# British Consul Replies to Anti-Bolshevik Slanders

BRITISH CONSUL REPLIES TO ANTI-BOLSHEVIK SLANDERS
Correspondence between Rear-Admiral Kemp, RN. (retired) & Douglas Young (ex British Consul at Archangel).
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Published by THE PEOPLE'S RUSSIAN INFORMATION BUREAU, 152, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.4.
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[This correspondence appeared in "The Times" of December 13th, 19th, 28th, 1918, and January 6th, 1919.]
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Reprinted from "THE TIMES," December 13, 1918.
THE ALLIES IN NORTH RUSSIA.
A DEFENCE OF INTERVENTION.
In the following article Rear-Admiral Kemp, R.N. (retired), lately British senior naval officer in North Russia, describes the operations of the Allied forces there.
The coming elections make it desirable that some of the more prominent facts governing Allied intervention in North Russia should be explained and emphasised. In view of the fact that a considerable section of the Labour Party are demanding non-intervention and the withdrawal from North Russia of Allied troops, the whole question is one which will largely depend on the result of the elections.
Allied active intervention first took the form of a naval landing at Murmansk and Pechenga in February and March of the present year. Murmansk, at the head of the Kola inlet, is the Arctic terminus of the Murmansk-Petrograd railway and of the Peterhead submarine cable to the United Kingdom, and thus formed at that time the sole means of direct telegraphic communication available to the Allies, and the only means of exit for the many thousands of Allied subjects who were flying for their lives from the anarchy prevailing in the interior. Pechenga, about 100 miles to the west of Kola inlet, is the nearest Russian port and settlement to the Norwegian and Finnish frontiers. Both places were menaced by a German-Finnish attack.
The landing at Murmansk was effected without opposition from the Bolshevist armed forces of the place, consisting of some 1,500 naval sailors and a few Red and Railway Guards. Pechenga was occupied by a landing party from a British cruiser, which defeated and drove off an invading party of Finns, who had crossed the frontier with the intention of occupying the settlement and harbour. The landing party were afterwards reinforced by the arrival at Murmansk of a French and an American cruiser. These operations were regularised by a definite arrangement between the senior representatives of the Allied Powers (including the United States) and the Murman Provincial Council.
By the arrangement in question the Allied Governments agreed to assist in the defence of Russian territory against German-Finnish invasion With all the forces they could spare for the purpose, to assist to feed the population of the Murman Province—then threatened with famine—and gave assurances that they had no annexationist aims or intention to interfere in the domestic affairs of Russia. This agreement was communicated to the Central Government at Moscow, and a reply was received from M. Trotsky, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and the head of the Soviet Government, ordering the Provincial Council to co-operate in all ways with the Allied forces for the defence of Russian territory on the lines laid down. It will thus be seen that the initial act of Allied intervention was known to and approved by the de facto Government of the Russian Republic.
German-Finnish Designs.
German-Finnish designs on Russia may be shortly described as follows:—Finland had been proclaimed a Republic, and was in a state of civil war, roughly, between the North and South, known respectively as White and Red Finland. The Germans had landed in the south, dispersed the Red Finns, and practically annexed the country, with the active co-operation of the Whites. Finland's share in the transaction was to be annexation of the Murman Peninsula and all Karelia, roughly the territory between the Finnish border and the western shore of the White Sea.
The threat of German-Finnish invasion becoming more pronounced as ​time went on, the Allied Council at Versailles, in accordance with its agreement to assist with all forces that could be spared, sent Allied reinforcements which reached Murmansk towards the beginning of June, under Major-General Poole, who had been nominated by the Versailles Council as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces in North Russia.
The attitude of the Central Government now changed, probably under strong German pressure. The Provincial Council received orders to require the withdrawal from Russia of all Allied military and naval forces. This point marks the first stage of a state of war between the Allies and the Bolshevist Government of Russia. The Provincial Government took the only course open to it—it repudiated allegiance to the Central Government, and threw in its lot with the Allies. The course of events at Murmansk rendered inevitable the forcible occupation of Archangel. The naval forces which since the beginning of the war had been co-operating with the Russian authorities had been withdrawn in December, 1917, when navigation closed, and political events had made their retention in Archangel undesirable.
