Chapter XXVIII: The United States in Asia 316 (9)

Graft and ignorance, waste and laziness, even before the Bolshevist troubles, sapped the life from the organization. The line was strewn with scrap metal, from trucks with flat wheels to all the small parts which break on trains. The Japanese bought this scrap as junk, remilled it at home and sold it back to the Russians at from five to ten times its cost as scrap.

The repair shops ran at a very low point of efficiency, and without modern machinery--bolts, for instance, being made by hand! The whole system appeared to be run for no other purpose than creating jobs, and was over-manned.

Business is done in Siberia at a high margin of profit in order to offset losses by theft. It is estimated that twenty-five per cent must be allowed to cover loss by theft. Goods left in the customs house over night under the care of watchmen are not always found intact in the morning--the cases are opened and goods abstracted. A car-load of shoes shipped to an inland city arrived apparently safe, with the seals on the cars unbroken. When opened, the car was found to be full of cord-wood. A person unfamiliar with the country had better avoid doing business on a small scale there. An American who came to Chita with fifty suits of ready-to-wear clothing, had to part with about half of his lot to pay graft.

The velvet covering on the seats of cars is all ripped off. I heard that the Bolshevists took the coverings to make clothing. At a theater I saw many women in gowns of blue, gray and red velvet, and discovered that the blues had come from first-class cars, the gray from second-class cars, and the red from third-class cars. Combined with old lace curtains, the stuff made rather attractive gowns.

A British colonel, coming up from Vladivostok with regular troops bound for the front, wired to Chita to the “British consul” to arrange for four hundred baths, twenty buckets, two hundred loaves of bread and communion service of the Church of England for four hundred men. He also stated that he wanted a hall in which the men could eat their Christmas dinner, the hall to be decorated with holly and other greenwood stuff.

The British officer who opened the telegram did his best, but there was a hitch about the communion service, because the Russian church could not give communion to non-communicants. When the colonel arrived, he cited the fact that a Russian bishop had once arranged with a bishop of the Church of England for mutual exchanges of courtesy in regard to communion in emergencies. His men marched to a Russian church for services that day, but did not receive communion. They were taken out of their crowded box-cars, bathed and fed and preached to, and paraded through the streets of Chita with fifes and drums.

* * * * *

Early one morning I was summoned to the military prison of a certain town. A note was brought to me by a smart young Cossack, who clicked his heels, saluted most deferentially, and remained at attention in the best military manner while in my room. He said the note was from the prison commandant, and when my orderly had read it, he said my presence at the prison was requested.

We drove to the prison, and informed the sentry at the gate that we wished to see the commandant. Thereupon we were ushered into a spacious corridor, crowded with prisoners.

A young man pushed his way out of the crowd and accosted me in Russian. I told him that I could not talk with him till I had seen the commandant. He then said in perfect English: “I am an American--I am going to be shot. You must save me.”

It was my business to protect Americans.

“What part of the United States are you from?” I asked.

“New York City--Grand Street.”

“Were you born in New York City?”

“No. I was born in Russia. But I am an American. You tell ’em they can’t shoot me.”

“When were you naturalized in America?”

“Well, I didn’t take out any papers. But I lived in New York nine years.”

“Then Russia is your country. When did you come back?”

“About a year ago.”

“Why did you come?”

“I wanted to help my country.” Now the tears were running down his face.

“My orderly here was also born in Russia,” I said. “But he is a naturalized American citizen, and has been six years in the regular army. You have come back to help your country, but your country does not appear to appreciate your services. You might have returned in an American uniform, but for nine years you lived in New York and did not care to become an American citizen. Now you claim American protection. Why are you going to be shot?”

“I don’t know. I never was told. Please go and ask to see my papers. Every minute is valuable! Save my life! I am a good American!”

The other prisoners now swarmed about us. The commandant pushed through them and eyed me angrily. I told my orderly to inform him that I had come in response to his summons, and handed over his note.

To my amazement he stared at the note and declared that he had neither written it nor sent it. And he informed me that the very smart young Cossack soldier, who had clicked his heels so ceremoniously, was a suspected Bolshevist against whom no definite evidence had been found. And this “soldier” had himself been released from the prison only that morning! (Later in the day he was re-arrested for bringing the forged message to me.)

I explained to the commandant that under the circumstances I had no intention of interfering, but I desired that the execution might be delayed till I could talk with the local chief of staff. He assented.

I drove hurriedly to the office of the chief of staff of the Cossack commander, and asked about the prisoner. The passport of the condemned man was put before me. He had obtained the passport as a Russian subject. Also, he had pretended upon arrival to be an envoy sent by radicals in the United States to the Bolshevists. And I was shown clippings from Russian papers, which related how the “New Yorker” had in street speeches after his arrival in Siberia denounced the government of the United States as “capitalistic.” He had been arrested while trying to pass through a certain city with Bolshevist dispatches.

“I wish the execution might be delayed,” I said, “until I can talk with this man again. He might give me some information of value.”

The chief of staff nodded his head, and as I went out, reached for the telephone.

