Peaceless Europe

by Francesco Saverio Nitti

Georgia before the War formed part of the Russian Empire, and no country of the Entente had considered that unjust. Further, as though the vast empire and the dominion of the Caucasus were not enough for Russia, the Entente with monstrous condescension had given to Russia Constantinople and the Straits and a huge zone in Asia Minor. How could you take away from Russia a territory which was legitimately hers? And vice versa, if Georgia and the other States of the Caucasus had sufficient strength to live autonomously, how can you dominate Aryan people who have risen to a notable state of development?

To go to Georgia inevitably meant war with Russia for Italy, and one, moreover, fraught with extraordinary difficulties. In fact, later, the government of Moscow, as we have said, succeeded in invading as well as Georgia almost all the republics of the Caucasus. And at San Remo, discussing the possibility of an expedition on the part of Great Britain, France and Italy to defend at least the oil production, after the report of a military committee presided over by Marshal Foch, the conclusion was quickly and easily arrived at that it was better to leave the matter alone.

Italy had already made an expedition into Albania, the reason for which beyond the military necessities for the period of the War has never been understood, except that of spending a huge sum without receiving the gratitude of the Albanians; an expedition in Georgia would have done harm, the consequence of which cannot be readily measured, it could, indeed, have meant ruin.

Even those minds that are most blinded by prejudice and hate recognize the complete failure of the Russian communist system. The so-called dictatorship of the proletariat is reduced in practice to a military dictatorship of a communist group which represents only a fraction of the working classes and that not the best. The Bolshevik government is in the hands of a small minority in which fanaticism has taken the place of character. Everything which represented the work of the past has been destroyed and they have not known how to construct anything. The great industries have fallen and production is paralysed. Russia has lived for a long time on the residues of her capitalistic production rather than on new productions. The productivity of her agricultural and industrial work has been killed by communism, and the force of work has been reduced to a minimum. The Russian people are in straits which have no comparison, and entire territories are dying of hunger. The communist regime in a short time has precipitated such damage and such misery as no system of oppression could achieve in centuries. It is the proof, if any were necessary, that the form of communist production is not only harmful but not even lasting. The economists say that it is absurd, but, given the collective madness which has attacked some people, nothing is absurd beyond hoping in the rapid recovery of the most excited nations.

If any country could be the scene of a communist experiment it was Russia. Imperial Russia represented the most vast continuative territory which a State ever occupied in all history's records of vast empires. Under the Tsars a territory which was almost three times the size of the United States of America was occupied by a people who, with the exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000 individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly. Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this fundamental condition of success, to a Government which must regulate production despotically, was joined another even greater condition of success. Russia is one of those countries which, like the United States of America, China and Brazil (the four greatest countries of the earth, not counting the English dominions with much thinner populations), possess within their own territories everything necessary for life. Imagine a country of self-contained economy, that lives entirely upon her own resources and trades with no one (and that is what happened in Russia as a result of the blockade), Russia has the possibility of realizing within herself the most prosperous conditions of existence. She has in her territories everything: grain, textile fibres, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one of the greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, in the world. Well, the communist organization was sufficient, the bureaucratic centralization, which communism must necessarily carry with it, to arrest every form of production. Russia, which before could give grain to all, is dying of hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities of coal for herself and could give petroleum to all Europe, can no longer move her railways; Russia, which had wool, flax, linen, and could have easily increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, cannot even clothe the soldiers and functionaries of the Bolshevik State. Ceased is the stimulus of individual interest; few work; the peasants work only to produce what their families need; the workers in the city are chiefly engaged in meetings and political reunions. All wish to live upon the State, and production, organized autocratically and bureaucratically, every day dries up and withers a bit more.

To those who read the collection of laws issued by the Bolshevik government many institutions appear not only reasonable, but also full of interest and justice. Also many laws of the absolute governments of past regimes appear intelligent and noble. But the law has not in itself any power of creation; it regulates relations, does not create them. It can even take away wealth from some and give it to others, but cannot create the wealth. When the individual interest begins to lack, work, which is sorrow and pain, lags and does not produce. To begin with, it weakens in the short days when energy is avoided, and then it stops through incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which indicate work have the same root as the words which denote pain. Among the great mass of man work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus of individual interest which excites the production of wealth. They work for wealth; and therefore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion and power.

Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion of others, to consent to the Italian Socialists visiting Russia. I was convinced that nothing would have served better to break in Italy the sympathy for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolutionaries, as the spectacle of famine and disorder would. Never did the Press of my country, or the greater part of it, criticize with more violence a proposal which I considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad to state that I was right, and that, maybe through the uncertainties and the lessons of those who had spread the illusions, the Italian Socialists returned from Russia were bound to recognize that the communist experiment was the complete ruin of the Russian people. No conservative propaganda could have been more efficacious than the vision of the truth.

I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and almost persecution, on the part of the Entente rather helped the Bolshevik government, whose claims to discredit were already so numerous that it was not necessary to nullify it by an unjust and evident persecution.

The Bolshevik government could not be recognized: it gave no guarantees of loyalty, and too often its representatives had violated the rights of hospitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited people to extend the revolution. Revolution and government are two terms which cannot co-exist. But not to recognize the government of the Soviet does not mean that the conditions of such recognition must include that the War debt shall be guaranteed, and, worse still, the pre-War debt, or that the gold resources and the metals of Russia shall be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, exclusively financial and plutocratic, cannot be the base of international relations in a period in which humanity, after the sorrows of the War, has the annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and of which very few in the early days understood the dangers.

Even when there was a tendency favourable to the recognition of the republic of the Soviet, I was always decidedly against it. It is impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. Even when, yielding to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid—in the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 1919 not only the Socialists, but above all the Catholic popular party and the party of Rinnovamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed part, voted unanimously an order of the day for the recognition of the actual government of Russia—I did not think it right to give, and did not give, effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which would have invested Italy with the responsibility of recognizing, even if it were de facto, the government of the Soviet.