Bolshevist Aggression.
From that moment Archangel came under the unrestrained Bolshevist influence of the Soviet Government. As already shown, the Soviet Government had virtually declared war with the Allies after welcoming their intervention. Allied subjects in large numbers had been imprisoned, shockingly ill-treated, and, in many cases, formally sentenced to death. Captain Cromie, R.N., the British Naval Attaché at Petrograd, had been murdered, not by a mob but by the organised military forces of the Russian Republic. Archangel Province was on the verge of famine, and access to Archangel was denied to Allied ships. In spite of repeated protests, many hundreds of thousands of tons of coal and war material of all sorts which were lying at Archangel had been seized and confiscated by the Soviet Government, railed away to the interior during the winter, and sold to the Germans to be used against the Allies on the Western front.
Either of the foregoing causes would have justified belligerent action; taken together they afford the amplest justification for it. The occupation of Archangel was therefore approved, and some modest naval and military reinforcements having been received, Archangel was occupied on August 2 after a surprise attack. The Bolshevist Government and garrison fled in panic. A temporary Government was formed, consisting of members elected to the Constituent Assembly, which had been dispersed by armed force at the beginning of the Bolshevist régime in October, 1917. The Allied diplomatic representatives arrived in Archangel shortly after the occupation, and in co-operation with the Provincial Government of North Russia took over the direction of political affairs. As reinforcements arrived, an advance was made along the railway and up the north Dwina River, strong opposition being encountered.
The supply of food and coal to the people of the occupied territory has averted the horrors of starvation and privation in the coming winter, and Allied intervention has restored to them the blessing of ordered government under a Russian National Administration. Interest and honour alike forbid any withdrawal of Allied forces from Russia, which would subject those who have been loyal to the Allied cause to savage reprisals. Nor will any guarantees short of the forcible smash up of Bolshevism in Russia suffice. This involves the occupation of Kronstadt, Petrograd, and Moscow, together with the surrender to the Allies of Lenin, Trotsky, Tchitcherin, and the principal commissaries responsible for the orgy of outrage and massacre in Russia. These persons are already outlawed by the British Government for the murder of Captain Cromie, and they must be given up. The settlement of Russia is necessarily complicated by the revolution in Germany. It should be remembered that every vote given to those in sympathy with Russian Bolshevism is a vote for anarchy in Europe.
The above, omitting details, is a rough but true account of Allied intervention in Russia. It is written by one who has served in Russia continuously from October, 1915, to November, 1918, who talks and reads Russian with facility, and whose position brought him closely into touch with current events.
Reprinted from "THE TIMES," December 19, 1919.
THE ALLIES IN NORTH RUSSIA.
MR. YOUNG'S REPLY.
Sir,—In your issue of December 13 there appears an article under the title "The Allies in North Russia—a Defence of Intervention," by Rear-Admiral J. W. Kemp, R.N. (retired), lately British S.N.O. in the White Sea, with whom I have been associated in most friendly relations in North Russia during the past three years.
In his closing paragraph Admiral Kemp claims authority to speak on current events in Russia. If he limits his claim to speak regarding events on the Murman coast, I admit his authority. But if he claims to speak regarding Anglo-Russian relations at Archangel under the Bolshevist régime, I must strongly demur, in view of the fact that Admiral Kemp left Archangel on December 17, 1917, when the Admiralty and Ministry of Shipping hurriedly and completely evacuated their ships and personnel from Archangel, leaving me as British Consul in sole charge of British interests at that place. With the exception of a few days in July, Admiral Kemp did not return to Archangel until the arrival of the Allied Expeditionary Force on August 2 last, and I therefore claim to be the only British official representative competent to express an authoritative opinion upon the whole course of events at Archangel from December 17, 1917, until August 7 last.
