Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1920-08-14
Condc1nning tho Bolsherist

| DERHAPS the most striking phase OF the
Polish note addressed by this govern
ment to that of Italy is the uncompromising
attitude OF hostility toward the Bolshevist
| regime in Russia. That America would ex-
press it's sympathy for Poland in tho present
crisis and demand that its territorial in
tegrity be preserved was we'll understood,
but there had been repeated limitations
from official sources that the President no
longer felt as austerely toward the Boil
SheviSt government as in the past.
All such notions have been swept away
by the announcements contained in the
Polish communication. So far as the pres
cnt administration is concerned, the United
States is unrelenting in its refusal to grant
recognition to the Lenine regime or to have
either direct or indirect relationship with
4 group of international wreckers who main
tain themselves in power in Russia by brute
force, and are dedicating all their resources
to the destruction of orderly government
throughout the world
This governments arraignment Of Boil
shevism is as savage as could be expressed
in diplomatic terms, and it comes at time
when Italy is pleading the cause of Soviet
ism; when Great Britain is tcmporiZing with
t,.and even France, which had been stead
fast in its antagonism, appeared to be weak
enng. 1t is not unlikely, therefore, that
the position taken by the United States gov
eminent will have the effect of stiffening
few national backbones on the Continent OF
Europe. At least it will strengthen the
Polish cause and probably raise the morale
of that distressed nation.
AS this government views the situation,
there is no possible compromise with Boil
shevism. Not only do its leaders represent
only a small minority OF the Russian pco-
pie but they have refused to give that coun-
try anything approaching Il representative
government They dissolved the Constituent
Assembly, which they had promised to pro-
tect, and have refused to hold an election
or give the people whom they rule and
whom they have recklessy plundered any
voice whatever in the policies OF the nation.
Even so, the American note points out,
that is purely an internal affair OF Russia
and one with which Russians will have to
deal But recognition OF such n regime is
not an internal affair. The United States
refuses to recognize any government which
announces In advance that it will observe
no obligations entered into and which pa
rades the fact that it has set forth to revo-
iutioniZe the world. Moreover, the United
States declines to have diplomatic intercourse
with nation which employs its foreign rep
resentatives in revolutionary propaganda,
taking advantage of their diplomatic i'm
munities to that end.
Most Americans will applaud the stand
taken by the President against Russian Boil
shcvism. Some OF them may feel that the
solictudc and sympathy expressed for the
Russian people themselves is misplaced in
asmuch as they continue to tolerate and
support the madness of their present rulers,
but there can be little sincere difference OF
opinion as to the folly OF recognizing an
outlaw government of the type maintained
in Moscow