Russia & The Struggle for Peace/Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
SHIRKING THE TRUTH
LOOKED at after the event and in retrospect, many things are seen more clearly and distinctly than at the time. To-day it is puzzling to understand how the Allies could have made such a fatal miscalculation of Russia's strength.
All that Russia really possessed was practically unlimited man-power; on that account she might hope to play an enormous and perhaps a decisive part in a short war of manœuvres, but in this war of trenches and siege operations Russia was in fact the weakest partner and was bound to be the first to collapse.
This is a war of attrition, and it should have needed little special foresight to perceive that poor and uneducated Russia, financially unstable and economically dependent upon the enemy, was doomed. Russia was bound to fall exhausted long before other belligerents had begun to feel the pinch.
This is a contest of engineers. Was it not foolish, absurd, and even criminal, to expect that Russia, with her mere rudiments of industry, and dependent, as she was, with her weak and undeveloped technical equipment, upon the enemy, would be able to go on for years in this gigantic struggle on such unequal terms?
Finally, this is a war of endurance, a trial of strong and healthy nerves; a contest of character and of national tenacity; therefore it should have been manifest beforehand that Russia, possessing no strong national traditions, permeated with mutual distrust, with class and national hatred, would be the first to go under.
At the beginning of the war, however, this miscalculation on the part of the Allies was not at all so astonishing. They, in fact, did not know either the real strength of Russia or the specific character of the war. But why did not the Allies revise their views after both the weakness of Russia and the character of the war had revealed themselves with more than sufficient clearness? This question is an imperative one. It must be answered. But there is only one answer: The Allies were blind because they would not see; they were afraid to face the truth.
The more I go over, in my mind, the history of the fateful last three years, the more convinced I am that the bitterest enemy of the Entente during this time was this peculiar fear of the truth. "Secret diplomacy" is the popular name of the malady which led to this terrible war and dominates its issues. But secret diplomacy is after all only a mean manifestation of a more general shrinking from light and truth. I do not mean deliberate untruths, falsehoods, fictions which, time and again, have beclouded the issues of the war. I do not even mean the all-too-familiar game of hiding the truth. I refer simply and solely to a peculiar instinct for shirking the truth one's self—an instinct which has developed to a very high degree since the outbreak of war.
The reasons why this remarkable dislike of truth has developed to such an extent are pretty obvious, and, I readily admit, to a certain extent are comprehensible. So deeply rooted has the belief in the strength and superiority of the Entente been, that even the most severe checks were taken lightly as not being able seriously to affect the prospects of final and complete victory. Why, then, disturb the confidence of the people a very great and positive asset in war—by directing attention to the many and natural little defects, mistakes, or even misfortunes?
And so the Entente politicians and Press acquired the habit of ignoring all that was unfavourable or likely to slacken their Olympian tranquillity. On occasion a strong and unexpected blow surprised and shocked the unprepared public mind, but the Press easily explained away any unpleasant truth and restored confidence; and soon mental equilibrium reigned again. But the most remarkable thing was that the people themselves became so accustomed to living in an atmosphere of over-confidence that even the rare warnings from the Press that any particular situation was difficult, or even grave, were generally received with cool scepticism by the public. Over-confidence became the second nature of the Entente peoples. To be confident was the highest degree of patriotism. Any criticism of Allied politics, strategy or diplomacy, was declared unpatriotic. To describe the position of the Allies as splendid and the situation of the enemy as desperate was the only business left to patriotic people. The most striking example of this was the attitude of the Allies towards Russia prior to the Revolution.
The situation of Russia was as bad as it could be, but not a word of criticism or warning was uttered in the Entente Press. In fact the organs of the Allied Press, great and small, the big voices of the leading newspapers and the squeaking accompaniment of the lesser chorus, created together an unbroken harmony of continuous praise and compliments to "our great Russian ally and its august Chief." Yet, at that time, the Russian situation was appalling. Russia was literally on the brink of an abyss. Rapid changes of Ministers, and even of Commanders-in-Chief, indicated to the whole world that the situation was exceedingly unstable. The economic situation of the country was critical and grew worse every month that the war went on. The Russian people were in open feud with the Government; and even a Secretary of State for War came down to the Duma, in open defiance of the Government, shook hands with the leader of the Opposition, and intimated that the army was sick of the incompetence of the Government, and was ready to support any popular change. The situation was indeed grave and menacing. But the Allies took no notice and preferred to live in a fool's paradise. Instead of trying to find out how matters stood and to act accordingly, the Allies had recourse to the method of ignoring trouble rather than removing it. They simply forbade the Press to discuss or criticise the Russian situation. The Press apparently accepted this course as being the wisest in the circumstances. At any rate it was by this time their habitual method. And the incessant chorus of the Allied Press could continue undisturbed to approve and raise all that was going on in Russia. The only concern of the Government and the Press was not to disturb the public or shake its confidence. And the people were misled and encouraged to believe that Russia was all right, and her spirit splendid. While Russia was being exhausted economically and disintegrating as a military power, the Allied peoples were awaiting with the utmost confidence great military successes in the East.
Then came rumours of separate peace negotiations between the Tsar's Government and the Germans; nay more, not rumours but grim and definite facts, which were openly spoken of in the Russian Parliament.