Upon the first part of Admiral Kemp's article relating to events in Murmansk I make no comment, as I was not there, beyond saying that I believe it to represent exactly what occurred. Murmansk was in an entirely peculiar position owing to two facts—that it is a remote spot in the far north, containing only a few workmen's barracks and being practically out of touch politically with the rest of Russia; and that we had throughout maintained and never surrendered an overwhelming superiority as regards material force which put us in a position to dictate terms.
In the latter part of his article, however, Admiral Kemp makes certain statements, quite in good faith I am sure, which in the interest of truth and honest dealing require authoritative correction. It is true that the attitude of the Central Soviet Government changed, possibly "under strong German pressure," but may not the change have occurred because we allowed ourselves to drift from an anti-German policy to a policy obviously anti-Soviet?
Admiral Kemp passes over this phase of events rather hurriedly, and then makes the startling statement that Allied subjects "had been" imprisoned, that Captain Cromie "had been" murdered with the official sanction of the Soviet Government. Does he seriously suggest that Allied subjects had been imprisoned, that Captain Cromie had been murdered, before the Allied occupation of Archangel, when in fact these things only took place more than a month later? Is he not aware that, according to a statement published in an Anglo-Russian paper in London and attributed to Mr. Lockhart's own secretary, the position of the British even in Moscow "was not made uncomfortable until August 4," two days after that occupation?
Admiral Kemp divides British opinion on the Russian situation into two classes only, interventionists and pro-Bolshevists. Does he not realise that there is a considerable body of thoughtful men, Unionists and Liberals, as well as Labour men, of no less patriotism than himself, who are anti-interventionist by conviction and who feel that our dealings with the Soviet Government do not accord with the British tradition of fair play and honest dealing even with an ignoble foe? Can he not admit that the actions of certain British representatives in Russia, with or without the ​knowledge and sanction of the British Government, gave the Soviet Government good grounds for suspecting us of deceiving them and of playing a deliberate double game? Does he not remember the, to me, memorable afternoon of July 6, when some time between 4 and 6 p.m., in the Presidium Chamber of the Archangel Soviet, he informed them in my presence that, "speaking for himself, and he was sure he could say the same for General Poole, he could assure them that Allied action in the White Sea was not aimed against the Soviet Government"? And has he forgotten another similar meeting a few days later, when with scowling faces the Soviet representatives communicated reports of high-handed action by the Allied military and naval forces on the western shores of the White Sea, including the shooting of three members of the Kem Soviet? Does he deny that these reports, which were subsequently confirmed, swept away like a house of cards my attempts to reach a modus vivendi with the local Soviet authorities? They at any rate were ready until the last to come to an arrangement with us on the basis of the exchange of goods, but they would not sell their birthright—their right to resist our landing except it were done "upon their invitation"—for an Allied mess of pottage, the food of which they were in sore need.
I entirely agree with Admiral Kemp that honour forbids the unconditional withdrawal of our forces from Archangel, leaving the civil population to savage reprisals. He might have added that such withdrawal is, moreover, a practical impossibility before next June or July at the earliest, owing to ice conditions in the White Sea.
Admiral Kemp's article confines itself almost entirely to a defence of past and a plea for future intervention. What of the present? Has intervention in Archangel so far proved a success? We may thank God that there were no Germans there, if the Soviet troops alone have thrown us back upon Archangel. We have cut off Archangel completely from her natural source of food supply, the interior of Russia, and have thereby committed ourselves to feeding her population. We have made the lot of 150,000 out of the 180,000,000 population of Russia a little easier, on condition that they do exactly what we wish. If our aim was to benefit the upper classes in Russia, or even the nation as a whole, our methods suggest rather those of the bear in the Russian fable, who loved a peasant so much that he took him to live with him and watched over him night and day. Once, as the peasant slept, a fly lighted on his forehead, and the bear, seizing a stone, smashed the fly—and killed his friend.
