Chapter M: H. Holubowicz (3)

It was reported on June 10 that Germany and Russia had entered into an agreement under which Finland ceded to Russia the fortresses of Ino and Raivola, with the understanding that they were not to be fortified, while Russia surrendered to Finland a part of the Murman Peninsula, with an outlet to the ocean, thus bringing German influence to Russia's arctic ports and to the railroads connecting them with the interior of the country.

INTERNAL CONDITIONS

Upon the whole, conditions in Russia showed no signs of improvement. Famine existed in Petrograd and in other, particularly urban, districts of Great Russia, while civil war was still raging in Siberia and in some parts of European Russia. According to information made public by the State Department at Washington on May 21, cholera broke out in Astrakhan and in the Caspian Sea region. Observers of Russian life also noted the growing moral laxity of the population and its complete indifference to public affairs.

Reports from Eastern and Central Russia indicated that in many districts less than half the usual acreage was plowed. This was attributed to the shortage of seed, horses, and implements. Even where seed was available the peasants, uncertain of the disposition of the land and the crops, did not plant extensively. Breadstuffs were scarce even in grain centres, and prices were very high. The attitude of the farmers to the city people continued to be one of distrust and hostility, and the exodus of the city dwellers into the country continued.

A recent article in Maxim Gorky's daily Novaia Zhizn (New Life) speaks of the conditions prevailing in the Russian village in the following terms:

All those who have studied the Russian village of our days clearly
perceive that the process of demoralization and decay is going
on there with remarkable speed. The peasants have taken away the
land from its owners, divided it among themselves, and destroyed
the agricultural implements. And they are getting ready to engage
in a bloody internecine struggle for the division of the booty.
In certain districts the population has consumed the entire grain
supply, including the seed. In other districts the peasants are
hiding their grain underground, for fear of being forced to share
it with starving neighbors. This situation cannot fail to lead to
chaos, destruction, and murder.

The article gives also a glimpse of what is going on in the remnants of the Russian Army:

There are numerous reports to the effect that the soldiers are
dividing among themselves the military property of the country and
committing unspeakable acts of violence. Wild rumors are current
about the troops returning from Asia Minor. It is said that they
have brought with them into the Crimea a large number of "white
slaves" and that there is in Theodosia a veritable slave market.
The supply is so great that the price has fallen from 100 or 150
rubles to 15 or 30 rubles apiece.

RUSSIA A MADHOUSE

A terrible picture of the chaos in Russia is given by an educated woman in Petrograd, the daughter of a Russian diplomat formerly in Washington, and the widow of an officer in the Russian Army. To a former classmate in the United States she wrote:

It was bad enough before the March revolution, when our unhappy,
half-witted Emperor, under the influence of his German wife,
seemed to do everything possible to make people lose patience. But
now we have a thousand anonymous potentates, the top ones paid by
Germany, and the lower ones lured into supporting them by money,
money, and money.

The present Government has abolished all laws, all courts, the
police, land ownership, all private real estate in towns, all
distinction of castes and grades in the army and navy. They have
seized all the banks, are opening all the private safes, and
confiscating all gold and silver found therein, though it had
never been said before that it was criminal to have it. Of course,
everything they "decree" is so mad that it is quite sure not to
last forever, but the chaos they make will take centuries to
forget. The country is going back to a savage state. And we will
not live to wait for better times.

All Russia is suffocating--every day brings new surprises that
show that there is but one way out of it--the grave. On the
ground of liberty they abolish all laws, Judges, attorneys,
and substitute for it "people's courts of justice," with only
soldiers, workmen or peasants, often quite illiterate and always
without the slightest knowledge of court proceedings, taking the
places of the former judiciary.

On the same ground they abolish all police, let loose all the
criminals from the prisons, arm them, constituting from their
number, together with workmen, deserters and hooligans, a "red
guard," and fill the prisons to their utmost with all those who
crave for order and will not work together with them toward the
total ruin of the country.

On the pretense of equality they abolish all grades in the army and navy and make all posts elective by the simple soldiers. In most places it is understood as complete extermination, lynching of the officers, who, for being better educated, are under suspicion of being "counter-revolutionary." The highest posts are occupied by elected soldiers who very often can hardly sign their names, and the former officers are made simple soldiers, with a soldier's pay of $3.50 a month, and ordered to the lowest tasks, cleaning of the barracks, cooking food, taking care of the horses.

Our great country could only exist when all the wheels of the Government were working in harmony. Now everything is a perfect chaos. Everybody was willing to throw over the Czaristic Government, but not in order to change it for this one, of loot, anarchy, and treason toward our allies! Ah, the shame, the disgrace, and the folly of it!

LOOTING AND DESTROYING

The army, which now consists of young boys, (the regular one is long ago killed,) without any sense of duty, morals, and discipline, see their acquired "freedom" in the freedom to go home when they want to. And so all the trains, all the stations, are attacked and destroyed by this horde of savages, who kill engineers, if it seems to them the train goes too slowly, who martyrize the railway agents who tell them of the impossibility of starting their train, for there is another one coming toward them on the same track. As this human flood goes home without any organization, everything is looted and destroyed.

Some months ago I was believing myself to be quite well off. I have a house in Petrograd. Last Spring I was offered $125,000 for it, but was advised not to sell and go over to America to have my little girl become a happy American school girl. Now--I have on hand about $2,000 and no other resources; the house, like other private property, is being confiscated, the revenue going to the Government, that is to say, to the private pockets of the usurpers. The Government bonds annulated (repudiated)--and even if I had more money--believe me--there is nothing to buy.

