The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1920-07-02
Special to the Federated Press and
Foreign Affairs, Orchard House, Great
Smith Street, London.


LONDON.-The war against the Rus.
sian people has entered a new phase.
But it is the same war, and its purpose
is unchanged. 1t is, of course, true that
this effort to overthrow the Russian
Socialist State, which under varying
forms has persisted ever since Russia
came out of the war after Brest Lit
ovsk, is a capitalist war in COM
pleter sense than the Great War of
19l4-19 ever was. Insofar as it is a
capitalist war, it has been narrowed
down to war between Russian social
ism and French and British capitalism
now in alliance for many obvious
reasons. And yet if we try and analyze
more closely the motives which lie be-
hind this continued assault, directed
from Paris and London, now through
one agency, now through another,
against the Russian Socialist State,
we are driven to the conclusion that
they respond to differing inspiration.
The fear and hate which grip Paris
are the fear and hate of politically and
financially corrupt social order that
refuses to assume burdens towards the
state which the same order has else.
where shouldered. It's dread and de.
testation of Socialism, whatever its
brand and whencesoever it may come,
are, therefore, proportionately greater
than in any other European country.
Frontiers are nothing to it. 1t would
seek allies against Socialism anywhere.
Tt is as ready to associate itself with
Won der Goltz as with Pilsudski. No
where in Europe is the Legislature,
the Press and public policy so effect
lively controlled by capitalism as in
France.
With us in this country other and
incomparably stronger and more subtle
forces also come into play. The psychol-
ogy of power for powers sake is far
more developed with us than in France.
The will-to-power; the traditions of
long line of imperial rulers; the caste
and class monopoly over foreign policy
which is the spinal marrow of the ma
tional structure; the prodigious growth
in the materialism and militarism of
Empire war has bred among our rul-
ing classes-it is the psychology these
things create which feels itself threat
ened in its innersmost instincts by the
Russian Socialist State. 1t is not diff.
ficult to understand why.
Socialism and Empire.
The advent of great Socialist State
in Europe is solvent of Empire.
Empire-the dominion over many ma.
tionally conscience peoples by a single
alien people-and Socialism are ire.
concilable factors. They are mutually
destructive. The imperialists who pre-
sently govern the British Empire and
who contemplate the consequences of
the triumphant emergence of a great
Socialist State in the geographical DO.
siticn of Russia - half European, half
Asiatic--are not thinking in terms
of Britain when they seek to prevent
such a consumation. They are thinking
in terms of the British Empire. And
do not let us make the mistake of
that we are governed by
Mr.. Lloyd George. We are governed by
the Foreign Office, the India Office.
the War Office, the Committee of I'm.
perial Defense the military and naval
clubs, and Lord NortEeliffe; by the
great vested imperial interests which
move behind the scenes, whose power
is gigantic, and, as yet, barely sens.
ed by Labor. For the nonce Mr.. Win.
ston Churchill is their agent, far more
than Mr.. Lloyd George. And he is
very able, entirely unscrupulous, well
in with the Court; dangerously so :
for the Court, in the long last.
British capital has nothing to fear
from the growth to adolescence of a
Russian Socialist State. The mineral
and timber resources of Russia are
within its exploiting capacity for the
asking. "Give me peace"-says Lenin
in effect, "and you can come here
and develop the country. I will give
you concessions. You shall work them.
You shall profit by them" Why is
The proposal not acceptedi Why does
It not govern policy herei Peace with
Russia, and on Lenin's repeatedly
orofessed terms, opens an unlimited
field for the fruitful investment of
British capital. But IL British Capital
has nothing to fear, British imperial.
SIN has everything to fear from the
Of Soviet Russia.