What are the alternatives to continued intervention? To make a ring round Russia and abandon her to her fate? This is unthinkable if we remember, as so many fail to do, the gigantic achievements of Russia in the first years of the war, when by her deliberate sacrifices she helped to save Paris and the Channel ports.
Can we not negotiate and endeavour to remove suspicion and misunderstandings which have arisen, in part at any rate, through our failure to fit our actions towards Russia to the "acid test" enunciated by President Wilson? If and when negotiation fails, and the Soviet Government formally proclaims itself to the world as the champion of pan d and of the extermination of the upper classes, then will it be time enough to consider whether the civilised Powers, Allied and neutral alike, shall proclaim a holy war against this evil thing and call for volunteers to stamp it out, even if it takes 10 years.
I am, &c., DOUGLAS YOUNG,
The Pardons, Ditchling Sussex, Dec. 14.
Reprinted from "THE TIMES," December 28, 1918.
THE ALLIES IN NORTH RUSSIA.
AIMS OF BRITISH INTERVENTION.
ADMIRAL KEMP'S REPLY.
We have received the following letter from Rear-Admiral T. W. Kemp, late British Senior Naval Officer in North Russia, in reply to the letter published by us on December 19 from Mr. Douglas Young:—
Mr. Young's letter in The Times of December 19 is mischievous, as tending to discourage a national enterprise. It is a mass of false suggestion and innuendo, and of obscure reference to concrete events and facts. The difficulty is to deal with it fully. To do so would occupy more space in The Times than other matters of public importance justify. Speaking roughly, it consists of:—(a) Suggestions of charges against the British Government; (b) suggestions of charges against myself.
I will take the latter first, as the least important. The suggested charge against myself is contained in the passage, emphasised by italics, that I informed the Archangel Soviet "that the action of the Allies in the White Sea was not aimed against the Soviet Government." The actual statement that I used these words or words to that effect is true. They related solely to past events. The underlying suggestion that I gave any guarantee as to the future action of the Allies is false and injurious. The future intentions of the Allied Governments were not known to me on the date in question, July 6. The question as to the occupation of Archangel was under consideration by the Versailles War Council, but its decision was not communicated to me till after my return to Murmansk some ten days later. My ignorance on the point was actual, not technical. At that time Archangel was not in free cypher communication with the outer world.
I had left Murmansk for Archangel in H.M. yacht Salvator on July 3 or 4. The objects of my visit were: (a) To tranquillise the position at Archangel, where my personal influence was great, and to ascertain the state of affairs. (b) To arrange for the unloading of two British ships containing foodstuffs, which had arrived in Archangel in March, and for the disposal of their cargoes. (c) To arrange for the repatriation of over a thousand Allied refugees, who had drifted to Archangel from the interior and who were in danger of being held as hostages. With the assistance of Mr. Young, (b) and (c) were satisfactorily arranged, (c) acting as an offset to (b).
In order to further (a), I arranged a meeting with the Presidium (Executive Committee) of the Soviet, and invited Mr. Young, who was my junior in position, age, and experience, to attend. I explained fully to the Soviet the cause and reasons of Allied intervention in Murman. In my article in The Times of December 13 I pointed out that one of the conditions of intervention was non-interference in Russian internal affairs. It dealt only with the defence of the Murman province against German-Finnish armed aggression. Up to the date in question it had taken no form which was not compatible with and necessary to that condition. It was to this condition that the words emphasised by Mr. Young in italics applied, and to nothing else. In the course of the meeting I was asked by the Soviet whether the Allies intended to intervene in Archangel. I replied that I did not know, and added a plain warning that any orders received from the Allied Governments would be carried into effect by the Allied forces. It will simplify matters if some explanation is given as to the relation which existed between the Archangel Soviet and the Central Soviet at Moscow, which was the de facto Government of Russia. Mr. Young tends to infer that the former were free agents and independent of the latter. This was not so. The local Soviet were empowered to deal ​with local matters, but not with main points of policy, which the Central Soviet kept in their own hands. Nor was there any disposition to follow the lead of the Murman Provincial Council and repudiate the authority of the Central Soviet, nor would the Bolshevist garrison of Archangel have allowed them to do so. News of the events at Kem and western shores of the White Sea arrived at Archangel a few days later by a coasting steamer. The Soviet asked me to meet them, gave their version of the affairs in question, which was the first intimation I had received, expressed their wish to go to Kem to ascertain facts, and asked me for a guarantee of safety. I readily complied, and, further, expressed my intention of accompanying them in the Salvator. Their representatives embarked in a Russian armed ship, and we left in company. On arrival I held an inquiry in their presence. I found that high-handed action, though not of a serious nature, had been taken with regard to the national flag of certain Russian merchant ships belonging to Archangel, which had been forcibly, but unavoidably, appropriated temporarily to remove (voluntarily) some starving Russian refugees. The matter was satisfactorily arranged in a written agreement between the Soviet and myself.