Life in Petrograd is horrible--all the criminals, all the workmen, and demoralized soldiers rob the few cars that still bring some kind of products. In the very heart of the city, in daytime, you have your clothes taken off your back literally. Just think that there is no police, nobody to call for help, for those who would like to help have had their firearms confiscated, even the officers, even the highest Generals. All the soldiers, &c., are armed have become highwaymen. At any moment you can expect a number of them to come into your private lodging and, under the pretense of "perquisition," take away all your money and valuables.

Our money is not accepted anywhere abroad. Russia is bankrupt, so that it is impossible to escape. All my friends and relatives are in the same awful position. Everybody lives on his last money, even those who were quite rich. Their money was in Government or private bonds, and, as they are declared void, where will you get money from? My poor mind cannot grasp the whole thing; it is too great a madness. My only chance to save my little girl's life and my own would be to get away from here and go to the United States. Here, if we do not die in the next months, we will be slaves, regular slaves, of our lowest classes.

RAILROAD SITUATION

Some light was shed on the railroad situation in Russia by the report made on June 2 to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets by the Assistant Commissioner of Railroads. The percentage of disabled locomotives, he stated, was about 30, that of crippled cars being higher. In 1917 Russia had 560,000 cars and upward of 20,000 locomotives. The Germans seized a large number of cars and locomotives. Nevertheless, there was no scarcity of rolling stock, for the mileage had been reduced from 45,000 to 35,000. The general conclusion of the report was that the situation had slightly improved, especially in Siberia.

On April 22, Leon Trotzky made a report to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets on the newly organized Russian Army. He defended the employment of officers of the old army on the ground that they were just as valuable as the military property taken over by the Soviet Government, and pointed out the eventual necessity of conscription. According to a London dispatch, dated June 8, the Soviet Government decided to introduce conscription. "One of the most promising things," said a Bolshevist diplomat in an interview on June 5, "is the steady growth of the new Red army. Its discipline already is better than that of the old one. Its members have so far been recruited from town and factory workers. * * * We take measures to provide for military training in villages and towns and all necessary steps toward raising the fighting capacity of our new army, which already is by no means negligible."

BOLSHEVIKI AND THE JEWS

A statement bearing on the situation of the Russian Jews under the Bolshevist régime was issued by the celebrated Russian jurist and former Senator, Oscar Grusenberg, and made public on June 10. The document follows:

Those who think that the Jews are at present ruling Russia are
profoundly mistaken. The new laws, or rather administrative
regulations, which the Bolsheviki have promulgated, have hurt the
Jewish population more than other citizens, for the Bolshevist
legislation has ruined the commerce and industry of the country.

After the Bolshevist insurrection we lived through events similar
to those of October, 1905. In October, 1917, pogroms occurred in
200 Jewish towns and hamlets.

The tragedy of the Jews in Russia is heart-breaking. The united
Russian Jewry, counting upward of 6,000,000, exists no longer.
With the secession of the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland, the
number of Jews in Russia is reduced to a million and a half. The
situation of the Jews in the Ukraine, and particularly in Poland
and Lithuania, under German domination, is very sad. The Jews have
lost in this war, in killed and wounded, the majority of their
youth. A great many Jewish soldiers are pining in prison camps,
others are locked up in jails on slanderous charges of treason.

The Jews are almost the only nationality in Russia which, by every
means available, is seeking to arrest the process of splitting
up the Russian Empire, and which works for the reunion of the
portions that have seceded.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews were ruined at the moment
when the Bolsheviki took over the Governmental power. The
population visited its wrath on the Jews, because some of the
Bolshevist leaders are or are said to be Jews. But the Russian
Empire has been demoralized, not by the Jews, but by the old
régime. Russia lacks great leaders with heroic characters, who
know how to act in an hour of distress. This made possible the
triumph of men like Lenine and Trotzky.

The Jewish leaders of the Bolsheviki are themselves a product of
the old régime. Czarism persecuted and exiled them. Education they
were forced to seek abroad, and there, in foreign lands, they
lost all connection with and love for Judaism and Russia. Every
country is to them but a railroad station. It is these former Jews
and present Bolshevists that are responsible for the appalling
misery which has befallen the Russian Jews.

ANTI-BOLSHEVIST MOVEMENTS

An official French dispatch received in Washington on May 16 asserted that the opposition to the Soviet régime was growing stronger. On June 2 a Russian wireless message announced the discovery of a vast counter-revolutionary conspiracy, with ramifications throughout the country. Moscow was declared in a state of siege, a large number of persons were arrested, and stringent measures were taken to restrain the press. Boris Savinkov, Chief of the War Department under Kerensky, and Prince Kropotkin, the famous revolutionist and writer, were reported to have taken part in the conspiracy. A week later a Moscow dispatch reported that factory workers were boycotting Soviet delegates, that some provincial towns elected anti-Bolshevist Deputies to the Soviets, and that a general political strike appeared imminent.

In the middle of May the Central Committee of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party addressed to the National Council of the French Socialist Party and to the Parliamentary Socialist group the following message:

The Bolshevist Government, which exists but by the grace of
our German masters, assumes, under the pressure of Germany's
Ambassador, a provoking attitude toward the allied powers,
and particularly toward France, addressing to them insulting
ultimatums which are in striking contrast with the servile
docility they manifest in executing the orders of German
imperialism. The Russian Social Revolutionary Party sends
its socialist greetings to the French section of the Labor
International, and protests against the spirit of the foreign
policy of the present dictators of Russia.