Again—the truth was avoided and perverted. Miliukov's speech in the Duma, accusing the Tsar's Government of treason—an historic event—was simply and ignobly concealed from the British public. There was but a slight confusion felt in the Allied Press for a day or two, and then the line was straightened once more and the harmonious chorus of newspaper praise broke out again, inspiring confidence by its pleasant music.
But at this time even the long-suffering and confiding British public became somehow affected and plainly uneasy. Very likely the British Government itself was somewhat disquieted. At any rate a great Commission, headed by Lord Milner, was sent to Petrograd to investigate the situation on the spot. And then a most remarkable thing happened. Lord Milner's Commission, well able to understand and judge such a situation at any other time, proved utterly incompetent to discover anything abnormal or anxious in the situation of Russia.
When Lord Milner was in Russia the situation was, briefly, this: The army was rapidly disintegrating, and there were many obvious indications of it. Discipline and obedience had in many instances to be upheld by sheer force, and two million deserters from the army were roaming about Russia. It is impossible to believe that the Allied Military Missions in Petrograd and at the Russian front were ignorant of these facts. Yet Lord Milner's Commission was obviously ignorant of them, for the deplorable situation of the Russian army and the mass desertions of Russian soldiers did not shake its confidence in the might of the Tsardom.
But not alone the army—the whole of Russia was in a terrible state. Petrograd was actually starving, but Lord Milner's Commission was unable to perceive even that patent fact. Let it be supposed that the Russian Government tried its very best to mislead the British Commission and to conceal the real situation. Even then it could only be put down to some miracle of blindness that the Commission was unaware of starvation in Petrograd. The Commissioners could not fail to observe the endless queues all day long before the bread shops all over the capital. Queues must then have been a new and disquieting thing to the British Commissioners, and yet even the sight of women standing for hours in the snow and bitter frost before bread shops had practically no effect upon the Commission's report about Russia's situation. But perhaps the food question was no concern of the British Government Commission. How, then, was it possible that Lord Milner paid so little attention to the grave political situation of Russia? We must assume that the British Ambassador at Petrograd informed Lord Milner about the seriousness of the political situation.
At present, of course, the former British Ambassador sees the situation of Russia before the Revolution in a very different light. But at that time he considered the situation grave enough.
And yet Lord Milner brought back to England the most satisfactory and reassuring report. And that was less than a fortnight before the Revolution broke out.
I do not accuse Lord Milner either of incompetence or of any deliberate attempt to conceal the truth. Lord Milner's case is only one of an endless number of instances of this dangerous habit of lulling the people into pleasant illusions rather than letting them know anything disagreeable.
Now this policy of shirking the truth was bound to lead to disaster, and all of us, Russians and Allies alike, have paid a terrible price for it. The Allies let Russia fall to pieces rather than accept the plain truth that she was exhausted. And, having let Russia down, the Allies are now paying the terrible price themselves.
But, even to-day, the Allies are blaming, not their Press for perverting the truth about Russia ever since the war broke out; not their Governments and Lord Milner for ignoring the truth; not their Ambassadors and Military and Civil Missions for hiding the truth; not their Parliaments, which evidently preferred to live in a world of pleasant illusions and never insisted on being told the plain truth. No! All the more violently do they blame the Russian revolutionary democracy, which continually insisted on the truth that Russia was on the verge of ruin, and implored the Allies to take urgent measures to save Russia and themselves before it was too late.
Even when all was lost—when Russia as a State was destroyed; when all the economic, national and social foundations of Russia were undermined and the dissolution of the army was an accomplished fact; when at that time Kerensky, in an attack of utter despondency, did at last exclaim, "Russia is worn out!"—the Allied Press and public would not accept it. Instead of coming to reason even at that eleventh hour, the Allies preferred to continue in their world of illusions. Russia was again proclaimed "a mystery" which "always fights best when you least expect that she will fight at all."[1] Allied Ministers assured the public that Russia would fight again, and those who said that Russia was worn out and could not fight any longer were denounced as "traitors."
Had the Allies at that time only been less zealous in looking for treason and more ready to learn the truth, they might have seen that Russia's situation was critical and that a breakdown was inevitable. They might at least have been able to rearrange their military plans and review their war aims, bringing them into accordance with the real and not the imaginary strength of the Allied forces.
- ↑ It was in the spirit of frivolous ideas like this that revolutionary Russia was driven into the July offensive which led to the final disaster.
How frivolously Allied observers used to report upon the terrible privations of the Russian people during the war may be illustrated by the following quotation from Mr. Stephen Graham's book on Russia published two months before the Revolution. "Russia in 1916" is surely the chief classic in all this literature of deception regarding Russia and the attitude of the Russian people towards the war. For instance, after describing the shortage of food and fuel, and giving some striking instances of the privations of the people, Mr. Graham contrives to give the impression that the Russian people were only too glad to endure all these sufferings for the sake of the army. He relates the following conversation between two Russians:
"The army has meat, tea, sugar, white bread?" asks one.
"Yes, the army has all these in plenty." "Slava Tebye Gospody! (Glory be to God)," is the rejoinder, "That's all right!" (page 43).