The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Number 3/Beneš on the Russian Situation

by Edvard Beneš

Beneš on the Russian Situation

Minister of foreign affairs, Dr. Edward Beneš, delivered a memorable address on the foreign policy of the Czechoslovak Republic in the committee on foreign relations of the National Assembly on January 30. The greater part of his speech dealt with the Russian situation and the policy of the Allies toward Russia. Because of its general interest it is given here in translation:

 

Even during the war, and while we were still in Bohemia, there was evident in our nation something like twofold orientation in the views taken of the world war and its possible outcome, as far as we ourselves were concerned. There were some who believed that Russia would win on the eastern front, would march into our territories and bring us independence. They believed in the immense strength of the Russian colossus which by its bulk would overwhelm Europe and would be the principal victor in the war against the Central Powers, thus gaining decisive influence on world politics. These men looked with romantic eyes on everything that was happening in Russia through the glasses of our traditional Slavophilism, lacking the critical faculty and the sense of reality, without comprehension for the social, political and economic conditions of Russia. In short they did not understand the Russian problem at all. Slavism meant to them a misty dream about solidarity and co-operation with Russians, Poles and other Slavs. And this attitude was accompanied by the naive faith and hope that the great Slav colossus, regardless of others, by its own material strength, would solve the problem of other Slav nations and of all Europe. They did not see first of all that this colossus was substantially weaker than people believed; war demonstrated in spite of Russia’s great sacrifices that it was not prepared for war either technically or materially, either morally or politically, and that neither from the cultural, scientific or political point of view did Russia have enough comprehension for the problems of other Slavs. Right at the beginning of war it was made plain, how Russia understood the problem of the Jugoslavs, of the Czechoslovaks and of the Poles.

From the beginning President Masaryk refused to wager our whole campaign of liberation on the Russian card only, because at a time, when many among us believed in rapid Russian victory, he feared that Russia through the faults of its old regime would lose. When he came in May 1917 to Petrograd, where the liberal revolution was in power, he promptly wired to London that Russia was definitely lost for the Allies in the present war. That was not lack of love for Russia; it was knowledge of Russia which shows so clearly in his great book on Russia, where things that later came to pass were foretold.

It would be tiresome to tell, how the old Russian regime was even during the war unfavorable to us. But let me make it clear again: all this is not dislike of Russia, for we love it and we have best shown it through our soldiers. But old Russia did not understand us, and of course the bolsheviks did not understand us. The behavior of our army is a splendid example of our real feelings for Russia and of our entire policy toward Russia.

The course of the war smashed this whole conception and demonstrated that this view of Slav policy and Slav world was incorrect, politically immature and more or less impossible. But the war proved a great deal more. I had occasion to point out in other circumstances, in what light Slav nations showed themselves in this war. As to Russia, that has already been said; as to other Slav nations, it is necessary to admit that in comparison with western European states, England and France, the Slav nations were behind, because during the war in spite of their determination to play an important role—and they did play it—they were nevertheless in technical, material, cultural and administrative matters lagging considerably behind the Anglosaxon and French world. This condition is still to a large extent existent with reference to technical and economic matters, it is manifested in the administration and organization of the state. That is the way the western states look on the Slav states, Poland, Jugoslavia and even Czechoslovakia. We must take this judgment into account as an existing fact, to underestimate it would be a serious error. The Slav states in comparison with the Anglosaxons and the French do lack political experience, expertness in administration and organization, they lack training in various phases of politics and social life, they have not century-old traditions and thus are in this sense handicapped and will continue handicapped for a long time. In other words they have much to learn and prepare themselves for real political art which consists above all in knowing how to administer and organize, how to carry on modern economic life, create modern social institutions and modern political administration. East differs from the west in that it always indulges in big romantic planes; it imagines that politics means big gestures, to make history, to occupy the chair of minister or dictator and to issue orders, send out instructions, telegrams, commands, in general create great effect.

The western world long ago realized that the secret of democratic and modern policy lies in the ability to organize political, economic and financial administration, that the best way of playing politics is to evolve efficient personel and introduce good administration into municipal, county, provincial and state affairs, that correct politics signifies the building up of thorough and smooth-running financial system, and finally that the wisest policy for the state is to inoculate in the citizens honest dealings and sound commerce at home and abroad which means confidence of foreign countries.

In other words statesmanship that is modern, as against medieval and romantic policy, the statesmanship of the new regime as against the old regime, is the policy of constant democratic work to be applied to problems of every day administration from the smallest unit to the largest. And that, gentlemen, is the problem of our eastern Slav policy and in the end that is the Russian problem.