As regards the shooting of three members of the Kem Soviet, the facts are as follows:—In accordance with certain military requirements, it had been mutually agreed that certain of the Russian Red or Railway Guards at Kem should surrender their arms to the Allied military authorities. The three members of the Soviet were shot while in the act of offering armed resistance to the surrender. There was nothing in the nature of punishment or reprisal. These occurrences in no way prejudiced local arrangements with the Archangel Soviet. As related above, these had already been satisfactorily arranged and given effect to. One word with regard to the date of Captain Cromie's death. Here Mr. Young is right and I am wrong. The statement put forward in my article of December 13 does not, therefore, hold good. This point, however, does not affect the other points put forward, including the imprisonment and ill-treatment of Allied subjects.
I will now deal with the suggestion of charges brought by Mr. Young against the British Government. These suggestions are as follows:—(a) That the British Government "allowed matters to drift from an anti-German policy to a policy obviously anti-Soviet." (b) That British representatives, with or without the sanction of the British Government, gave the Soviet Government "good grounds for suspecting us of deceiving them and of playing a deliberate double game."
With regard to (a), I know of no justification for this suggestion. In my opinion, any change of policy was due entirely to the hostile attitude of the Soviet Government itself. This attitude came to a climax in the ultimatum of the Allied forces to evacuate Murman and in the ever-growing pro-German policy of the Soviet Government and its agents. Up to the point when the policy of the Soviet Government became openly and definnitely hostile, resulting in the occupation of Archangel and subsequent operations, the attitude of the British Government had been conciliatory to the last degree. They were goaded into action by the gross illegalities of the Soviet Government.
With regard to (b), I know of no such cases, and unless Mr. Young has proof this suggestion should never have been made. Other suggestions made by Mr. Young are as follows:—(a) That events in Murman were dictated by superior force. This is untrue. Up to the time reinforcements arrived in the spring of 1918, Russian material forces were superior to Allied. At no time were events dictated by force, but by the free and unfettered will of the people of the province for whom Allied forces stood as a guarantee of protection. (b) That the Bolshevist elements at Archangel were patriots ready to defend their country against unprovoked aggression. With a few exceptions they were cowardly bandits. With an adequate garrison and all warlike material at hand to make a strong position impregnable, they fled at the approach of a small Allied force, taking with them many millions of roubles stolen from public and private funds. (c) that 150,000 people within the zone of Allied occupation had been deprived by the occupation of food supplies from the interior. This is a gross misrepresentation, Petrograd and Moscow are starving even though Vologda, their northern junction for Siberia, is in their hands and their ​communications elsewhere are absolutely unaffected. Russia is starving not because the Allies have occupied Archangel, but because tyranny and anarchy have closed the avenues of transport and the sources of supply. To reopen these is one of the first objectives of Allied intervention. (d) That the Soviet Government has not yet "proclaimed itself to the world as the champion of anarchy and of the extermination of the upper classes." This, again, is misrepresentation. The Soviet Government has repeatedly made the proclamation in question in messages sent out broadcast to Europe from the high-power wireless station in Bolshevist hands and subscribed to by one or other of the Bolshevist leaders.
