The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-10
Lenine and Trotsky Have Fol.
lowing in United States.
Surprised at Freedom GiveI
PrO-GermanS in America.
REBS HOLD ONLY PETROGRAI
Shepherd Predicts Little if Any
Civil War.
Separate Peace Would Affect
Only Part of Big Nation.
G. SHEPHERD.

BY lam G. SHEPHERD.
(Shepherd is a news correspondent with
whose articles from Petrograd and the
various war points of Europe, State Jour
nal readers are well acquainted. He ar
rived in New York today from Stockholm)
New York, Nov. 10.-If Kerensky
succeeds in getting away from Petro-
grad and establishing new govern
ment at Moscow, I firmly believe he
I be able to carry enough of the
army with him to keep up a sem
blance of war-and that is the best we
can ask of Russia at this time.
There will be no civil war in Russia
aside perhaps from some street
fighting in Petrograd.
There are two kinds of soldiers in
Russia-those who want to fight and
those who don't-and it is just as hard
to get the latter to fight the former as
it is to get the to fight Germans.
Modified Too Large an Army.
The car modified too many men.
He put twenty million men in uni
form. The great problem facing Ker-
ensky in October was how to get some
of these men back to their homes.
Every time there is a change in
Socialistic government in Petrograd
the geographical area over which the
reduced until now the new alleged
government of Russia which has re-
placed Kerensky, is governing only
Petrograd alone.
In Russia there are vast forces at
work, quietly and often in an under
ground way, but they are bringing
Russia together. As far as the Boil
sheViki are concerned we may as well
look the facts squarely in the face.
The average Russian soldier who
a
not because of theories of Socialism,
but because the Bolsheviki are against
the war.
If this Bolsheviki happens to be
peasant-then he is a double Bolshe-
Wiki and he not only is unwilling to
fight but unwilling to remain at the
front. he wants to return home and
get his piece of land.
Strong Pacifist Following.
Behind Lenine and Trotsky there
are undoubtedly hundreds of thou
sands of Russian soldiers who will
welcome any talk of peace.
If Lenine and Trotsky made a sep
arate peace it will be a separate peace
for only a portion of the Russian
army which has been poisoned by the
Lenine doctrines.
Petrograd is very likely to fall,
anyhow. The Germans will probably
get Helsingfors within short time
and then they will cut the Finnish
railway WHICH COHH6CUS RUSSIA WIN
Sweden, but even if we have to say
goodbye to Petrograd this does not
mean that Russia is gone.
The thing that impresses me most
on my arrival here-and particularly
in view of the latest news from Russia
is that we of America will have to
carry the load. It will fall more and
more heavily on US.
Pro- Germans Free Handed in q. S.
And I am astonished after having
been in all the warning countries of
Europefo see the freedom with which
German aliens and sympathizers in the
United States move about in perfect
liberty.
1t was the Germans who poisoned
and paralyzed Russia. The greatest
piece of diplomacy in the war was
achieved by the German who first
worked out the scheme of permitting
Lenine to pass thru Germany into
Russia.
was on the steamer Christiniaford
en- route from America to Russia early
last spring when the Canadian au-
thorities forcibly removed Leon
Trotsky from our midst. This was at
Halifax. If he had been held in
definitely, his story might have been
different in Russia. So also with
Lenine.
Both Trotsky and Lenine have been
in New York. They have friends and
sympathizers here, men who believe
as they about the war, and men who
given opportunity will try to do the
same things in the United States that
they are doing in Russia.