The Breach with the Soviet
NO one careful for international proprieties could have asked for a more sober or more dignified statement on a critical difference between two Powers than that which was made by the Prime Minister on Tuesday. In every word he used Mr. Baldwin was properly conscious of the gravity of the determination of the Government to break off relations with the Soviet. It can also be said that from the point of view of mere justice he was not for a moment on unsafe ground. His case that the Soviet had pledged itself to refrain directly and indirectly from interfering with the institutions of this country, and that it had persistently broken its pledge, and had tried even while breaking it to throw dust in our eyes, was unassailable. Only fanatics or casuists could pretend that Mr. Baldwin was not able to prove his charges up to the hilt. When all that has been admitted the question remains whether the action of the Government is wise or unwise. Will it cause inconvenient or even mischievous reper- cussions in Europe ? Will it reunite rival factions in Russia and so strengthen the extremists ? Will it seriously injure British trade with Russia ? Will it drive the intriguers under ground and make them more instead of less difficult to deal with ? Any one who could answer these questions with complete confidence would claim an assurance that we do not possess. The new policy may work out favourably or it may work out unfavourably. We devoutly hope that the Government will prove to be entirely right and that any fears we entertain arc unfounded ; but let us face the new situation squarely and see what it contains of good and evil possibilities.
About a year ago Sir Austen Chamberlain was urged in Parliament to break with Russia. If there arc good grounds for breaking with Russia now there were good grounds then. As a 'natter of fact the papers found at the offices of Arcos and the Trade Delegation are less wicked than several documents that had already been published. There was the Zinovieff letter, for instance, which gave definite instructions to Russian agents in this country to provoke sedition in the Navy and Army. We all remember, too, those strange sets of instructions in which Communists in Russian pay were ordered to form " cells " in British industry in order to work for the proletarian revolution of violence. Sir Austen said : " A breach with the Soviet would give us no weapon for fighting disorder or disloyalty or revolution within our own borders. It would create division where we seek union and would increase the uncertainty, increase . the fears, increase the instability of European conditions which it is and ought to be our chief object to remove."
It may be said, and there is of course point in the argument, that the Government continued to hope against hope that the Soviet would mend its manners, but that as the Soviet had shown no signs whatever of doing so the time had come to announce that our patience was exhausted. Against that argument the warning of Sir Austen Chamberlain a year ago remains valid so far as we can see. Suppose, for instance, that Great Britain should have no imitators ; suppose that she has to stand alone in the policy of rupture. The danger will then be that Bolshevist Russia, as a Power outside the League of Nations will set to work more maliciously than ever to destroy all the new and rising structure of Europe, and will try to make fresh connexions for the sole purpose of forming groups antagonistic to British policy. As in our judgment British policy is entirely generous, just and pacific in intention this would be a lamentable result. It is possible that just the reverse may happen. No one can say. When the Defence Force was sent to China it was objected that it would so infuriate the wavering " Red " wing of Chinese Nationalism that we should raise up a giant against us where before we had only to struggle against a dwarf. Those fears proved to be unfounded. The influence of Borodin and Mr. Chen instead of waxing, have waned. It does not follow, however, that in the very different circumstances of Europe we may not make the Soviet more dangerous than ever by turning it loose to fish in troubled waters.
It must be remembered that the Soviet was gradually changing its political character. It was changing because it could not possibly achieve what it originally promised to do. Indeed, it failed from the first moment. It announced that it had actually set up a Communistic State and that as the only pioneer in this great adventure it would teach the rest of the world how to do the same thing. History provides no parallel to such effrontery. For Communism was never set up ; except on paper it never existed. It was defeated at once by the ris inertiae of the peasants who simply refused to produce food in order to sell it at dictated prices. Lenin, who had a sense of humour and therefore a sense of propor- tion, and an exceptional gift of realistic thinking, quickly saw that he must modify his plans. He produced the New Economic Policy which is a modified capitalism. The Soviet under this policy leased industries to private enterprize and ever since then the changes have been going on.
Stalin, probably the most powerful man in Russia to-day, has been frankly in faVotir of trade relations with the other Powers on an ordinary capitalistic basis. The appearance of Soviet delegates at the International Economic Conference at Geneva was a proof of the present fluidity of Sovietism. Looking back on i I facts we think that a little more patience, even th.,; patience had already been practised for a long might have been the best policy. The enemies Stalin in Russia will say that he has been rebu That, of course, will not be true ; but if his enemies able to convince enough influential Communists that is so they may be able to delay the inevitable transforr - tion of the so-called Communistic State.
If the best happens the Government will be entitled to say that they have served the highest interests and that righteousness has triumphed over mere expediency. We are not blind to the force of the argument that in the era which has succeeded the War more than ever depends upon international good-faith. To-day GoVernments reason with one another in circumstances which formerly would have caused the dispatch of an ultimatum, the mobilization of navies and armies. The possibility of keeping the world peaceful by the extension of the League spirit, by the spread of international law and arbitration, obviously presupposes that promises shun be kept. It may be said; therefore, that it was essential to call the Soviet strictly to order and to point out tha we could not accept vile examples of bad faith as insign cant. All we can say on this subject—but WC disinclined to say less—is that though we do not uncle to prophesy we believe that the Soviet was stead' defeating itself. We think that on the whole it won have been wiser to let that process work itself out th to take risks in a region where there is so much uncertaillti
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