RUSSIA AT GENEVA
THE admiSsion of Russia to the League of Nation4 is a momentous event. The opponents of her admission are even more emphatic on that point than its advocates. And they are right. The population of Russia is 165,000,000. Its territory, extending from the marshes of the Polish frontier to the coasts of the Pacific, covers over eight million square miles. A League of Nations from which Russia held aloof could be no more than an incomplete and imperfect association. It is true, of course, that without the United States and Germany and Japan the League is lamentably imperfect still. But Russia's advent does at least diminish the imperfection, and with Italy once more co-operating fully at Geneva it is no longer possible to say, as was being said with some show of justice a year ago, that only two of the Great Powers of the world could be regarded as effective members of the League. Today four of them come into that category. Of the others the United States is collaborating closely in all practical matters ; Japan has absented herself because she refused to con- form with the League's unanimous interpretation of the obligations she had assumed ; and Germany has with- drawn, for no reason ever intelligibly stated, as a move in the equivocal foreign policy of the Hitler regime. A League retaining Japan among its members on the only terms on which she could have been retained would have been less a League than it is today, for it would have been a League patently false to its own professions. Germany would have remained a member if she had not chosen to walk out. Much in her internal State life was and is utterly alien to the spirit of the League, but that would have been no more ground for excluding her than the internal situation in the Soviet Union is for excluding Russia today. The League is concerned with the external relations of States.
For many reasons that can be well understood Russia's entry is a matter for satisfaction rather than enthusiasm. She is a frankly Communist State, and those who dislike Communism in theory are certainly not likely to modify their opinion after observing its practice for seventeen years. Autocracy, secret police, semi-legalized murder, famine, religious persecution—all these evils are characteristic of life in Russia today. We are entitled to condemn them., We are entitled to give thanks that we live in Britain and not in Russia, just as we may give thanks in varying degree for a fate that has cast our lot in Britain and not in Germany or Italy. But we cannot lay at the door of Communism exclusively conditions which were characteristic of Russia before Communism as a recog- nized political creed was ever heard of. An article on another page of this issue shows convincingly how the characteristic features of Russian life persist,—the same in essence, with some differences, in form and manifesta- tion, in the days of Lenin and Stalin as they were in the days of Nicholas II, or Alexander, or even Peter the Great. It is not merely a Communist Russia but a Russian Russia that was admitted to the League of Nations on Tuesday.
That is the formal justification, if one were needed, or the decision taken by Great Britain and France and Italy and thirty-six other States. , The qualities that mark CoMmunist Russia are to a large extent the qualities that marked Tsarist Russia, and no one thought of excluding the Russia of the Romanovs, from the family of nations. A Tsar of Russia was the chief of the crowned heads present at the Congress of Vienna. A Tsar of Russia was responsible . for summoning the Hague Conference of 1899, the first concerted attempt to establish a world-order based on disarmament and an impartial arbitrament of disputes. With-Tsarist Russia this country - contracted first an entente. • and 'then a Military alliance. To Tsarist Russia Republican Fran:.e was bound by the closest of 'ties.; both political and financial. No one would have 'hesitated for a moment about admitting the Russia of 1914 to the League of Nations. That is in itself sufficient reason for the admission of the Russia of 1934. The Russia of 1934 has, of course, her own reasons for seeking entry to the League. She is anxious to profit by the system of mutual defence which the League professes to have created—though it must be admitted that so far its advantages have been illusory enough when put to the test. That is perfectly legitimate, and in some fields Russia can claim to have conformed, long before joining the League, to League principles. She has several times since 1917 been the victim, but never the author, of aggressive war. She has made exten- sive disarmament offers, at first with the object of scoring debating-points and putting capitalist nations in a dilemma, latterly with the appearance of desiring genuinely whatever measure of reciprocal disarmament may be found practical.
The real count against Russia is her subversive propa- ganda. Communism is as much a religion—however perverted and perverse it may seem—as a political doc- trine. It is a religion with an evangel—the union of the proletariat for the emancipation of the working-classes. Such an ideal demands realization everywhere. It takes no account of political frontiers. Nor do its evangelists. And collisions have consequently arisen between Russia and almost every other government in the world. But the Government of Russia itself has learned something. The conflict between Stalin and Trotsky in 1923 ended in the banishment of the latter and the rejection of his thesis that the existence of a Communist Russia in a capitalist world was impossible. That did not end the subversive propaganda of the Third International. It was exer- cised for a time with disastrous effect in China, and with less grave consequences in India. But the most reso- lutely anti-Communist countries have made terms with Russia none the less, foremost among them Great Britain and the United States.
In view of the agreements lately contracted between this country and Russia, and the full diplomatic relation- ship maintained, it would be out of the question for the British Government to do anything but welcome Russia's approach to the League, and Mr. Eden is to be congratulated on the wise cordiality of the brief but clear statement in which he defined his Government's views in the Sixth Committee of the Assembly. Subver- sive Communist propaganda, supported by the Russian Government, in the territories of another State would be a definitely unfriendly act. With Russia a member of the League such action can be raised with some effect at Geneva. Hitherto it could not. And the measure of Russia's desire for the advantages that League membership confers will be the measure of her anxiety to avoid gratuitous friction with the States among whom she now takes her place.
It has been contended that there can be no guarantee that Russia will honourably carry out her obligations under the Covenant. That is quite true. There was no guarantee that Japan would. Poland, which claims to be regarded as a great Power, has just been pro- claiming openly that she will not carry out obligations which she contracted under as solemn and formal a treaty as that of Versailles, to which she owes her exis- tence as a State. The admission of any State to the League is to some extent an act of faith. In:the case of Russia the act is amply justified. Russia may deserve to the full the reserves felt about her—as distinct from the unreasoning prejudices prevalent in some quarters —in this country. and elsewhere. But they have had unfortunate consequences in the belief, 'grotesque it may be, but unquestionably genuine, entertained by her citizens for many years that their country was the object of imminent attack by the capitalist States of Europe. That creates a state of mind dangerous to peace, which her reception at Geneva will finally dissipate. No one can foresee the future. Russia's admission to the League may conceivably hurt the League more than it helps it. But all the present indications are that the Assembly States were consulting their own interests no less than Russia's whoa they cast their votes on Tuesday.
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