I drove back to the prison. The commandant, now smiling and suave, led me, when I asked to see the prisoner, to a window overlooking the prison yard. There he pointed to a figure lying in the reddened snow. It was the “New Yorker.”

* * * * *

In a party of condemned prisoners taken out for execution, there was a woman from the East Side of New York. She brought up the rear of the little column. She was a tall, fine-looking Jewess, and bore herself proudly, looking with scorn at the firing-squad.

When the death-grove was reached there was some delay. She observed Americans among the on-lookers, and beckoned them over to her.

“Why, they’re not going to shoot me,” she boasted. “Look at me--I am an attractive woman. I have been in that prison two months.” And significantly, “I have been a good friend to the commandant. Tell him I want to speak to him.” She smiled coyly.

The commandant came. He smiled at her admiringly, and gave her an intimate wink.

“Of course I am not going to have you shot,” he declared. “I had to bring you out here to make the others think that I am not showing you any favoritism. But my soldiers have orders not to aim at you. Do not fear the volley.”

These was a sharp command. The rifles came up. Some of the condemned dropped to their knees in the snow to pray, some made a brave show of facing the muzzles without a tremor, others openly wept. But the woman stood upright, with a confident smile on her lips, sure that none of the bullets was for her.

The volley crashed upon the cold air. The woman’s face took on an awful look of surprise. Her body snapped backward from the impact of flying lead, and then she pitched forward upon her face in the snow.

There are no sex lines drawn in matters of this kind. No, indeed, there is perfect equality.

* * * * *

The mass of the people in Siberia are Bolshevist. I would say that ninety-eight per cent of them are Bolshevist. This assertion can be very easily misunderstood, and anti-Bolshevists will undoubtedly attack it, while the Bolshevist propagandists will probably use it to prove that they have as adherents the mass of the people. But by “Bolshevist” I do not mean that the people have studied Bolshevism and have decided to adhere to it because they feel that Bolshevism is the form of government which they want--far from it.

What I do mean to say is that the mass of the people, being discontented and being in poverty, favor Bolshevism because it is the only thing which promises them the license which they believe to be liberty. It is a system which has demonstrated to them that they have a right to take what they can; it is a system that tells them that they can do no wrong because they have been wronged--that no matter what the poor man does, he is right. It is the “divine right of kings” applied to the proletariat--it makes every man a king provided he has been a man who worked for somebody else.

When I assert that the mass of the people are Bolshevist in their tendencies, I do not mean that they are all able to discuss Bolshevism intelligently, nor do I mean that they are fighting in the ranks of the Bolshevist army with arms. I mean that the drosky-driver, the waiter, the railroad man,--all working classes,--are hostile to any man who attempts to tell them that Bolshevism is wrong, or any man who looks as though he did not work with his hands. By “Bolshevism” I mean class hatred. The mass of the people of Siberia have been exploited so long, and have been tricked by promises which were never kept, that they are willing to be exploited by any person who comes along and tells them that they own everything in the country merely because they work.

They have never known good government. They do not believe that it exists. To them “government” means oppression, whether it is government in the United States, or government by the Czar.

Now if the mass of the people are Bolshevist (admitting my assertion for the sake of argument, if it cannot be accepted fully) and the forces of the United States in Siberia attempt to control the people, it might be argued that we would be opposing the wishes of the majority of the people of Siberia--not allowing them to have the form of government they desire. In other words, if we go to war against Bolshevism, it means killing all Bolshevists, and if nearly all the people in Siberia are Bolshevistic, it would mean, carried to its logical conclusion, killing or bringing into subjection the mass of people in Siberia.

We do not wish to do that. Then why do we not let them remain Bolshevist and run the country with soviets?

We are a-straddle a barbed-wire fence in Siberia. The Czechs and the Cossacks have whipped the Bolshevist forces in Siberia. We have aided neither the Czechs nor the Cossacks militarily, and the Bolshevists have been waiting till we and the Czechs got out. While waiting, the Bolshevists have joined Cossack armies or have behaved themselves to some extent--they are waiting till the Allies in Siberia give them a clear field again. And the Allies have been surrounded by a vanishing army--fighting Bolshevists who quit fighting and “surrender” when they see that they are in danger of capture or defeat.

I do not believe that Bolshevism is going to be destroyed by “decisive defeats” of Bolshevist armies. Bolshevist forces have been “decisively defeated” time and again, and driven out of many cities, only to reorganize in the rear of their attackers. Bolshevism can only be smothered by attacking the idea of Bolshevism, for it is a soul-disease which has infected vast masses of people who have been wronged for centuries.

I do not object to the fact that these people wish to correct the wrongs of government, the wrongs of exploitation, the wrongs of enforced poverty which they have endured in a land of great natural wealth. The greatest wrong which has been committed against them is the system which has kept them in ignorance. They must be saved from their own ignorance. They must be saved from a new exploitation which is greater than any they have ever known. I do not believe that wrongs against a people can be righted by committing new wrongs.

