Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1928-03-09
RUSSIA RIDES A TIGER
By COunC Carl
Italia Minister o Foreign

Italian officers attached to the gen
eral staff of the White Army re-
ported to me that many of the Rus
sian officers had organized small
raids upon property that once had
belonged to them, hoping to take it
away from the sons of their old
serfs, | realized at once-and said
so to leaders of the Entente-that
the White Russian expeditions were
doomed to failure.
But even Lenin had his big failure
with the peasants.
Thinking himself all-powerful, he
cried in famous speech:
"The peasants ask to be free to
sell their grain. This freedom means
also the freedom to speculate. Why
do they not understand that it is i'm
possible for us to allow that? 1t
would be the end of our revolution.
We shall never agree; we would
rather die than yield on this essen
tial point"
The peasants sailor, rather,
! thought-in their turn: "The land is
ours, but the grain is yours; the
meadows are ours, but the hay is
yours. They drew their conclusions.
The result was the terrible famine
which caused the death of so many
millions of Russians. Hardly half
of the Russian soil had been cult
waited.
Lenin had sworn to die rather
than to yield. He thought better of
it, and he preferred to yield with
out dying.
Among the peasants-who are the
same everywhere-one finds little
religious ardor for the new ideas
that religious ardor which still ex-
lists so strongly among the work
men. / myself, in Siberia some
months ago, heard an old peasant
say:
"The Bolshevik say that we may
suffer now, but it is our sons who
will be happy. Well, we gained more
with our old Pope. He used to tell
us that We may suffer now, but that
we will be happy in Paradise. 1t
was always a gain for ourselves"
Since Lenin's capitulation to the
peasants, they have continued to
gain strength. The taxation system
has been changed to meet their fan
cies. They have been acknowledged
the proprietors of their houses. The
land division has been made accord
ing to rules that leave the State
only theoretical right of property;
the peasants know that they are now
the real masters of their fields. They
even become rich; the kulak is al
ready to be found in almost every
village; and the kulak is nothing
else than the shrewd peasant who
hires cheap labor to work his fields,
and who usually has big account
at the bank of the neighboring town.
The picturesque word kulak, means
"closed fist"
Now that he finds himself master
of the land, the peasant is, naturally,
much more of conservative than
anything else. The same thing hap
pened in France when the paysans--
of whose terrible condition under the
ancien regime some striking sketches
are preserved in La Bruyere's clas-
steal pages-became with the Revo-
luton, the proprietors of the "Biens
Nationaux."
The Moscow theorists bow pru-
IDENTIFY to this new reality, unpleas-
ant as it is for their dogmas. Re-
Gently the "Pravda" explained with
distinguo not unworthy of the
finest traditions of the Jesuits, that
peasant still remains "a good
member of the Communistic prole-
tariat," even when he employs item
porary" workmen during harvest
time. Other Communists go farther,
and, at least with more intellectual
honesty, admit that the creation of
a class of well off peasants must be
favored, as it may constitute the eco
homie backbone of Russia
Well and good. But Stolypin, the
last of the great statesmen of inn
perial Russia, had this very thing in
view, and nothing else. OF course,
as always happens everywhere, Sto-
lypin, in his efforts to save Russian
society, was always hindered by the
very classes which he wanted to save
and which, conservative" as they
style themselves, are so often the best
unconscious allies of revolutionary
movements.
To sum up:
The leaders of Soviet Russia, in
order to please the workmen, are
now bound to make noisy show of
propaganda zeal abroad, in Europe
and in Asia, but probably not in
America, where they are too eager
to arrange loans. In China, where
they have been strong only in APP
pearance 1.-THE Chinese simply used
them for their own ends, but always
mistrusted them) they underwent a
definite defeat in January. The Can
ton Communists were killed by the
tens of thousands and all the Soviet
agents were expelled. This is the
result of the last Bolshevik putsch
in China, which was plotted not be-
cause Stain wished it, but as a move
of home policy. In Moscow they
wanted a success of which to boast
in their congress, so that they might
be able to meet Trotzky's violent
criticisms. They failed. Even the
Russian vice consul was killed in
Canton, but the Russian press has
kept silent about all that.
1t is possible that they are going