Evening star., 1919-12-29
WORLD'SATnTUDE
TOWARD REDS NOT
HELPFUL TO PEACE
Tendency to Sidetrack Issue
Is Against Policies of
Democracy.
BY FRANK H. sIMONDS.

the Russian mess" have failed to
excite even passing attention. so
far as the official world is concerned.
there is intense and almost feverish
activity in the prosecution of reds"
of all shades. in the gathering up and
re-eXport of all varieties of agents
of the Ru sian anarchy. but not the
smallest concern with any policy de-
signed 10 deal with the source of the
cont amin ton.
Nor is it less striking that a SEN
sational change in allied policy with
respect of Russia. such as Lloyd
George has just made in the mouse
of commons. passes well nigh un-
noticed. In substance, the British
prime minister has announced that
the nations who together framed the,
various peace settlements in Paris
have washed their hands of the Rus
sian affair. they have decided to leave
il to the Russians to get out OF their
own domestic difficulties
Now actually this means that after
the principal allies-Britain. France
and the United States-have expended
several billions of dollars and not a
few lives in vain effort ito support
the elements of order in Russia
against bolshevists. it has been re-
solved to give up the struggle and
leave the Russians, bolshevist and
anti-bolshevist, to fight it out.
West Has Given Up Fight.
This can only mean one thing since
even with outside aid the opponents
of the bolshevistS have been unable to
make headway even to continue the
struggle. Kolchak. Denikine and Yu-
denitch have been beaten, the Baltic
provinces are at the end of their re-
sources and discussing peace with the
bolsheviSts, who are steadily talking
in higher tones. In sun, the west has
given up the fight: It has quit it's
fight against bolSheviSm at the head
quarters Of bolshevism.
Several weeks ago / pointed out
that the course now adopted was in.
evitable. For a year it has been i'm
possible for governments which right
ly recognized the bOlshevist menace
to their own countries to make war.
because their own armies would not
fight and their own people were un-
willing to wage any war further, but
the forecast / then made has been
realized more suddenly and complete
ly than seemed possible at that time.
OF course, Lloyd George took care
to say that his government would not
make peace with the bolshevists or
recognize any Russian government in
advance of the holding of national
assembly. But this is merely throw
ing dust in the eyes of the thought
less. One might with the same cour-
age refuse to recognize the sun or the
other solid fact.
Can Hardly Hope to Keep Field.
With outside aid withdrawn. the
Russian anti-bolshevists. already de-
feated, can hardly hope to keep the
field or continue the struggle. The
disintegration of their armies must
follow swiftly. and this accomplished.
in what direction will the bolshevists
turn? We all know that in Russia to-
hax "A
to the time of the thirty years war
and the army of the defeated fnvari-
ably re-enlists under the colors of the
victor. Actually the munitions the
equipment, all that the western pow
ers have contributed to the fight
against the bolshevists will now be
used wherever the bolshevists choose,
just as the Germans used Russian ma
teria1 against the allies in France.
after their victories in the east.
And the next objective Of the bolshe-
visits must be the border states, must
be the lands of the Poles, the Ruman-
ians, the Lithuanians and the races of
the Baltic shores. They have sufficient
warrant for such a course in the
double fact that much of the territory
of these states was recently Russian
and under the impulsion of the western
nations these races and tribes have
been fighting against the bolshevists
for several years.
In reality the fight against the Rus
sian revolution has broken down just
as did the night against the French
revolution. We are abandoning Russia
exactly as Europe abandone France.
The controlling idea of the continent
in all of it's truces with the French
revolution was to obtain peace. but
the dominant fact is that none OF
these truces obtained peace, while
each of them actually strengthened
ftVa
the fires which burned within the ma
ton and from time to time swept over
all Europe.
Sending home few miserable
agents of Lenin and his ideas and at
the same time resigning almost
quarter of the surface or the EARN
and some 15O,O00,000 of people to the
undisputed control of the bolshevlso
is fair sample of impolicy of the
governments of the hour.
We have announced our readiness
to make peace with bolshevism,
which is in itself a state of war
against what we regarded as orderly
bolshevism. except for purposes of
turning to advantage a temporary
truce, make peace with us, whom Its
leaders now regard as already half
conquered? Obviously not. So far
the program announced by Trotsky
at breSt LltONSk just tWO years d5o
has had amazing success. The Ger
man conquerors, who imposed de-
structive terms upon the reds at
Brest. have disappeared. but Trotsky
remains and bolshevist control of
Russia has expanded enormously.
What Lloyd Georges utterance
means is that western democracy has
lost it's first battle with eastern an
archy Napoleon said that Europe
would be all republican or all Cossack
within a century. it is now half boil
shevist America could not endure
half slave and half free; can Europe
permanently continue half democratio
and half red? This is the problem
now and it ought to be reasonably
clear that giving up the fight in Rus
sia does not mean peace, but new
stage in the struggle between two
totally different orders of ideas, the
western and the eastern, those Of
representative democracy and of au-
tocratic communism.
Once more in this dreary year we
have adopted a policy. advertised to
bring peace and certain to lead
straight to new wars. to a struggle
which may easily prove far more ter
rible and costly than the world war
now ending by degrees and in 10
calities.
Copyright. 1919. Mcclure Newspaper syndicate.) }
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