These people who are Bolshevist in their tendencies, are Bolshevist because they have not seen anything better than Bolshevism, which was visualized for them in tons of worthless money distributed to them. We must demonstrate good government to them, even though we have to “interfere” to do so. They are ready to swing to anything which proves its worth. We have attempted to prove things by reasoning, when they are not equipped mentally to reason. They suspect and fear us because we reason while we have an expedition on their ground--and soldiers to them mean intimidation, treachery and death. They do not trust each other, how can they trust us? They do not trust the Japanese, and we are allied with the Japanese.

XXVII

THE JOKER IN BOLSHEVISM

The Bolshevists of Siberia hate wall-paper. After traveling in that country, I came to the conclusion that a Bolshevist operates on the theory that there can be no freedom for anybody so long as a single strip of wall-paper remains on any wall. Neither can there be any freedom while glassware is unbroken, furniture unsmashed, curtains are whole, windows intact, books unburned. And the parlor Bolshevists of the United States, if they were really consistent, would stop talking and start a little freedom in their own homes by pulling everything down that is up, and pulling everything up that is down, sweeping the total into the street and putting a match to it.

There is a joker in this “new form of government” known as Bolshevism. In fact, the joker is the very core of the whole matter. Mutilated wall-paper gave me my first inkling of that joker. In Chita, the searchers after freedom had done a thorough job. For not only were the interior walls of the town everywhere stripped clean, but, according to the proprietor of a local store the stock in the different shops had gone to feed the bon-fires.

“So the Bolshevists hate wall-paper even before it is hung,” I said to this merchant.

“Yes,” he replied through my interpreter. “I heard from a friend in another town that soon we’d be able to get some from Japan. But a German prisoner of war, who helps my wife with the cooking, says to wait till the railroad opens up to Petrograd, and then I’ll be able to get cheaper and better wall-paper from Germany.”

I lunched that day at the Hotel Dayooria. A German prisoner of war was my waiter. He was a meek sort of person who had set out from home with Kultur on the point of his bayonet and now found himself a slave in a foreign land. He served my tea in a glass that had been made from a wine bottle by cutting the top off. The upper edge of the glass was dangerously sharp.

“I am sorry, captain,” said the waiter; “--no other glasses now.” (He spoke in English. He had learned it in a German school. He gently hinted that any stray magazines I might have would be welcome.)

“Well, when is the boss going to order some regular goblets?”--which was more or less an attempt at humor on my part, since in Siberia at that time there was small chance of getting anything from anywhere.

“Pretty soon we’ll have glassware from Germany,” the waiter assured me proudly. Then with a click of his heels, he went back to the kitchen.

That was my second glimpse of the joker.

Across the street from the Dayooria was a much larger and more modern hotel, the Select. The lower windows on the street were all boarded up, for these had been the fronts of banks and shops when the Bolshevists cut loose on the town, and, in order to become free, found it necessary to smash the plate-glass, and loot--all of which was done to the (I was going to say King’s) proletariat’s taste.

But the interior of the Select had not suffered so complete a wrecking as the Dayooria. An American consul had once occupied a room at the Select, and through the kindness of the Cossack chief of staff, I was allowed to rent this room, with another for my interpreter. (The rent was raised each week, a mere detail even in Bolshevist Siberia.)

There was a shortage of electric globes in Chita. But the commandant managed so that I had globes for the three wires hanging from my ceiling, and a globe for the drop-light on my desk. In the halls of the hotel, as in my room, the globes hung from the ceilings on wires. One evening in a hall I observed a German war prisoner shorten the loop in one wire so that the globe fell as low as his shoulder. The next time he came through from the kitchen to the officers’ mess with a tray, he bumped the globe in such a manner that it crashed against the wall, and broke.

The same night I noticed that one of the lights in my room was not burning. I called the German prisoner who acted as janitor, and asked him to fix it. He brought a ladder, climbed up, unscrewed the globe, dropped it, and broke it. He said he felt rather bad about it, too. It was a blot on his efficiency.

The next night another globe gave no light. I investigated myself, by moving my bed and piling my two lockers on it. The globe burned all right when it was screwed into the socket. I unscrewed it until it again failed to burn, moved the bed and lockers back into place, and called the same German. He came with his ladder, examined the globe, told me it was burned out, and took it away.

When the third globe went dark, I found that it too, had been unscrewed enough to break the circuit. The German came, climbed his ladder, and with pliers, when he thought I was not looking, pried off the glass tip, rendering the globe useless. Then he told me the globe was no good. And--there were no more globes.

Now all I had left was the globe in the drop-light. Every morning I hid it, and thereby worried the German. There was evidence that he hunted for it when I was out of my room. Why were the janitor and the waiter destroying globes that were a necessity even to themselves? I clinched my suspicions by asking a former merchant of electrical supplies this question: “Where did you buy your electric globes and fixtures before the war?” Well, they came from Moscow--mostly made in Germany.

Here was another corner of that joker! When Russian Bolshevists were afraid they would get caught breaking things, the German prisoners helped the game along by doing a little sly smashing on their own account!

Because I had the room of a former American consul, the Russian owner of a gold mine near Chita called upon me, thinking I was the present American consul. He said he wanted advice as to where he might, some time in the future, buy mining-machinery.

