The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-03-07
ARMED INTERVENTION
ENHANCED REDS POWER
RUSSIANS ABLE tn OVER
THROW BoLSHEvIKs,
Col. Robins, of American Red
Gross, Points Out Failure
Of Allied Cure"

Washington, March ARMED
American intervention in Russia did
much to deepen and strengthen the
bolshevik movement and to enhance
the power of Lenine and Trotzky.
Col. Raymond Robins. former head OF
the American Red Cross mission to
Russia, today made the above staie-
ment to the senate committee inves-
tigating lawless propaganda in the
United States.
Robins declared that Lenine. ana
Trotzky and the bolshevik govern
ment were strongly entrenched inl
Russia because, in hts Judgment. they
were what the vHst majority Of the
Russian people wanted. The instant
the Russian people nd longer want
Lenine and Trotzky and their hoi&{,&<
vik lieutenants to rule over tflein
they can as easily overthrow and
abolish the bolshevik regime az they
did that of the czar, Robins added
The rehabilitation OF the Russian
army after 1t dropped out of the war
left 12,000,000 rifles and thousands OF
machine guns in the hands of Rus
sian soldiers, who returned armed 70
their native villages in all parts OF
Russia, Robins continued
United in Common Cause.
In thousands of villages. scattered
through Russia and Siberia. there
are today large groups of Russian
peasants who, as former soldiers. are
part of loyal soviets, which could eas~
lily employ force for or against Lenine
and Trotzky, Robins said. While ad-
mitting that lack OF leadership and
of cohesion might be responsible
for the failure of 100000 rifles TO
be exercised in an united cause. he
intimated that, in his opinion, IL, ,00Q,-
900 armed Russian peasants, II
aroused by a common cause, would
stand ready to defend their country
from any foreign encroachment which
they might resent.
Robins admitted that a certain part
of the bolshevik army, so-called. con-
sisted of disbanded German troops
and that German officers were fire.
quently found in command of soviet
soldiers. He denied, however, that
German militarism dominated Rus
sia or the government of Lenine and
Trotzky.
TN my opinion the whole Russian
people are entitled to have bolshe-
vism or a bolshevik form OF govern
ment if they want it," Robins said.
"If the Russian people did not want
Lenine and Trotzky, they could easily
get rid of them overnight"
Czech Slovaks Guilty, Too.
Robins admitted that the bolshc-
visits had committed atrocities. but
he charged that the Czech Slovaks
had also been guilty of atrocities in
Russia; and he declared that, while
he was not attempting to derend
Lenine or Trotzky. he believed that
the cure" the United States and
Great Britain and France had of
fered in the form of armed interven-
ton for bolsbevism was one that the
Russian people had bitterly re-
sented." Such armed intervention.
he declared. has been responsible not
only for bolshevisn becoming more
and more strongly entrencned in
Russia but from it spread through
western Europe and to this country.
He asserted that the use or American
troops in Russia had been the result
Of false" judgment OF. the actual
conditions existing in Russia, had
been "a betrayal of American princi-
pies" and had done much TO create
and arouse intense class feeling and
not only in Europe but in
the United States.