Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy

by John Spargo

The one great outstanding fact was the manner in which the sense of peril to the fatherland rallied to its defense the different races, creeds, classes, and parties, the great tidal wave of genuine and sincere patriotism sweeping everything before it, even the mighty, passionate revolutionary agitation. It can hardly be questioned or doubted that if the war had been bitterly resented by the masses it would have precipitated revolution instead of retarding it. From this point of view the war was a deplorable disaster. That no serious attempt was made to bring about a revolution at that time is the best possible evidence that the declaration of war did not enrage the people. If not a popular and welcome event, therefore, the declaration of war by the Czar was not an unpopular one. Never before since his accession to the throne had Nicholas II had the support of the nation to anything like the same extent.

Take the Jews, for example. Bitterly hated and persecuted as they had been, despised and humiliated beyond description; victims of the knout and the pogrom; tortured by Cossacks and Black Hundreds; robbed by official extortions; their women shamed and ravaged and their babies doomed to rot and die in the noisome Pale—the Jews owed no loyalty to the Czar or even to the nation. Had they sought revenge in the hour of Russia's crisis, in howsoever grim a manner, it would have been easy to understand their action and hard indeed to regard it with condemnation. It is almost unthinkable that the Czar could have thought of the Jews in his vast Empire in those days without grave apprehension and fear.

Yet, as all the world knows, the Jews resolutely overcame whatever suggestion of revenge came to them and, with marvelous solidarity, responded to Russia's call without hesitation and without political intrigue or bargaining. As a whole, they were as loyal as any of the Czar's subjects. How shall we explain this phenomenon?

The explanation is that the leaders of the Jewish people, and practically the whole body of Jewish Intellectuals, recognized from the first that the war was more than a war of conflicting dynasties; that it was a war of conflicting ideals. They recognized that the Entente, as a whole, notwithstanding that it included the autocracy of Russia, represented the generous, democratic ideals and principles vital to every Jew in that they must be securely established before the emancipation of the Jew could be realized. Their hatred of Czarism was not engulfed by any maudlin sentiment; they knew that they had no "fatherland" to defend. They were not swept on a tide of jingoism to forget their tragic history and proclaim their loyalty to the infamous oppressor. No. Their loyalty was to the Entente, not to the Czar. They were guided by enlightened self-interest, by an intelligent understanding of the meaning to them of the great struggle against Teutonic militarist-imperialism.

Every intelligent and educated Jew in Russia knew that the real source of the brutal anti-Semitism which characterized the rule of the Romanovs was Prussian and not Russian. He knew that it had long been one of the main features of Germany's foreign policy to instigate and stimulate hatred and fear of the Jews by Russian officialdom. There could not be a more tragic mistake than to infer from the ruthless oppression of the Jews in Russia that anti-Semitism is characteristically Russian. Surely, the fact that the First Duma was practically unanimous in deciding to give equal rights to the Jews with all the rest of the population proves that the Russian people did not hate the Jews. The ill-treatment of the Jews was part of the policy by which Germany, for her own ends, cunningly contrived to weaken Russia and so prevent the development of her national solidarity. Racial animosity and conflict was an ideal instrument for attaining that result. Internal war and abortive revolutionary outbreaks which kept the country unsettled, and the energies of the government taxed to the uttermost, served the same end, and were, therefore, the object of Germany's intrigues in Russia, equally with hostility to the Jews, as we shall have occasion to note.

German intrigue in Russia is an interesting study in economic determinism. Unless we comprehend it we shall strive in vain to understand Russia's part in the war and her rôle in the history of the past few decades. A brief study of the map of Europe by any person who possesses even an elementary knowledge of the salient principles of economics will reveal Germany's interest in Russia and make quite plain why German statesmen have so assiduously aimed to keep Russia in a backward economic condition. As a great industrial nation it was to Germany's interest to have Russia remain backward industrially, predominantly an agricultural country, quite as surely as it was to her interest as a military power to have weakness and inefficiency, instead of strength and efficiency, in Russia's military organization. As a highly developed industrial nation Russia would of necessity have been Germany's formidable rival—perhaps her most formidable rival—and by her geographical situation would have possessed an enormous advantage in the exploitation of the vast markets in the far East. As a feudal agricultural country, on the other hand, Russia would be a great market for German manufactured goods, and, at the same time, a most convenient supply-depot for raw materials and granary upon which Germany could rely for raw materials, wheat, rye, and other staple grains—a supply-depot and granary, moreover, accessible by overland transportation not subject to naval attack.

For the Russian Jew the defeat of Germany was a vital necessity. The victory of Germany and her allies could only serve to strengthen Prussian influence in Russia and add to the misery and suffering of the Jewish population. That other factors entered into the determination of the attitude of the Jews, such as, for example, faith in England as the traditional friend of the Jew, and abhorrence at the cruel invasion of Belgium, is quite true. But the great determinant was the well-understood fact that Germany's rulers had long systematically manipulated Russian politics and the Russian bureaucracy to the serious injury of the Jewish race. Germany's militarist-imperialism was the soul and inspiration of the oppression which cursed every Jew in Russia.

II

The democratic elements in Russia were led to support the government by very similar reasoning. The same economic and dynastic motives which had led Germany to promote racial animosities and struggles in Russia led her to take every other possible means to uphold autocracy and prevent the establishment of democracy. This had been long recognized by all liberal Russians, no matter to what political school or party they might belong. It was as much part of the common knowledge as the fact that St. Petersburg was the national capital. It was part of the intellectual creed of practically every liberal Russian that there was a natural affinity between the great autocracies of Germany and Russia, and that a revolution in Russia which seriously endangered the existence of monarchical absolutism would be suppressed by Prussian guns and bayonets reinforcing those of loyal Russian troops. It was generally believed by Russian Socialists that in 1905 the Kaiser had promised to send troops into Russia to crush the Revolution if called upon for that aid. Many German Socialists, it may be added, shared that belief. Autocracies have a natural tendency to combine forces against revolutionary movements. It would have been no more strange for Wilhelm II to aid Nicholas II in quelling a revolution that menaced his throne than it was for Alexander I to aid in putting down revolution in Germany; or than it was for Nicholas I to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1849, in the interest of Francis Joseph; or than it was for Bismarck to rush to the aid of Alexander II in putting down the Polish insurrection in 1863.

The democrats of Russia knew, moreover, that, in addition to the natural affinity which served to bind the two autocracies, the Romanov and Hohenzollern dynasties had been closely knit together in a strong union by years and years of carefully planned and strongly wrought blood ties. As Isaac Don Lenine reminds us in his admirable study of the Russian Revolution, Nicholas II was more than seven-eighths German, less than one-eighth of his blood heritage being Romanov. Catherine the Great, wife of Peter III, was a Prussian by birth and heritage and thoroughly Prussianized her court. After her—from 1796 to 1917—six Czars reigned in Russia, five of whom married German wives. As was inevitable in such circumstances, the Russian court had long been notoriously subject to German influences and strongly pro-German in its sympathies—by no means a small matter in an autocratic country. Fully aware of their advantage, the Kaiser and his Ministers increased the German influence and power at the Russian court by encouraging German nobles to marry into Russian court circles. The closing decade of the reign of Nicholas II was marked by an extraordinary increase of Prussian influence in his court, an achievement in which the Kaiser was greatly assisted by the Czarina, who was, it will be remembered, a German princess.