The Bolshevists had wrecked his entire plant. Their leaders had told the peasants that the mines of Siberia belong to all, and that in time a Bolshevist government would work the mines, and divide the gold among the people. In that way no one would become richer than someone else.

“The German prisoners,” he said, “now tell my workmen that if I have machinery I will need only a few men, and so hundreds of workmen will be thrown out of jobs. Of course, if I could put machinery in I would employ ten times as many men as I do now. I can’t make my mine pay without machinery, and for the present I am employing only common labor to clean things up so as to be ready for better times. If we Russian mine owners can’t make our mines pay, we’ll have to sell out. During the revolution, German capitalists have bought up a lot of companies in European Russia at bankrupt prices.

“But assuming that Germany takes the mines, how can the Germans hope to operate them if the workmen refuse to allow machinery to be used in them?”

“You do not know our _moujiks_,” he replied. “They will not believe what I tell them for their own good. But they will believe the lies of an outsider--any childish story told to swindle them. By the time Germany is ready to sell us machinery, maybe the _moujiks_ will be told not to smash it--if the machinery is German.”

And picture the amount of mining-machinery that Siberia will be able to use! For two thousand versts to the north of Chita there are gold fields. The fields which have been developed make scarcely a dot on the map. No. One Russian mine-worker will not become richer than another when that vast country is worked. If Germany’s plans do not miscarry, those who will profit first will be the German machinery manufacturers.

It was brought to my attention in a certain part of Siberia that wool, cow hair and camel hair, valued at nine million rubles, purchased just before the revolution by a Boston company through its Moscow agency, was to be seized. Who was going to seize it is not a matter for me to discuss here, but I can say there was good evidence that it would have gone in the direction of Germany.

The warehouses containing this material were in three cities, and somehow escaped being burned. Whenever Bolshevist bands broke loose to loot and burn, the word must have been passed from some mysterious fountain-head to spare the warehouses containing that wool and hair--for, mind, those warehouses were in three different cities, far apart. This would indicate that, after all, there is a system to Bolshevism. The system appears to be, “Smash machinery and manufactured goods but spare raw material.” As the wool and hair was owned by an American company, an inference might be drawn that the protection was due to its being American property. If so, why--when there was a rumor that American troops might soon be in the vicinity of the warehouses--was it to be seized and moved toward Germany?

Siberian Bolshevists with whom I talked told me of the great yearning for education among the masses, and how the Bolshevists would provide plenty of schools. I examined the condition of several schools where the Bolshevists had been in control for a time. Every possible book had been destroyed--geographies, grammars, spelling-books. It was a case of _spurlos versenkt_. Pens, paper, pencils, maps, erasers, rulers, ink and all other school accessories went the way of the books--to the bon-fires in the streets. A yearning to learn? Certainly. One might describe it as a burning desire. And will it not be fine for Leipsic to print Russia’s new school books, with some German propaganda thrown in free? Also, _lieber Gott_, vot a market for pencils and other little things! (Note for Leipsic: Printers in Japan are already printing Russian books!)

There is a significant angle to the smashing and burning that has gone on in Russia--an angle which the American working man should bear in mind when he is told that Russian Bolshevists are on the right track for turning a _moujik_ into a magnate over night. Russia is a great producer of raw material. Smashed machinery there means that whatever raw material escapes destruction must seek a foreign market. Naturally, if such material cannot be sold to a Russian factory, the factory abroad buys it much cheaper than if there were a home demand for it. Also, smashed machinery in Russia means no production in Russia of manufactured goods; and no manufactured goods in Russia means that the very working men who smashed the machinery must buy goods manufactured abroad.

Further, if there are no goods manufactured in Russia, the foreign manufacturer makes his own prices, both for what he buys from Russia and what he sells to her. In other words, he gets raw materials from her at low prices, and sells manufactured goods to her at high prices. This forces all Russian labor, skilled as well as unskilled, into working at low wages on the production of raw materials, and the cost of the raw materials is constantly being pulled down because, with no Russian demand for factory-skilled labor, there is a surplus of labor. So the Russian manufacturing capitalist is wiped out, sure enough, along with all machinery. Also, in time, Russian skilled labor will be wiped out!

And for this condition of affairs, Russians can thank themselves!

Germany realized how crude were her methods when she sent to Belgium and France a force that, operating behind her fighting men, wrecked or burned factories, and seized raw material. That was a job she did herself, and she had to take the blame of the whole world for it. She had to devise a scheme by which she could get the same results elsewhere without having to bear any blame.

That scheme was Bolshevism. The craftiest criminals always use fools as their tools. And in Bolshevism Germany found the _Ersatz_, or substitute, for an army of thieving and destroying Germans. It has been estimated that more than a million Germans are prisoners of war in Russia. These men whispered anti-capitalistic propaganda into the ear of the poor _moujik_, who wants education so badly that he is willing to burn school books, and who thinks he can attain freedom by ripping off wall-paper. And the _moujik_, under skillful leadership, did Germany’s work, and did it for nothing. That same Ivan who had died by millions to beat the Germans ran home from the trenches and wrecked his own country to the Kaiser’s taste, at the Kaiser’s word--wrecked it more thoroughly than the German armies would have been able to wreck it. For he smashed everything but the ikons and the rubber-plants. Why he did not destroy the rubber-plants we cannot understand. Is it because Germany does not wish to sell rubber-plants to Russia?