The Social Revolutionary Party declares at the same time that the
newly formed Communist group, formerly Bolsheviki, must on all
accounts be excluded from the International for having called
upon the most elementary principles of democracy to resuscitate
forms of despotism and violence. They have betrayed the cause of
international socialism by an infamous separate peace with the
crowned despots of Central Europe, transforming Russia, disarmed,
humiliated, and crushed, into an administrative supply house
destined to sustain the German offensive in the west.

The Social Revolutionary Party expresses the hope that all the
national sections of the Labor International will determine
their attitude as regards the Bolshevist usurpers, taking into
consideration this declaration of our party, which itself has the
right to speak for all Russian labor, having held an absolute
majority in the Constitutional Convention, whose powers will
be resuscitated in spite of the sanguinary repressions made by
the usurpers of power. We beg our French comrades to send this
declaration to the Socialist parties of the allied countries.

FIGHTING IN SIBERIA

Armed opposition to the Soviet Government was confined chiefly to Eastern Siberia. In the first week of June clashes occurred in Transbaikalia between the Government troops and the anti-Bolshevist forces led by General Semenoff. The Soviet troops were apparently mastering the situation. It was reported that they included armed Teuton prisoners, and that General Semenoff was expecting Japanese reinforcements. The other leaders of anti-Bolshevist forces, Admiral Kolchak, Colonel Orloff, and General Kalmakoff, co-operated in protecting the railways and massed their troops, which include Russians and Chinese, for an offensive. The Soviet Government repeatedly protested to China against the assistance it had given to General Semenoff, requesting that the Chinese Government should either close the Manchurian frontier to the General's forces or permit the Bolshevist troops to cross into Manchuria and subdue the rebel. On May 25 Ambassador Francis published a statement from Secretary Lansing to the effect that American Consuls had given no aid to General Semenoff, or any other anti-Bolshevist leader. The message contained an assurance of "the friendly purposes of the United States toward Russia, which will remain unaltered so long as Russia does not willingly accept autocratic domination by the Central Powers."

Late in May a new Government appeared the south of Russia. It claimed to represent the regions of Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, and Northern Caucasus, and was emphatically Bolshevist in its orientation. It was headed by a dictator, General Krasnoff, who had served under Kerensky up to the fall of the Provisional Government. His manifesto declared that the Don Government was a sovereign State, at war with the Soviet Republic, and on friendly terms with the Ukraine. This manifesto contained the following statement: "Yesterday's foreign foes, the Austro-Germans, have entered our territory in alliance with us to fight against the Red Guard and for the establishment of order on the Don."

Another anti-Bolshevist Government was formed, early in June, in Eastern Siberia. The new State, which proclaimed itself an independent republic, purported to include the entire territory stretching from Lake Baikal to the Pacific, as well as the district of Irkutsk and the Island of Sakhalin, comprising a population of 2,500,000.

Violent clashes occurred between the Soviet forces and the Czechoslovak troops, which had joined the Russian Army to fight for the allied cause. The Czechoslovaks defeated the Soviet army, which was trying to enforce Trotzky's order to disarm them, seized the railway stations at Penza, on the Volga, in an effort to force their way to Vladivostok, and penetrated into the Ural region.

DISMEMBERING RUSSIA

During the month under record Germany made further steps in pursuance of her policy of subjugating the _membra disjecta_ of the former Russian imperium.

On May 13 it was reported that Berlin planned to turn Lithuania into a "semi-federal" German State. The next day Emperor William issued a proclamation declaring Lithuania a free and independent State, on the basis of the action of the Lithuanian Landsrat, which, on Dec. 12, 1917, had announced "the restoration of Lithuania as an independent State, allied to the German Empire by an eternal, steadfast alliance, and by conventions chiefly regarding military matters, traffic, customs, and coinage, and solicited the help of the German Empire." The declaration assumed that Lithuania would "participate in the war burdens of Germany, which secured her liberation." According to information made public by the State Department at Washington, the Germans were forcing the Lithuanian peasants to work for the landowners at a starvation wage and were taking stringent measures against city workers.

Similar conditions prevailed in Livonia. A message sent on May 21 by Tchitcherin to Ambassador Joffe stated that the Germans had created a reign of terror there, persecuting labor and assisting the Barons in suppressing their political adversaries.

In the Ukraine the Germans disarmed the troops of the overthrown Rada and backed Skoropadsky's dictatorial régime with bayonets. Sporadic uprisings of peasants against the Teutons continued. In the Province of Kiev the Germans used gas bombs against several revolted villages, and whole communities were asphyxiated. Revolts also broke out in the Governments of Podolia and Poltava. Resistance was offered mainly in connection with German food requisitioning. It was reported that the Germans had twelve army corps in the Ukraine. In the middle of May the Central Powers granted a loan of 4,000,000 marks to the Ukraine.

GERMAN ATROCITIES

The German atrocities in White Russia are thus described in a Russian Government dispatch received in London on May 14:

In the Bobrinsk district entire villages have been set afire
and plundered. In the village of Buda a Uhlan patrol extorted a
contribution of several thousand rubles, and, when the peasants
had paid part of it and were unable to pay more, the Uhlans
surrounded the village and bombarded it.

In other villages peasants, women, and children who endeavored to
escape from fires were pursued by Uhlans and cut to pieces with
swords or flogged with whips. In one village an old Jew was first
flogged and then hanged in the presence of all the villagers. Most
savage acts were perpetrated in Jewish villages. All persons
suspected of belonging to the Bolsheviki and those in military
uniforms were immediately shot.