Russia collapsed, because it was a medieval, undemocratic state, which had no conception of what democratic labor for the people means, what modern administrative and organizing statesmanship must be. That became evident in the course of the war, and that is the diagnosis today.

The Russian problem in reference to our policy during the past year presented itself also in a new form. In the first period of the bolshevik revolution the theory arose that the bolsheviks were created and maintained by the Germans, that Germans called forth bolshevism and inoculated the Russian state with it. There was also the conviction current that bolsheviks were ready to make up with the Germans and line up against the Allies. The fact that they actually made a peace with the Germans at Brest Litovsk and called the Allied policy just as imperialistic as the policy of Germany created naturally a strong dislike to Russia in the Allied lands and caused a fight against the bolshevism. Thus was shaped the policy of intervention in Russia, for the Allies were then persuaded that Germany would take advantage of the Russian situation, occupy tremendous territory which would save Germany economically and enable it to win the war. But from the beginning there was talk of two different kinds of intervention and questions were asked, whether it should be military or economic intervention. In view of developments in the bolshevist situation and in view of the fact that at first the bolsheviks by making peace with Germany did actually greatly aggravate the position of the Allies in the west, the Allies decided for military intervention in Russia, in order to set up Russia on its feet and recreate its front against the Central Powers. That was the original motive of intervention in Russia. At that time the idea of social revolution was not in the forefront, although the danger of bolshevist propaganda in some states did endanger victory of the Allies against the Central Powers which tried to turn the bolshevik revolution in Russia to their advantage.

In time the idea underlying intervention in Russia suffered a change. The Allies won the war on the western battlefields, and armistice turned away the attention of Europe from military problems toward economic questions. Social problems appeared in all the states in a threatening form, and the problem of bolshevism in Russia with reference to the other European states took on new shape. Russian bolsheviks believing in the spread of Marxist ideas and in universal revolution attempted to accelerate this revolution by propaganda and by terrorism. They started a propaganda in all directions for the purpose of causing internal collapse of Allied armies, and they became dangerous to the other European states. Thus arose the second phase of the intervention policy; it was not merely felt that steps must be taken against social revolution, but there was fear of the uncertain situation in Russia whose history showed that it could be a sphinx and that it may have in store disappointment to all who figured on some particular outcome there. In the Allied countries the danger discerned was not merely that social revolution might spread into them, but that Russian anarchy might be transformed into extreme reaction; and should a reactionary regime come to power in Germany, reaction in Russia would forget the alliances during the war and seek help from Germany. From that time the policy of intervention aimed not only at the prevention of the spread of social anarchy, but also to make impossible an alliance of reactionary Russia and Germany in the future.

But the allies, though they grasped correctly the situation in Russia, did not realize that the peculiar place of Russia in Europe made the success of intervention depend on certain conditions. Today it is no secret that every intervention in Russia would require hundreds of thousands soldiers; in fact it would make necessary again armies of millions and budgets of billions. And to intervene in Russia means even more than to place into the field great armies with all the immense apparatus which they must have; it postulates also exceptional organizing and administrative ability for the man who would want after the present break-down to build up a state in Russia with all its necessary administrative machinery. These things were not understood, and that is why England intervened in Archangel, the Allies in Siberia, why help was sent to the Caucasus; all that was a mere episode in the immensity of problems which is just what Russia is today. For that reason also the attempts of various Russian generals who want to solve the Russian muddle with arms are bound to fail. From the point of view of Czechoslovak foreign policy the Russian problem was never the military problem of Kolchak or Denikin. We never reposed special hopes in the one or the other. Whether Kolchak and Denikin should win or not, whether they were or were not reactionaries, that was not the main thing, as we saw it. What we considered the principal point was, whether Kolchak or Denikin realized what it meant to build a state, to build a Russian and Slav state, what modern democracy signified, what the world war with its political and social demands meant to the Russian situation.

I may state that since March 1919 we received detailed reports from our men in Siberia. After Kolchak had grasped the reins of dictatorship in Siberia, we watched his conduct with eagerness. Uunfortunately all reports showed that Kolchak’s regime was a military regime which was incapable of understanding the administrative needs of the Russian people. The same reports came to us from the beginning about Denikin. We saw that charges of reactionary regime and of persecution had some foundation and that they were caused by the incredible lack of capable men who could take charge of administrative affairs, that they could be traced to an absence of efficient organizers able to apply the principles of modern social policies and not swayed by the romantic ideas of the old regime as to what politics and political work meant.