So keen were the Germans to help the Russian Bolshevists to “overthrow the Russian capitalists,” that the German capitalists loaned the Bolshevists armored cars and cannon made in Germany by the Krupp works and in Austria by the Skoda works. Evidently the German capitalists had suddenly fallen in love with the Russian proletariat! (This is a nut for our own parlor Bolshevists to crack.)

I can guess how they will crack it. They will say, “Yes, the Russian Bolshevists took help from the German capitalists, but in time they will turn those guns upon the very capitalists who loaned them.” Yet what I ask to know, as Hashimura Togo would say, is, “Why did the German capitalists ever begin to help the Bolshevists?”

After all, Russian capitalists are the only people who can give Russian working men jobs. By the same token, German capitalists are the only people who can give German working men jobs. If the German capitalists do not want the Russian capitalists to be able to give jobs to Russians, are the German capitalists who loaned guns to Russian Bolshevists, friends of the Russian working men?

The first parlor Bolshevist who answers that question correctly will explain the joker in Bolshevism.

Germany mobilized the fools of Russia. Why not, she asked herself, extend a scheme that worked so successfully with the _moujiks_ to the working populations of other countries? She began to have hopes (with the aid of Bolshevist propaganda) of mobilizing the malcontents everywhere. Capital, if not wiped out, could at least be frightened or forced into a period of non-production--or production at high prices. High prices, in turn, create demands for higher wages--demands that usually take the form of strikes. Labor troubles may lead to riots, or even revolution--with consequent destruction. And to judge by Belgium, northern France and Russia, destruction is what Germany wants.

Meanwhile, rumors of riots in the Fatherland encourage Bolshevism in other countries. We have had copious news of Bolshevist troubles in Germany. The fact that we get this news over German wires is evidence that Germany wants us to get it. It makes a fine smoke-screen behind which stand her great untouched factories with their unsmashed machinery.

The Germans told the Russians that the great war was a “capitalistic war.” Germany was right. But she neglected to say that it was designed to aid the German capitalists. And if enough fools in every other country can be induced to smash and tear and burn, saving only (take note) some raw materials, then with her own factories and machinery intact, Germany can flood the world with her own cheap manufactured goods.

For this is the joker in Bolshevism: The providing for Germany, of colossal markets!

And if she has these markets created for her, the indemnity which the Allies have demanded, and which Germany says is “staggering,” will be to her a mere handful of small change.

XXVIII

THE UNITED STATES IN ASIA

It must be fairly obvious to the reader in following my account of what I saw and heard in Siberia that I regard the whole adventure on the part of the United States in Siberia as a failure, whether it is regarded in the light of being an attempt at international diplomacy, military intervention, a gesture of friendship toward Russia, or an enterprise in the nature of insurance against the spread of Bolshevism.

Primarily, it began as a new campaign against Germany-to prevent Germany from getting possession of war-stores in Russia and Siberia and replenishing her stocks of food, munitions and men and to prevent her from penetrating the country for conquest. There was every reason for our being in Russia, both on the Archangel front, and in Siberia, to accomplish these ends. Our presence in Siberia alone was a menace to Germany, a threat of a thrust through her back door in combination with the other powers involved with us, including Russians, Czecho-Slovaks, British, French, Japanese and others interested and concerned.

But we went about it even before the armistice was dreamed of, in a tentative manner. We did not start a campaign, we began a debating society. We twiddled our thumbs all winter in Siberia, while the forces of evil, Bolshevist and others, took advantage of our lack of decision on anything and acquired a certain technique in a chicane suitable to the conditions existing to thwart us in any decision we might reach in the future.

We kept insisting that we were helping Russia by being in Siberia. The Czechs, the Russians and the Japanese knew that only action could help, and action meant fighting those who were ruining the country. We were helping Russia and Siberia in just about the manner a man might help a family which was being beaten and robbed by burglars if the man sat out on the front porch and remarked: “If this thing gets too serious, I am here with a gun to help.”

And while he sat there, the members of the family still alive, yelled frantically: “This is serious now--half my children are dead, and the biggest robber has me by the throat.”

Whereupon the visitor on the porch would reply: “If I do anything rough I will hurt somebody’s feelings. I don’t want to do that. But if you kill the robbers, then you have settled the affair yourself, with my moral support. But I am not quite sure the robbers are not in the right. I am your friend, if you win this fight; if the robber wins it, I want to make friends with him. In the meantime, I can supply you with a Red Cross nurse to bind your wounds if you escape alive; I can give you food if the robber steals or destroys all you have to eat; I can send you ministers to bury you with prayers if you are killed, or to preach to you if you are spared. I am a Good Samaritan but I must not interfere.”

While we were thus pausing and surveying the wreckage, human and material, various Cossack chiefs, schooled in the methods of the old régime, seized power and began building up principalities of their own--Kalmikoff as governor-general of the Ussuri district, and Semenoff as boss of the Trans-Baikal.