In Finland the Germans helped the White Guards to suppress the revolution, and strengthened their grip on the country. Some of the captured Red Guards were shot--7,000 were reported executed on June 6--others were to appear before twenty-one specially created courts. The reprisals of the White Guards were directed particularly against the Russians in Finland. A Russian wireless, dated May 14, contained the following statements: "Even 12-year-old children have been shot. At Viborg one witness saw 200 corpses, mainly Russian officers and mere schoolboys. According to other witnesses, more than 600 persons were executed in two days." The German headquarters in Finland estimated the number of persons massacred at 70,000. The Finnish High Court of Justice ordered the arrest of all Socialist members of the Finnish Diet. In contravention of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the German commander demanded the control of the Russian war supplies at Helsingfors, which were valued at 150,000,000 rubles.

On June 12 the Finnish Government introduced into the Diet a bill providing for the establishment of a monarchic form of government in Finland. The Finnish King, who is to be a hereditary ruler, shall be invested with broad powers regarding treaties with foreign States, and shall have the absolute veto in several important matters.

The new Finnish Government is emphatically pro-German. This was illustrated by the membership of the new Cabinet formed by Paaskivi. There were signs, however, that anti-German sentiment was developing among the masses of the people. General Mannerheim, Commander of the White Guard, resigned late in May, apparently as a protest against the Germanization of the Finnish Army. This army is now commanded by German officers. The Germans also took over the control of the Finnish Military College, and undertook to organize the Finnish coast fleet. They are constructing two railways in Northern Finland.

In the middle of May the White Russian Republic was proclaimed with the consent of Germany. The new Government seemed to favor a union with Lithuania, under the military protectorate of Germany. On June 4 it was reported that the new republic had been recognized by the Ukraine.

Early in May the Tartar National Council met at Bakhchisaray, Crimea, and issued a statement protesting against the entrance of the Austro-German troops into the Crimea. The council declared that the Crimea, whose population is 70 per cent. Tartar, intends to maintain its complete independence till conditions in Russia grow more settled.

According to a London dispatch, dated June 7, fierce fighting was going on between the troops of the Caucasian Government and the Turks. These are reported to have massacred 10,000 Armenians in a fortnight. The Government had ordered the mobilization of all men between the ages of 19 and 42.

ALLIED INTERVENTION

The subject of allied military intervention in Russia for the purpose of freeing the country from German domination attracted a great deal of attention in June. The allied Governments did not define their attitude toward this matter, but it seemed certain that the United States did not favor sending an interallied military expedition into Russia. Japan refrained from any action in this direction. The only measure it took was to enter into an agreement with China for the protection of the general peace in the Orient from possible German and Bolshevist aggression. The principal clauses of the military treaty between China and Japan, signed May 16, 1918, are in substance as follows:

The two Governments, with a view to warding off the danger
constituted for them by the penetration of German influence toward
the eastern frontier of Russia, have decided to regulate their
conduct in regard to the enemy by placing themselves in agreement
on a footing of perfect equality, and in according each other
mutual aid in that region where their common action is to be
exercised.

The Chinese authorities will facilitate the task of the Japanese
authorities, who will be enabled to conduct the transport of
troops and establish in the occupied territories works which
shall be removed at the conclusion of military operations, and,
moreover, undertake to supply war material and munitions, as well
as engineers and a medical staff and other necessary specialists.

The Japanese must in return respect Chinese sovereignty and
local customs, and will evacuate Chinese territory as soon as
the operations are terminated. The agreement will automatically
cease to be valid as soon as the state of war between the two
contracting parties and the Central Powers is terminated.

One article of the agreement provides that Chinese troops may be
employed outside the national territory, and another stipulates
that the two Governments shall come to an understanding with the
Chinese Eastern Railway Company if this railway should have to be
used during the course of the operations.

RUSSIAN OPINION

In Russia proper the Soviet authorities and radical public opinion opposed foreign intervention of any kind. Late in May the official Bolshevist organ printed an article asserting that Russia desired from the Allies no help intended to drag her back into the war, but that "Russia would appreciate in the highest degree any assistance toward the improvement of transportation and communication facilities and the rehabilitation of her economic life." Even the moderate press found foreign military intervention undesirable. The Moscow Prizyv, the official organ of the Social Revolutionaries, however, declared editorially that "the intervention of the Allies alone can give us the real military strength and indispensable support for thrusting back the yoke of the German, and for reconstituting Russia." On June 11, Boris Bakhmeteff, the Russian Ambassador at Washington, transmitted to the State Department a resolution adopted by the Central Committee of the Constitutional Democrats, (also known as Cadets,) the Russian Liberal Party. The resolution pointed out that the Cadet Party did not recognize the Brest peace, and looked to the Allies for the amelioration of Russian conditions. The statement emphatically denied the assertion that the Russian democracy was opposed to allied aid. It insisted, however, that the success of the action would depend upon "the support of national feeling in Russia." The resolution concluded: "It is further imperative for Russian public opinion to receive assurances that the expedition will be co-ordinated with the inviolability of the rights and interests of Russia, and that the actions of all the Allies on Russian territory will be performed under international control."

