cause of which they were the champions for declining to expose themselves to any such risk.  It has been contended with warmth, and possibly with truth, that if at the outset the Great Powers had intervened they might with a comparatively small army have crushed Bolshevism and re-established order in Russia.  On the other hand, it was objected that even heavy guns will not destroy ideas, and that the main ideas which supplied the revolutionary movement with vital force were too deeply rooted to have been extirpated by the most formidable foreign army.  That is true.  But these ideas were not especially characteristic of Bolshevism.  Far from that, they were incompatible with it:  the bestowal of land on the peasants, an equitable reform of the relations between workmen and employers, and the abolition of the hereditary principle in the distribution of everything that confers an unfair advantage on the individual or the class are certainly not postulates of Lenin’s party.  It is a tenable proposition that timely military assistance would have enabled the constructive elements of Russia to restore conditions of normal life, but the worth of timeliness was never realized by the heads of the governments who undertook to make laws for the world.  They ignored the maxim that a statesman, when applying measures, must keep his eye on the clock, inasmuch as the remedy which would save a nation at one moment may hasten its ruin at another.

The expedients and counter-expedients to which the Conference had recourse in their fitful struggles with Bolshevism were so many surprises to every one concerned, and were at times redolent of comedy.  But what was levity and ignorance on the part of the delegates meant death, and worse than death, to tens of thousands of their protegees.  In Russia their agents zealously egged on the order-loving population to rise up against the Bolsheviki and attack their strong positions, promising them immediate military help if they succeeded.  But when, these exploits having been duly achieved, the agents were asked how soon the foreign reinforcements might be expected, they replied, calling for patience.  After a time the Bolsheviki assailed the temporary victors, generally defeated them, and then put a multitude of defenseless people to the sword.  Deplorable incidents of this nature, which are said to have occurred several times during the spring of 1919, shook the credit of the Allies, and kindled a feeling of just resentment among all classes of Russians.

FOOTNOTES: 

[273] In the Biessy (Devils).

[274] Russian Characteristics, by E.B.  Lanin (Eblanin, a Russian word which means native of Dublin, Eblana).

[275] Educational reforms have been mentioned among its achievements and attributed to Lunatcharsky.  That he exerted himself to spread elementary instruction must be admitted.  But this progress and the effective protection and encouragement which he has undoubtedly extended to arts and sciences would seem to exhaust the list of items in the credit account of the Bolshevist regime.