They used the old tricks of autocracy--swords and ceremony--which the people feared and by which they were impressed with demonstrations of physical power. Then to catch the imagination of the nations which wished to see Russia rehabilitate herself speedily, they began to talk in a patter, the key-note of which was, and is: “I stand for a free and reunited Russia, a Russia greater than the old.” Whereupon they proceeded to deny anything in the nature of freedom, and to disunite Russia. All they stood for, and still stand for, is their own glorification and reward and the gambler’s chance that they will inherit the throne of the Czars. If they cannot attain to such ambitions, at least they hope to sell out their usurped powers in case some figure of imperial lineage comes out of hiding to take the shattered crown.

We kept assuring the Siberians that our government stood as their friend, at the same time neither denouncing, nor interfering with these usurpers. The people, for all their abysmal ignorance, knew perfectly well what was going on--they recognized autocracy because they had to submit to it. And, speaking generally, the attitude of the United States was: “Why cannot you people get together and settle up this mess--all you have to do is come to an agreement, and reunite Russia!”

This while several civil wars were being fought in the country!

At home our press and public were making a hue and cry against Bolshevism. Yet in Siberia were Cossack chiefs with little armies opposed to the Bolshevists, but inactive because they were not sure what we might do. Our failure to throw in with these chiefs, led the Bolshevist leaders to hope, if not actually believe, that we favored Bolshevism, or at least did not dare fight it. At any rate, our “do nothing” policy allowed the Bolshevist leaders, crafty in intrigue, propaganda and organization, to whisper to their wavering adherents that the United States was passively favoring them and that recognition of the Bolshevist government was only a matter of time.

In effect, our operations for nearly a year, were a subsidy to Bolshevism. Our civilian-aid agencies were unwitting helpers to the secret Bolshevists of Siberia, for they gave comfort and encouragement to the idea that Bolshevism in Siberia was a success. We repaired a lot of damage that Bolshevism had done, before the people of Siberia could realize what the destruction meant--before they could learn for themselves what a mess they had made of things.

Our government did relief work, and became actually thereby an ally of the Bolshevist régime, though maintaining an attitude of non-interference--neutrality.

“One faction is as bad as another,” was the way our spokesmen put it. That was a comforting phrase, but not true. It meant blaming our own ignorance on the factions. It was on the same scale as the statement made so often after the outbreak of the war: “Europe has gone war-mad--one nation is as bad as the other,” a frame of mind which helped Germany. How the Bolshevist leaders must have chuckled when they heard that the United States classed them as no better and no worse than the Russians who were actively fighting Bolshevism, and opposing it in other ways. And the gallant Czechs were amazed and discouraged by our failure to coöperate with them to the extent they had been led to believe that we would.

Kalmikoff and Semenoff, more particularly the former, carried on executions by the wholesale. It was a system of eliminating such persons as might oppose them. Some of the victims were probably Bolshevists, but many of them were decent and orderly Russians from our viewpoint. They dared whisper their suspicions against the Cossack chiefs--that was enough to send them to the execution party.

For instance, men and women of Khabarovsk protested to Colonel Styer that Kalmikoff had their friends and relatives in prison and would shoot them. Colonel Styer took the matter up with Kalmikoff. That night fifteen or twenty men were chosen at random from the prison, taken out into a grove, and shot down. They did not know what they had been arrested for, they had never been tried.

This sort of thing went on for months after our forces were stationed in Khabarovsk. But with Washington giving strict orders that there should be nothing in the nature of “interference,” what could Colonel Styer do? Yet at the same time we were assuring the “loyal” Russians that our troops were on the ground for their protection.

To the Russians, who could not possibly fathom our policy and could not know what was going on between our commanders and Kalmikoff, it looked as if our troops were there to protect Kalmikoff while he decimated the population. And Kalmikoff continued to lift himself into power by the simple process of killing off everybody who objected to his assuming autocratic powers.

Yet Kalmikoff and Semenoff, if properly dealt with from the first, might have joined forces with us against the Bolshevists. They could not have opposed us. They both have certain qualities as military leaders, and while they undoubtedly are monarchists or “men on horseback,” they are certainly anti-Bolshevist. And if we had adopted an anti-Bolshevist policy from the start, this policy would have given us a point of contact with the Cossack chiefs. We could have demanded that they behave themselves, get busy and fight Bolshevists at the front.

But they camped down in Khabarovsk and Chita, clamped a tight lid on the press in their districts, and inspired the writing of articles for the local newspapers which extolled their own virtues as Russian patriots, and denounced the other Cossack chiefs with whom they were at odds. And the peculiar fact about this press campaign, was that when each told of the others faults and selfish ambitions, he was telling the truth, as truth goes in Siberia.