SENATOR KING'S RESOLUTION

On June 10 a resolution favoring intervention in Russia was offered in the Senate by Senator King of Utah. It was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The full text of the resolution follows:

Whereas, The people of Russia after centuries of political
servitude are finally about to realize their aspirations for
liberty and the constitution of a federal republic; and,

Whereas, The innate sense of justice, desire for public order, and
the community life of the Russian people promise a sound moral
basis for the institutions of liberty and the equal rights of men
under the law as incorporated in a republican form of government;
and,

Whereas, It is the traditional policy and the interest of the
United States of America to promote and protect the progress
of liberty and the principles of democracy as incorporated in
republican institutions; and,

Whereas, The people and the Government of the United States
hailed with great and sincere good-will the prospects for the
establishment of these principles in the great domains of Russia
for the permanent welfare, political dignity, and beneficence of
the Russian people; and,

Whereas, The Imperial Government of Germany, by intrigues and
propaganda, and in perfidious violation of the pretended peace
with Russia, designs to destroy the Government of Russia and the
unity and nationality of the Russian people, and for this purpose
is attempting to separate Russia into small vassal States in order
to more effectually bring the people, territory, and resources of
Russia within the German power; and,

Whereas, In the pursuit of this perfidious purpose, Germany is
now subjecting Russia to industrial and economic servitude, and
is attempting to recruit troops from among the people of Russia
to replenish her depleted armies, and to promote her felonious
purpose in the world; and,

Whereas, The Russian people desire to establish a republican form
of Government and are in sympathy with the cause of the United
States of America and of the Allies, and would welcome assistance
in neutralizing German intrigue and propaganda, and in repelling
the intrusion of German power; and,

Whereas, German troops are now operating in Russia and are making
advances, with a view to taking possession of Russian territory,
including Siberia, and subjecting the same to political domination
and industrial servitude; and,

Whereas, The cause of the Allies and the principles for which they
wage war are thus placed in jeopardy; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate of the United States
that a commission be sent to Russia to co-operate with the
American Ambassador and other representatives of our Government to
overcome and neutralize German propaganda in Russia and to aid in
Russia's economic, industrial, and political freedom; and be it

Further Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate of the
United States that a military expedition be organized and sent
by the United States of America, in conjunction with the Allies,
including Japan and China, to co-operate with the armies of the
Russian people to repel the advance of German arms and to expel
from Russia German military power and establish therein the
authority of the people and Government of Russia.

The policy of the Washington Government in June remained one of nonintervention in Russia, but there was a strongly representative and widely increasing public opinion that the United States should join with Japan, China, and the Allies to aid Russia and prevent further German penetration. This sentiment was especially outspoken and vigorous in the West and on the Pacific slope, where previously anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese prejudices had predominated.

INTERVENTION URGED

A Supreme Council was held at Tokio June 7, attended by Prince Fushimi, Field Marshals Yamagata and Terauchi, (the Premier,) and Lieut. Gen. Oshima, the Minister of War. A joint conference of the Field Marshals and the Admirals was summoned for June 10.

The Entente Governments of Europe were declared in a Tokio dispatch dated June 15 to be bringing increasing influence to bear to induce Japan to intervene in Russia. Among the several French officers who arrived in Tokio to consult with the General Staff was Major Pichon, who was head of the French military mission to Russia, and whose recall was demanded by the Bolsheviki. Major Pichon was reported to be striving for intervention in Siberia as a military necessity with the same energy that he opposed Rumania's entrance into the war as an ill-advised step. Major Pichon formerly was Military Attaché at Bucharest. The partisans of intervention were finding support from A. I. Konovaloff, formerly Minister of Trade and Industry in the Russian Provincial Government, and especially from Jules Destrée, who was appointed Belgian Minister to Petrograd in August, 1917. M. Destrée, who is a Socialist, arrived in Japan after vainly seeking to return to Europe across Finland.

"It is urgently imperative for the defense of the interests of the Entente that there shall be a liberation of the Russian people from Germanic domination," M. Destrée declared. "The Trans-Siberian Railroad is the only remaining communication with the outside world, and this could be destroyed at any time by the German prisoners, of whom there are 20,000 under arms in Siberia. I saw armed Germans at every station, ostensibly allies of the Bolsheviki. The destruction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad would mean the complete abandonment of Russia to the Teutons."

CZECHS IN SIBERIA

It was reported on June 15 that the Czechoslovak troops operating against the Russian Soviet Government in Siberia and the Ural region continued their successes. During the 9th and 10th of June, having occupied Samara, they advanced rapidly toward Ouffa.

On the Siberian railroad from Theliabinsk to Tomsk (a distance of 1,250 miles) all the towns were reported to be in the hands of the Czechoslovaks. Omsk was occupied on June 8 by a united force of Slavs and Cossack peasants under command of Colonel Ivanoff, the Soviet forces having retired from Omsk and Tunen.

The new Siberian Government established the Omsk-Nicholaevsk region notified the Soviet Government at Moscow of the abolition of the government of soldiers and deputies in Siberia and of the creation of the new Provisional Government. The notification stated that the Siberian Government, which is joined by Commander Ivanoff in the forwarding of communication, does not intend to work for the separation of Siberia from Russia, and is ready to negotiate for a supply of provisions to the northern district of Russia.

Should the Council of Commissioners at Moscow, however, attempt to re-establish the Soviet power in Siberia, it was declared, the Siberian Government would resist and would discontinue the sending of bread grains to Northern Russia.

Letters From Trotzky and From Kerensky's War Minister

Two letters from Russian officials, very different in contents but both of historical significance, were brought to the outside world by Herman Bernstein, who had been sent to Petrograd by The New York Herald. One is a confidential letter from Trotzky to Lenine, written at Brest-Litovsk at the end of the peace conference, as follows:

It is impossible to sign their peace. They have already agreed
with fictitious Governments of Poland, Lithuania, Courland, and
others concerning territorial concessions, military and customs
treaties, in view of self-determination. These provinces,
according to the German interpretation, are already independent
German States, and as independent States have already concluded
territorial and other agreements with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Today I put these questions squarely and received a reply leaving
no room for misunderstandings. Everything was stenographed.
Tomorrow we shall present the same questions in writing. We cannot
sign their peace.

