The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1922-02-21
Anent Lenine and Trotsky.

ADlCALS and parlor pinks always
IN serting that Lenin is great statesman and
Trotsky great general states the Chicago Tribune
One enthusiast calls Lenin, the greatest statesman
OF our time and Trotsky the greatest of Russian
commanders.
What happens to this legend when a test of
fact is applied, asks the Tribune. Lenin as
= thinker has taken all his ideals from the German
: kafl Marx As man of action he seized power
I'm moment of chaos and has held it BY force
But under his rule Russia has passed swiftly down
to the brink of ruin.
e. Trotsky has defeated forces under reactionary
leaders like Korniof, Kochsk, Deniline, and
Wrangel. But when he tried to take Warsaw he
was whipped soundy and thrown back by de-
.moralized Polish army revived and led to victory
iby.a handful of French officers. -.
Lenin has contributed no new ideals to political
social or economic science. He has been in su-
preme control of country recognized as the richest
and most varied in material resources in the world.
Yet after four years Lenin's domestic policies
have wrecked commerce and industry driven half
the population of Russia's great cities away, re-
duced transportation to hopeless inadequacy turned
the great agricultural surplus of former times into
a, deficit which is translated into one of the worst
famines in human history destroyed Russian credit
and ringed Russian territories with armed foes
If this is great craftsmanship, happy is the
land which has fallen into the clutches of
great statesman.
AS for Trotsky, he took and has held command
of the largest army in existence 1t has held the
Russian people in subsection and it has defeated
forces gathered together by minority leaders,
charged by the Russians with intention to restore
the old regime of CARBON and landless men. But
the. Germans at Brest-Litovsk dictated terms to
this alleged conqueror; the Poles, under French
staff officers whipped him at the gates of Warsaw
and threw him out of Poland; Finland, Eshonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania, seeded from the Russian
state, bar Russia from the Baltic; and the
Japanese have held Eastern Siberia in spite of him.
II this be the fruit of great generalship the
quicker Russia beats her sword into plowshare
the better for her
CARBON and its bureaucrats and generals kept
mighty Russia the most backward state in the
civilized world, and it would be sorry alternative
to return to their oppressive incompetence. But
nder the weakest OF the cars and his bureaucrats
the Russian people fed, Russian credit was
high. Russian power was respected and feared.
Under the cars and their generals, Russia beat
back the flaming Swede, Charles XII, of the
great soldiers OF history. Under the cars the
greatest OF all soldiers, Napoleon took his death
wound from Russia. -Four great nations fought
Russia in the Crimea to futile victory Under
the czars Russia grew steadily cast and west and
south until in territory, in population, and in the
poteutslities of military and economic power it
was perhaps the greatest state in the world.
But after four years of the craftsmanship of
Lsnin and the generalshp of Trotsky their govern
ment has made itself the enemy of almost every
living nation; it has stripped itself of foreign
credit; is has barred Russia almost entirely from
the Baltic and holds its to the Pacific by
sufferance; it has lost thousands of square miles
of territory; it has almost destroyed Russian
merce, industry, and transportation and brought
by stupid tyranny and violence its agricultural
1spIcduction far below the level of even its own
needs Thus the richest of countries is now the
= poorest, a beggar the doorstep of the world,
its people dying from starvation by the million IN
= the richest food producing region earth.
= In the jargon of communism and its parlor
spink apologsts, Lenin may figure great states
vman and Trotsky great general. This judg
: mcnt is the product of scrambled mentaes. The
: sane intelligence judges Lenin and Trotsky by
: what they have done to Russia in foup years of
j. unmitigated rule. One thing this great statesman
and this great general have accomplished, besides
; bringing the Russian people to ruin and death.
They have kept their jobs. But if this Is great
: craftsmanship and generslship, have great
statesmen and generals and to spare. The history of
every wretched republic in Latin America is full
of that sort of greatness. Russia will revive only
when it is rid of it.