Finally, Mr. Young suggests that the British Government should negotiate with the Soviet Government. The Soviet Government consists of Trotsky, Lenin, Chicherin, and the leading Bolshevist Commission. The British Government has declared these persons outlaws, and their lives are forfeit for the murder of Captain Cromie and many other crimes. The only relationship which can exist between them and the British Government is that of criminal and Judge.
My article of December 13 and the present letter deal with Allied intervention from the comparatively narrow standpoint of events in North Russia, and on first-hand evidence. Lord Milner's manly and explicit declaration of December 19 deals with the matter from a broader standpoint. It commits the country to continued intervention. The effect will be very marked in Russia, where, in the absence of any authoritative declaration on the point, fear of reprisals has constrained our Russian Allies to a more or less neutral attitude.
In the opinion of the writer, continued intervention to be effective involves the occupation of Moscow and Petrograd, together with the control, for a time, of all means of transport and communication and of the economic system in Russia generally. In order that a decision should he obtained before Revolutionary Germany unites with Bolshevist Russia in a formidable confederacy the necessary military measures should he pushed on with all speed. No one knows better than Trotsky and Lenin that their system stands or falls with their success or failure in spreading their doctrines among the working classes of the Allied nations. There are signs that the nation is becoming awake to this danger. This in itself gives reason to hope that the Government will have the support of a united nation. Of one thing the nation may rest assured—they are committed with clean hands to a good cause.
Reprinted from "THE TIMES," January 6, 1919.
THE ALLIES IN NORTH RUSSIA.
MR. YOUNG'S REPLY.
Sir,—Rear-Admiral Kemp's further letter, published in your issue of December 28, compels me once again, and, I hope, for the last time, to ask the courtesy of your columns.
It is a pity that, in dealing with my previous letter, published on December 19, Admiral Kemp should have allowed himself to use expressions suggestive of bitterness rather than of calm judgment, and to adopt a didactic tone, more appropriate to the quarter-deck or schoolroom than to the free world of fair discussion and open-minded criticism.
After characterising my letter as "mischievous" and my statements as "false suggestion," he calmly admits that on the one point in which British interests were clearly and indisputably concerned—namely, the safety of British subjects—he was wrong in stating that British subjects had been "murdered" and maltreated before the Allied descent upon Archangel! I leave it to your readers to decide whether the epithets which he employs are more properly applicable to an attempt to present both sides of a question, or to a direct mis-statement, made on the eve of an election with the expressed object of influencing the electors on a matter peculiarly calculated to appeal to public sentiment.
Admiral Kemp further admits that he made the statement regarding Allied intervention as not being aimed against the Soviet Government, but now seeks to give it a different meaning. The point is not so much what he meant as what he said, and what meaning his words conveyed to those to whom they were addressed. As to this, there can be no shadow of doubt, for the Soviet authorities immediately responded by allowing the Allied refugees to proceed. The departure of these refugees, by the way, was chiefly due to the energy of my French colleague, whose nationals outnumbered the British by four or five to one.
As regards British residents at Archangel, I can state with authority that, so far from being at any time molested, they were accorded many privileges and exemptions to which they had no right; and I am certain that if they could speak their minds they would complain bitterly, not of the Bolshevists, but of the Allied diplomatic representatives, who themselves fled for safety to the cover of the Allied guns, leaving British men, women, and children to take their chance of emerging from the oncoming wave of intervention. We all lived for months under the dread of mob violence at German instigation, but I never at any time feared outrage by or with the sanction of the responsible Soviet authorities, so long as neutrality was observed; and I am glad of an opportunity of stating that I found the Soviet representatives at all times far more accessible and responsive to reasonable demands than the discourteous and overbearing officials who so often represented the Imperial Russian Government.
If Admiral Kemp will again refresh his memory, he will doubtless recall having told the representatives of the Archangel Soviet at one of our joint meetings between July 6 and 11 that he personally "thought the British Government ought to have recognised the Soviet Government"—a length to which I was unable to follow him, except in so far as one must recognise a storm or any other unpleasant fact of nature.