My plan is this: We announce the termination of the war and
demobilization without signing any peace. We declare we cannot
participate in the looting war of the Allies nor a looting
peace. Poland's, Lithuania's, Courland's fate we place upon the
responsibility of the German working people. The Germans will be
unable to attack us after we declare the war ended. At any rate,
it would be very difficult for Germany to attack us because of
her internal conditions. The Scheidemannists adopted a formal
resolution to break with a Government that makes annexationist
demands of the Russian revolution. The Berliner Tageblatt and
the Vossische Zeitung demand an understanding with Russia by
all means; Centrists favor an agreement. Internal strife is
demoralizing the Government, a bitter controversy is raging in the
press about the struggle on the western front; we declare that we
end the war, but do not sign peace.

They will be unable to make an offensive against us.
Verteidigungskrieg. If they attack us our position will be no
worse than now, when they have the opportunity to declare us
agents of England and Wilson, after his speech and comments on
attack. I must have your decision. We could well drag negotiations
one, two, three, or four days; afterward they must be broken off.
I see no other solution than that proposed.

I clasp your hand.

Your TROTZKY.

Answer by direct wire: "I agree to your plan" or "I do not agree."

This letter is in accordance with the published circumstances. Trotzky apparently endeavored to persuade Lenine that if Russia should declare the war at an end, while refusing to sign a formal peace, the Germans would not attack. They, on the contrary, attacked at once, and Trotzky collapsed. History must determine whether he was honestly mistaken or was merely seeking a means of "saving his face," while acting in the German interest.

FROM BORIS SAVINKOV

The other letter is by Boris Savinkov, Kerensky's Minister of War, and for many years a leader in the terrorist wing of the Social Revolutionary Party. It was published last April in the Russky Viedomosti. The Lenine Government promptly suppressed it and confiscated the paper, but Mr. Bernstein succeeded in smuggling a copy out of Russia. It reads as follows:

We are vibrating with indignation at the Bolshevist decrees
and their ignominious peace. We feel ourselves humiliated and
disgraced. We are mercilessly handed over "Kamerad" to any one.
Nevertheless, we are doing nothing, because we do not even venture
to say, "God be praised, it was not we but our neighbor who was
shot." Yet we shall never forget that Lenine, Nathanson and
company arrived in Russia via Berlin. The German Government helped
them. The gift demands a gift in return. Lenine and his satellites
have repaid Germany handsomely, first through the subsidized
journal Pravda, next by the naked front, then by Brest-Litovsk,
and finally by an incredible peace.

What have they done with my Russia? It is necessary to be a
fanatic or a paid agent to be able seriously to maintain that
the international proletariat would help us. Only criminals and
lunatics could base a political computation upon such support
when Lenine and his co-adjutors entirely destroyed Russia's
former means and power. The Germans lifted the mailed fist and
Lenine instantly gave way, but others commenced howling about the
necessity to defend the fatherland, not only my Russia, but the
newly invented fatherland. Who can believe the men who destroyed
the army and declared that the idea of fatherland is a prejudice?
Who can believe that they would defend Russia? They are impotent.
Nor do I believe that they are sincere. The Soviet admitted that
the declaration of Lenine was right that we Russians ought to put
up with the loss of Finland, Esthonia, Livonia, Courland, White
Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and part of the Caucasus districts.
The rights of Russia exist no longer. There are only separated
towns and villages, economically dependent upon foreigners. The
position of Russia is like that of Poland after the partition. Has
not William realized his dream? Have not the People's Commissaries
deserved the Iron Cross?

The Bolsheviki have served Germany and serve Germany still.
It is no secret that Russia is covered with a net of German
organizations, and that the Russians who are wishing for the
restoration of the monarchy are working hand in hand with the
Germans. It is no secret that many Russians dream of the day on
which the Germans will enter Petrograd and German policemen appear
in the Nevsky Prospekt. They prefer the devil himself to the
Bolsheviki. What have they done with my Russia?

The Bolsheviki are our national misfortune, but Russia must
be saved, not by our enemies, not by German bayonets, but by
ourselves. We Russians must again be masters of Russia. It must
never be said that we are weak without the imperial assistance of
William and are unable to organize a State. It was not to reach
this goal that we sacrificed streams of Russian blood throughout
three years, nor was it in order to follow the program of the
Bolsheviki or to stretch out our hand toward the enemy. As sure as
it is treason against Russia to compromise with the Bolsheviki, so
sure is the agreement with Germany under which we are now living
worse treason against Russia. We must not forget that the Russian
Nation does not die. Sooner or later it will dawn upon the people
of Russia what my Russia ought to be, and the treason will never
be pardoned. It is an aberration to believe that Nicholas will be
able to return. But when will my Russia stand forth again vigorous
and free? I only know one thing. I learned when young: Through
work and fight thou shalt win thy right. We must work and fight
against the Germans and the Bolsheviki.

After the revolution of March, 1917, had achieved what terrorism had been powerless to accomplish, M. Savinkov threw himself heart and soul into the task of saving the army. He realized more clearly than did any of his revolutionary associates, Kerensky included, that a surrender to the Germans with the Socialists in power would inevitably compromise the Socialist cause in Russia. As Chief Commissioner of the Coalition Government with the armies of the southwestern front he strongly supported General Korniloff in taking stern measures to restore discipline. Kerensky quarreled with Savinkov because the latter, becoming Minister of War, continued to support General Korniloff. Savinkov is a comparatively young man, of great determination and resource. He is well known as a writer.

