themselves. Hence the effort of the Allies can only be on the one hand a provocative of further opposition to them, and on the other hand a subtraction from the forces operating in the regions where the question of the German exploitation of Russia really will be decided—in the main theatre of war, the West European front.

As to the claim that they go into Russia as “the friends of Russia,” this must be translated into “the friends of Russian capitalists” if it is to have any truth at all. It is only by the continued exploitation of the Russian working class that the Allied capitalists can ever hope to recover the many millions which they have advanced, both before and since the outbreak of the war, to Russia, with the object of strengthening her against Germany. It is only by setting up capitalist domination anew in Eastern Europe, that they can maintain that counterpoise to industrially advancing Germany, that thorn in the side of the double eagle, which is so necessary if they are to retain their place in the world markets. It is only by securing the downfall of the Bolshevik regime, by throwing upon that movement the odium of failure, that they can stave off their own demise, as a class proven to be useless, for any considerable period. These are the reasons which underlie their actions, which bring Allied soldiers to the Murman coast, call Japanese troops to Eastern Siberia, and turn even Chinese artillery on Bolshevik workmen.

Now with regard to the ludicrous statement that there is no intention of interfering with Russian internal politics. Everyone knows that it is openly admitted that one of the main objects of the Allies in invading Russia is “to save Russia from the Bolsheviks.” The capitalist Press has made no secret of it. Capitalist agents, both here and in Russia, have striven for it. In particular one may instance Dr. Harold Williams, when special correspondent to the "Daily Chronicle” in Petrograd, and since his return to this country. His filthy diatribes against the Bolsheviks leave no doubt as to their object—the overthrow of those against whom he inveighed.

What sort of game has been played is unwittingly revealed in an eulogy of Capt. Cromie which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle” on Sept. 14th, wherein, after retailing some of Cromie’s activities in favour of the capitalist interests, it is stated that, he went to Petrograd and strove to hold the forces of “sanity and reason” together. Needless to say, in the capitalist view, neither sanity nor reason can reside in Bolshevik craniums, and to scheme their overthrow is not interfering in internal politics of course!