I will not be led away into a fruitless discussion of the indexed list of absurdities and imaginary accusations into which the Admiral distorts my remarks in order, presumably, to give himself the easy pleasure of refuting them. As an example, when I state the obvious fact that the creation of a military front a little south of Archangel deprives that town of the supplies which from time immemorial she has drawn from the interior of Russia, he puts into my mouth the evident absurdity that Russia is starving owing to Allied intervention. Again, when I obviously speak of the superior naval force which we throughout maintained at Murmansk in contrast to Archangel, where we withdrew the one ship that we had ​there, he makes me refer to some subsequent land forces which he has in his own mind.
Admiral Kemp is welcome to any kudos which he may seek to derive from the sorry business at Archangel, nor will I compete with him in irrelevant self-eulogy in the matter of experience or influence. If, however, by his senior position he implies that he was the senior British political as well as naval representative, he knows that I never allowed his ridiculous pretension, and I can assure him that he was never so regarded by the Archangel authorities under the Imperial, Kerensky, or Bolshevist régime.
While avoiding reply on points which 1 raised regarding the actual results of intervention at Archangel, Admiral Kemp persists in making incorrect statements regarding events which occurred there when he was not present, on which he calls "first-hand evidence."
He states that there was not any disposition on the part of the Archangel Soviet to repudiate the authority of the Central Soviet at Moscow. There most decidedly was, and the fact is on official record; but the brief opportunity was lost, and naturally did not recur when the real intentions of the Allied military command at Murmansk became apparent. Archangel should have been won over first, as Murmansk was ours at any time; but peaceful methods were "too slow" for the militarists, who are now little further ahead than they were five months ago; The menace from Murmansk closed the Soviet ranks at Archangel and throughout Russia, and the strengthening of the Bolshevist forces at Archangel followed this.
Again, he states that the Bolshevists at Archangel were "cowardly bandits" who "fled at the approach of a small Allied force." This is misleading and unfair to Russians, who, whatever their faults, are not a nation of cowards. The Allied military force which embarked upon this crazy adventure, and was to be the signal for the collapse of the Soviet Government throughout Russia, was, indeed, miserably inadequate to achieve anything more than a local and temporary success; and it was saved from initial disaster only by good luck in the matter of weather conditions, and by the fact that it arrived before it was expected and during the absence in Moscow of the Bolshevist leader, The Soviet troops evacuated Archangel in a momentary panic, due in the first place to the fact that their organisation was honeycombed in the upper and technical grades by Russian officers who took service with them with the intention either of deliberately betraying their cause or of jumping with the cat. In the second place it was due to the unexpected arrival of Allied bombing aeroplanes against which they had no defence. They speedily stiffened, however, and within a week of the landing held up the Allied advance at an inconsiderable distance south of Archangel, approximately where they now remain, if winter conditions have not forced them back on Archangel.
It is quite true that the retreating Soviet authorities took with them considerable sums of money from the Treasury and banks, but they could hardly have been expected to leave it for our convenience. It is equally true that the Cossack officers of the "Wild" Division, who arrested my colleagues and myself, and who, as I was subsequently informed, were prepared to dispose of us if events had gone the other way, appropriated and divided among themselves several million roubles of public money.
I do not propose to respond to Admiral Kemp's invitation to expose my whole knowledge regarding activities on the part of British representatives, which could not possibly be tolerated by "the de facto Government of Russia," as he rightly describes the Soviet Government. I am not an apologist of Bolshevism, but an advocate of fair and unprejudiced criticism; and it will be time enough when the Soviet Government themselves publish the whole sordid story, the general facts of which were common talk upon the streets of Archangel.
Fair and open discussion of past events cannot repair the harm already done, but it may at least teach a lesson for the future. Misrepresentation and the suppression of facts, on the other hand, only aggravate a difficult and dangerous situation, which all sane men view with increasing alarm.
I am, &c., DOUGLAS YOUNG
The Pardons, Ditchling, Sussex, Dec. 31.
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