Growth of the Jugoslav Movement

Project for a South Slavic State, Aided by the
Czechs, Threatens to Disrupt Austria-Hungary

Of the many internal troubles tending toward the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the one that has grown most rapidly in the last year is the Jugoslav movement--the movement for an independent State to be known as Jugoslavia, and to include all the Southern Slavic provinces of Austria-Hungary, as well as Serbia and Montenegro in the Balkans. This project assumed a new phase in May, 1918, when it received the active support of the millions of Czechs in Bohemia, Austria's northwest border province. The Czech demand for a free Bohemia and Jugoslavia helped to precipitate a political crisis at Vienna, which Emperor Charles met by summarily suppressing Parliament. All indications pointed to the existence of a united effort of the Slavs, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Croatians, and Italians to throw off the Teutonic yoke, completely dismembering the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The only session of the Reichsrat that has been held in Austria-Hungary since the war began was opened on May 31, 1917, and closed abruptly by imperial order on May 4, 1918. Throughout that period the Slavic Deputies in the lower house showed increasing hostility to the war methods and plans of the Teutonic minority which rules the empire. The house consisted of 516 members, of whom only 233 were Germans. The dominant nationality has for years managed to keep its control of the Reichsrat through alliance with the Poles, who hold 80 or 90 seats, but in the Spring of 1918 the Poles broke away from the Germans, and suddenly the Government discovered that it was in a minority and that its war budgets were in serious danger of being defeated. Then it resorted to the drastic measure of adjourning Parliament under threat of force.

Already the Czechs, Slovaks, and Jugoslavs been working together in Parliament, generally getting the support of the Ruthenians (Ukrainians) and the Italians. In the closing months of 1917 this tendency was accentuated, when the Polish leaders came into closer alliance with the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs. This was cemented by a congress of Czech Deputies, held in Prague on Jan. 6, 1918, which adopted unanimously the declaration given below. The document was at first suppressed by the Austro-Hungarian censor, and the few publications that got hold of it were not allowed to leave the country.

THE CZECH DECLARATION

Despite this attempt at suppression the text of the document reached the outside world through the Czecho-Slovak National Council. It is as follows:

In the fourth year of this terrible war, which has already cost
the nations numberless sacrifices in blood and treasure, the first
peace efforts have been inaugurated. We, the Czech members of the
Austrian Reichsrat, which, through the verdicts of incompetent
military tribunals, has been deprived of a number of its Slav
Deputies and Czech Deputies to the dissolved and as yet unsummoned
Diet of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and to the equally unsummoned
Diets of Moravia and Silesia, recognize the declarations of the
Czech Deputies in the Reichsrat, and deem it our duty emphatically
to declare, in the name of the Czech Nation and of its oppressed
and forcibly silenced Slovak branch of Hungary, our attitude
toward the reconstruction of international relations.

When the Czech Deputies of our regenerated nation expressed
themselves during the Franco-Prussian war on the international
European problems they solemnly declared in their memorandum
of Dec. 8, 1870, that "all nations, great or small, have an
equal right to self-determination, and their complete equality
should always be respected. Only from the recognition of the
equality of all nations and from mutual respect of the right
of self-determination can come true equality and fraternity, a
general peace and true humanity."

We, the Deputies of the Czech Nation, true even today to these
principles of our ancestors, have, therefore, greeted with joy the
fact that all States based upon democratic principles, whether
they are belligerent or neutral, now accept with us the right of
nations to free self-determination as a guarantee of a general and
lasting peace.

Also the new Russia accepted the principle of self-determination
of nations during its attempts for a general peace as a
fundamental condition of peace. The nations were freely to
determine their fate and decide whether they want to live in an
independent State of their own or whether they choose to form one
State in common with other nations.

DEMANDS INDEPENDENCE

On the other hand, the Austro-Hungarian delegate declared,
in the name of the Quadruple Alliance, that the question
of the self-determination of those nations which have not
hitherto enjoyed political independence should be solved in a
constitutional manner within the existing State. In view of
this declaration we deem it our duty to declare, in the name
of the Czecho-Slovak Nation, that this point of view of the
Austro-Hungarian representative is not our point of view. On
the contrary, we have in all our declarations and proposals
opposed this solution, because we know, from our own numberless
bitter experiences, that it means nothing but the negation of
the principle of self-determination. We indignantly express our
regret that our nation was deprived of its political independence
and of the right of self-determination, and that by means of
artificial electoral statutes we were left to the mercy of the
German minority and of the Government of the centralized German
bureaucracy.

Our brother Slovaks became the victims of Magyar brutality and of
unspeakable violence in a State which, notwithstanding all its
apparent constitutional liberties, remains the darkest corner of
Europe, and in which the non-Magyars, who form the majority of
the population, are ruthlessly oppressed by the ruling minority,
extirpated, denationalized from childhood, unrepresented in
Parliament and civil service, deprived of public schools, as well
as of all private educational institutions.

The Constitution, to which the Austro-Hungarian representative
refers, falsified even the justice of the general suffrage by
an artificial creation of an over-representation of the German
minority in the Reichsrat, and its utter uselessness for the
liberty of nations was clearly demonstrated during the three
years of unscrupulous military absolutism during this war. Every
reference to this Constitution, therefore, means, in reality,
only a repudiation of the right of self-determination for the
non-German nations of Austria who are at the mercy of the Germans;
and it means an especially cruel insult and injury to the
non-Magyar nations in Hungary, where the Constitution is nothing
but a means of shameful domination by the oligarchy of a few
Magyar aristocratic families, as was again proved by the recent
electoral reform proposal.