The press muzzled or subsidized, the whole country became befogged in a mass of rumors, gossip, lies and slander. The Americans heard all kinds of stories against the Japanese, as no doubt the Japanese heard the most fanciful tales about us; the Czechs became disgruntled and sullen because they felt we were not helping them as we should; if an American officer became friendly with a Russian and sought his views on the situation, another Russian sought the American out to warn him against his informant. Each Russian professed to be a “loyal” Russian. I found that all Russians are loyal Russians. The difficulty was to ascertain just what “loyal” meant. The test for us, should have been, loyal to what idea of government?

I am familiar with the assertion that our expedition was opposing the Bolshevists with armed force. When did we threaten any Bolshevists till the Bolshevists attacked us? Is inviting all factions to “get together” at Prinkipo, opposing Bolshevists? Is it opposing monarchists? Is it opposing _hetmen_ who emulate Villa? Is it backing a democratic form of government in Russia?

One thing is certain--neither a monarchy nor a republic can be formed in all Russia so long as Bolshevism remains in the saddle. And our unwillingness to oppose Bolshevism was in effect giving it aid and strength. Many who were wavering in their sympathy for Bolshevism, turned to it again secretly when they saw what the Cossack chiefs were doing with apparent sanction of the United States.

Our attitude of neutrality in Russian affairs gave the Bolshevist agents their chance to decry our promises of aid. They said: “Look! The United States knows Bolshevism is too strong to quarrel with openly. Who is the United States standing in with? Your enemies, the Cossack chiefs, who are fighting us in order to restore to power the old régime. The United States stands back and allows the Cossacks to execute you. The American commanders protest mildly, but do the executions stop? No. The United States hopes the Cossacks will defeat us, but the United States does not dare fight, because they want to be able to make friends with us when we control the whole country. They know they will have to recognize us in time.”

No doubt Bolshevism will die out in time. All zealots are born despots, and Russia will not submit to the despotism of Bolshevism any more than it will submit from now on for a long period, to any form of cruel despotism. Can we claim, when Bolshevism burns out, to have aided in breaking its back?

Neutrality, between right and wrong, is a crime. It was invented by militaristic criminals who want to murder nations, and make sure that there will be no interference by neighbors.

The thug, murdering his victim, resents the interference of the passerby, by saying: “This is none of your business.” He demands neutrality.

So it has become a virtuous act for a nation, when two nations engage in war, to declare itself neutral. We realize now that something is wrong in this system, so we have devised the league of nations idea. This idea is nothing more than an agreement that there shall be no more neutrality. If a nation threatens war, all the others agree to take sides. The fact that all the others may combine against the aggressor, or the nation adjudged to be in the wrong, automatically prevents the war. Unless the aggressing nation feels strong enough to defy the others, or able to accomplish its purpose of destruction before the others can get into action.

But issues between nations are often beclouded, or the minds of peoples are befogged, or populations become divided over what is right and what is wrong. A league of nations, to operate according to the ideals of the idea, presupposes the ability of peoples, or their leaders, to make swift decision as to who is right and who is wrong. It calls for not merely national statesmanship, but international statesmanship--which is always for right.

We wanted to operate on the patient in Siberia but the doctors could not decide whether to take out the appendix of Bolshevism, or cut off the head that ached without a crown. The patient is still suffering from a bad appendix--and a violent headache.

We said at home that Bolshevism menaced the world. It had ruined Siberia. We were in Siberia with troops. We should have attacked Bolshevism on its native heath, and declared to Russia and the world that once the Bolshevists were whipped and knew they were whipped, we would stand beside the nation till it had reorganized itself in its own non-Bolshevist way.

Japan expected us to do those things, just as England did. We practically forbade Japan from going into Siberia without our sanction, or without us. We decried intervention or interference, and then proceeded to intervene. I do not care what other term is used in describing our landing an expedition in Siberia--it was intervention. It was a measure for the safety of Russia, and for our own protection.

The minute our first armed man stepped upon the dock at Vladivostok, we had intervened--we had interfered. It was our business to be effective, to justify our presence there, to act in the manner we thought proper and be responsible for our acts. All the others would have been glad to coöperate with us, I am sure.

In fact, all parties looked to us for leadership, regardless of what their private ideas or ambitions may have been. Japan was ready to coöperate with us, but we disgusted Japan by our failure to do anything but sit on the lid of the Pandora’s box in Vladivostok. Japan went ahead and did a few things on her own account, and then there were whispers in certain quarters that Japan wanted to grab Siberia.

If Japan did want to grab Siberia, it was because the lackadaisical attitude of the United States made Japan feel that whatever Japan did, the United States would not do much more than mildly protest.

I do not doubt that Japan would like to have Siberia, or at least the littoral of the Maritime Provinces with ownership or control of Vladivostok. She would like to hook that country up with Korea, and have a barrier between her own Empire and whatever Russia will develop or degenerate into in the future. And considering Japan’s position in Asia, her necessity for expansion, and more particularly her system of government, this ambition to control the Siberian littoral is consistent with her whole scheme of self-protection. The morality of the policy is not for discussion here.

England would have been willing to follow our lead, and coöperate with us. But tired of our dallying, England sent her forces up to the front, and took a chance of having the Trans-Siberian railroad break down between her advanced troops and their base. And England stands higher in the regard of Russia to-day than we do, and always will, despite the fact that we talked much of friendship for Russia and Siberia. England said little, but acted with troops in supporting the anti-Bolshevist forces.