Why did bolshevism win? First of all, because it was opposed to reaction, because it fought the old regime which everywhere called forth so much dissatisfaction; it triumphed also, because in the first moments of revolutionary work it did not have to carry on constructive policies, but at first destructive measures. It had therefore far easier position that the so-called liberal elements which had attempted to build a new construction through long and weary work. Such work is difficult and very slow, whereas destructive work, social levelling, is very quick and at first successful. It goes without question that we are opposed to bolshevist terrorism, that we are against every anarchy and bolshevism as we see it in Russia. But the question is how to combat such anarchy. We see that the policy of intervention has failed. We do not believe the assertions that if sufficiently strong steps had been taken in time against the bolsheviks, the situation would have been changed. This is a conception of the old regime which does not realize the significance of the world war, the meaning of the present social movement, which does not understand the real Russian problem, how to organize and administer such a state as Russia is with its present population.

It is known that our army against its will and the will of its leaders took part in the fight on bolshevism during the first phase of the intervention policy, when the question was to defeat the Central Powers at any cost. But even then our army fought on the defensive. For that matter it has been the guiding principle of our policy toward Russia to avoid any situation which would compel Slavs on Russian territory to wage a bloody conflict with a part of the Russian nation. The only correct principle for the conduct of the Czechoslovak army in Russia could be noninterference in domestic concerns; when the history of our entire fight for independence is written, it will show that this policy was justified. The Czechoslovak army and the Czechoslovak government did not favor intervention policy and that not merely for political, but also for practical reasons, because our leaders realized that the Allies were not prepared technically or materially to carry out intervention in Russia so as to make it successful. At a time, when our soldiers in Russia were fighting their defensive campaign and should have received help from the Allies, they were unable to get it. We knew what the Russian problem was, and we knew the actual conditions in the Allied camp. The Russian problem could not be solved with arms or with our soldiers.

What will come next and what are we to do about the bolsheviks? As far as we are concerned, the Russian problem is still the same, as it was during the period of intervention, during the campaigns of Kolchak and Denikin; it is all a question of intelligent, able administrators and organizers. If the bolshevist regime has such men, if it realizes that the Russian problem is not answered by the defeat of Kolchak and Denikin, but implies above all modern, progressive and democratic administration and if the bolsheviks can furnish such administration, then this regime may maintain itself and would become the kernel of future Russia. I myself have great doubts of it; even though the bolshevist regime manifested considerable ability both political and military, there is in red Russia great lack of able men who could introduce these new ideas and institutions. But it is only fair to point out that in any case the bolsheviks made a better showing than their enemies, that they appreciated better than the other side that in order to maintain themselves, they must organize and rule, that they introduced a firm military organization, returned to the old army system, that they are coming back to the old capitalistic economy by offering to pay Russia’s debts, to make peace, to take over from the old social structure whatever can be applied—just so they will maintain themselves in power and finish their problem.

The fact that the Allies today accepted the principle of economic relations with the Russian nation means that they have abandoned the policy of intervention; it is the first step toward attempted agreement with the new Russia. It this new Russia will realize what it faces, if it will tackle the work of organization on a sensible basis and turn its back on all those excesses which the old regime and threat of intervention naturally called out, then through these economic relations the bolsheviks will adopt many institutions of the former regime, perhaps pervaded by a changed spirit; they will take over the whole construction of the old social order which will of course be so changed in its character and spirit that it would deserve the name of new regime compared with the old. I have no doubt that the intervention policy meant a policy of the old regime, while the triumph of the present policy will mean new regime.

The ministry of foreign affairs endeavored constantly to carry on policies of the new regime and would consider it radical mistake, in fact under present conditions extremely dangerous, for the Czechoslovak state to carry on policies of the old regime.

I believe that the bolsheviks will not find the solution to the Russian problem, that for lack of efficient workers they will be unable to organize the state properly and make it what they dream of making out of it. I believe that, their government will fall, because they also committed mistakes and even crimes and above all because they will be unequal to the tremendous task which the reconstruction of Russia means.

One more question we must face. We talk of future Russia and of future Slav policy, but we do not ask, whether future Russia will be so far advanced as to desire co-operation. It is for us so to shape our politics that Russia will desire to work with us in a Slav policy. Old Russia had a leaning toward Germany; now we do not know what sort of Germany will new Germany be. Former efforts at the rapprochement of Austria and Russia meant in reality the rapprochement of Russia and Germany. We must act so that the Russia of new regime will want to go with us in a policy of peace. A responsible minister cannot be blind to the possibility that the future Russia, unless it is governed by the new regime, may want to go with Germany against Poland regardless of us, especially should Poland commit great mistakes in its policy towards Russia. What would we do then? This is an eventuality with which we must reckon.

To resume: I have sketched a special conception of the Russian problem, of the problem of Slav statesmanship, of our entire national policy. I contrasted the old regime with the new regime. I believe that the world catastrophe called into being much that is new, a whole new generation. I belong to this new generation and will defend its policies.