THE SLAVS IN ALL PARTS OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, SINCE THE SIGNING OF THE BREST-LITOVSK TREATY, HAVE DEVELOPED AN ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO THE RULE OF THE GERMAN MINORITY AT VIENNA. IN THE NORTHWEST THE CZECHS OF BOHEMIA AND THE SLOVAKS OF MORAVIA, CONSTITUTING THE CZECHOSLOVAK MOVEMENT, HAVE TAKEN PART IN SERIOUS RIOTS AT PRAGUE AND ELSEWHERE ON BEHALF OF INDEPENDENCE. THE POLES AND RUTHENIANS OF GALICIA AND BUKOWINA ARE SUPPORTING THEM POLITICALLY. IN THE SOUTHWEST THE SLOVENES, CROATS, AND SERBIANS HAVE DEVELOPED A STRONG JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT, DEMANDING THE CREATION OF A NEW STATE HEADED BY THE KING OF SERBIA. THIS MOVEMENT RECENTLY GAINED THE SUPPORT OF THE ITALIANS BOTH IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND IN ITALY.

SELF-DETERMINATION

Our nation longs with all the democracies of the world for a
general and lasting peace. But our nation is fully aware that
no peace can be permanent except a peace which will abolish old
injustice, brutal force, and the predominance of arms, as well
as the predominance of States and nations over other nations,
and which will assure a free development to all nations, great
or small, and which will liberate especially those nations which
still are suffering under foreign domination. That is why it
is necessary that this right of free national development and
to self-determination of nations, great or small, to whatever
State they may belong, should become the foundation of future
international right, a guarantee of peace, and of a friendly
co-operation of nations, as well as a great ideal which will
liberate humanity from the terrible horrors of a world war.

We, deputies of the Czech nation, declare that a peace which would
not bring our nation full liberty could not be and would not mean
a peace to us, but only a beginning of a new, desperate, and
continuous struggle for our political independence, in which our
nation would strain to the utmost its material and moral forces.
And in that uncompromising struggle it would never relax until
its aim had been achieved. Our nation asks for independence on
the ground of its historic rights, and is imbued with the fervent
desire to contribute toward the new development of humanity on the
basis of liberty and fraternity in a free competition with other
free nations which our nation hopes to accomplish in a sovereign,
equal, democratic, and socially just State of its own, built upon
the equality of all its citizens within the historic boundaries of
the Bohemian lands and of Slovakia, guaranteeing full and equal
national rights to all minorities.

Guided by these principles, we solemnly protest against the
rejection of the right of self-determination at the peace
negotiations, and demand that, in the sense of this right, all
nations, including, therefore, also the Czecho-Slovaks, be
guaranteed participation and full freedom of defending their
rights at the Peace Conference.

WAGRAM GATHERING

On March 2 a gathering of Jugoslavs met at Zagrub (Wagram) which included the Jugoslav Deputies of the Reichsrat, practically the entire membership of the Croatian Sabor, (the Legislature which exercises a limited amount of local autonomy,) and other representatives of the nation. According to the Hrvatska Drzhava, extracts from whose accounts have been translated by the Serbian Press Bureau in Geneva, they contained the following statement:

After having discussed the general political and national
situation the assembly has agreed on the necessity of a
concentration of all parties and groups which, from the point
of view of national self-government, demand the creation of a
national and independent States of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs
founded on the principle of democracy.

The language of this passage parallels the Declaration of Corfu, by which exiled leaders of the Jugoslav movement demanded the union of the Jugoslav territories in Austria-Hungary with Serbia and Montenegro into one kingdom under the Karageorgevitch dynasty. Austrian papers at once became agitated because there was no reference to the carrying out of this aim within the framework of the Hapsburg Empire. The fact that many, if not most, of those present were known to be in accord with the Declaration of Corfu, and the suspicion that practically all of them favored it at heart, caused many protests against the "introduction of the policy of Belgrade" in the Viennese press.

The matter was further complicated by the activity of the police in the affair, they having broken up the first session of the assembly and posted a guard around the hall. Demonstrations of the students against this, which seem to have gone no further than parading up and down the streets singing Slavic national songs, were broken up by the police with the utmost violence, and many were arrested.

This did not prevent a large gathering, principally of students, at the station the next day to bid farewell to Dr. Koroshetz, leader of the Jugoslav Club in the Reichsrat. Dr. Koroshetz is taking the lead in the organization of a Jugoslav National Council of some twenty-four members, whose aims are euphemistically described for the present as "to arrange the tactics of the general Jugoslav policy."

The economic conditions which contribute to the revolutionary ferment in the Jugoslav countries were set forth in a speech in the Reichsrat in the course of a budget discussion just before this assembly by Dr. Matko Leginja, Deputy from Istria and Vice Chairman of the Jugoslav Club. He quoted the appeal from an Istrian commune which ended:

We beg, ask, and demand bread, peace, and the return of our
brethren, fathers, and sons to console us, to see that our fields
are worked properly, and that there should be some one with us to
close the eyes of the dying parents.

Of many instances of starvation which he gave was one of a parish in which in 1912 there were 67 births and 23 deaths. In 1917 there were 23 births and 68 deaths, without counting those who died in military service.

CONFERENCE AT ROME

The significance of the whole movement was deepened by the Conference of Oppressed Austrian Nationalities held at Rome on April 10, when a full understanding with Italy was reached. The territorial and other questions at issue between the Italians and Jugoslavs were settled, and the Poles joined the other delegates in the demand for a complete overthrow of the present Austrian Empire, declaring that the future of Poland lay in a firm alliance with the reconstituted nations of the Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugoslavs, and the Rumanians. The text of the formal declaration then adopted, is as follows:

1. Every people proclaims it to be its right to determine its own
nationality and national unity and complete independence.