I consider the Siberian campaign a failure, for the simple reason that what we failed to do in Siberia will eventually aid Germany. Germany is bound to penetrate Russia economically, and control the country financially unless we change our tactics. We went to Siberia to checkmate Germany--we have aided her. This is because the Russian will never take us seriously again--we are regarded nationally as a “bluff.”

We went into Siberia with armed forces to help Russia, and did little but talk, nurse the railroad, distribute pamphlets, and show pictures to prove to the Russians what a great nation we were--at home. Among the pamphlets we distributed was one in Russian, entitled: “If you want a republic we will show you how to build one.”

In effect, we told them that everything we did was right, and everything that they did was wrong. The wiser ones smiled, shook their heads, and tolerated us. How, they asked, are you showing us the way to build a republic if every time we submit a problem to you, you throw up your hands and say: “We cannot advise you, for that would be interfering. This is something you must settle for yourselves.”

There was no reason why, when the Siberian situation developed its own peculiar problem after the armistice, the Siberian expedition could not have been increased to a strength which would make it possible to protect itself, and carried out a definite policy in regard to Russia. If we could formulate no policy for Siberia which seemed to fit our national aims toward Russia and Siberia, our expedition should have been withdrawn.

I feel that none of the things we set out to accomplish in Siberia has been accomplished. And many of the things we wished to prevent, have been carried out by Bolshevist forces--at least we have had little if any hand in checking Bolshevist activities.

The American expedition degenerated from a military expedition into a political expedition, or probably what might be termed a diplomatic expedition. I maintain that it is a great error in governmental policy to attempt to turn a soldier into a diplomat, or a diplomat into a soldier. The soldier should not be called in until the policy of the nation had been clearly defined, and then the soldier should act, free from all political complications. An American military expedition should never leave our shores, till the government can tell its commander what to do, and his instructions should be defined in terms of action.

If Washington did not want to restrain “agitating peasants” by force of arms, it never should have allowed our forces to enter Siberia, or to remain a day after the signing of the armistice.

To land an expedition in a country, and then attempt to tell the country that we do not intend to interfere in its internal affairs, is absurd.

If a foreign power, during the Civil War, had landed military forces on the Atlantic coast, no matter how much that power had assured us that it did not intend to interfere, we would have demanded instant withdrawal. And in replying to assurances of a non-interfering intention, we would have replied: “You have already interfered--you are on our territory, and if you do not come to aid us, our enemy will be able to assert to his adherents, that you have come to aid him. You must do one of two things--fight with us or against us. We mistrust you, for we feel that if things should go against either side in this quarrel, you would throw your forces in with what appeared to be the winning side.”

And in Russia, and Siberia to-day, we are inclined to think that the issue is between Bolshevism and non-Bolshevism. It is a greater issue than that--it is a fight between an imperial form of government and a republican form of government.

When Maximilian set up his Empire in Mexico, we regarded it as an unfriendly act, and drove him out; and our own Monroe policy forbids foreign powers from landing forces for aggression or anything else in any part of the Western Hemisphere. No matter what a European chancellory might assert as the motive for sending a military expedition to this side of the world, we would regard it as an unfriendly act.

I wish it borne in mind that I am not attacking the administration for sending an expedition; but I am criticising the sending of an expedition; and having no policy.

We sat around all winter in Siberia, refusing to oppose “agitating peasants,” or “anti-Kolchak forces,” and when Spring came our own men were killed and captured at the Suchan Mines, not far from Vladivostok, by agitating peasants and anti-Kolchak forces, now revealed as Bolshevists. The errors of statesmen are corrected with the lives of soldiers.

What should we have done in Siberia? We should have done the only thing a military expedition is supposed to do--prevent disorder, insure safety to the inhabitants who go about their business, and demand that the Russians in such places as we occupied get busy with plans for government, and till they did so, go on and administer local government with their coöperation in accordance with our own ideas, and with our future intentions toward the people clearly stated and pledged.

That sounds like a big order. But those are the things we were expected to do by all hands--Russians, and our Allied interventionists. Also, no doubt, the decent element of our own country expected such action--and thought it was being done.

We have lost face in Asia, and if we ever find we wish to make a threatening gesture in that direction, we will not be taken very seriously till we have carried out the threat at large cost in blood and treasure. We may never have to make that threat, but we may be menaced from that direction some day, because Germany will expand in that direction, if not territorially at once, at least economically. And one thing we must realize--Germany has far better chances of merging with Asia than we have, because Asia understands the German idea.

Asia does not understand our ideas or ideals in government, and since seeing us operate in Siberia, is more puzzled with us than ever. Asia realizes our strength, and fears us for that reason alone; but she has seen our strength poorly demonstrated on her own soil, and she feels inclined to say: “Pooh! The giant of the Western Hemisphere is afraid of us, after all. He shakes his fist, but does not want to fight, he does not want to exert himself in this direction, he does not want to control us in any way. He is a good-natured giant, and there is no reason why we should fear his bluster.”