I do not profess to have a remedy for the misfortunes that have occurred—as I think to civilization itself—from the fact that the Russian revolution occurred in the middle of a European war. I welcome the change from autocracy to what we hoped and still hope, what we believed and still believe, is going to be a reign of ordered liberty. But the revolution, unfortunately, came at a time when Russia was weary with the sacrifices of a great war, and it was mixed up and almost overshadowed on its political side by the pacifist influences which were allowed to reign uncontrolled in the army and navy and all the other forces which might and should have been co-ordinated to resist the common enemy.
There are resemblances between the Russian revolution and the French Revolution, but from our point of view, and from the point of view of the war and of how we are to secure in the future the freedom of small nationalities, and how we are to save the world from the domination of one overgreedy power, from that point of view no greater misfortune could have occurred than the coincidence between the Russian revolution and the fact that a war was being conducted in which Russia was one of the great Allies. I personally am an optimist about Russia, but I am not an optimist about the immediate future of Russia, because it seems to me that difficulties are thrown in Russia's way by the fact that the war raged before the revolution. Russia is only nominally out of the war at the present time, but is still suffering from the invasion of her enemies. The French Revolution was associated with great military operations. It ended in the production of an army whose fiery efficiency was the wonder of Europe and which overturned all the decrepit monarchies in the Central European States. Contrast that with what has happened in Russia since the revolution. There is not a single fighting instrument possessed by Russia which the Russian revolutionaries have not deliberately but absolutely and completely destroyed.
RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION
The Russian Army no longer exists and the Russian Navy no longer exists. The Rumanian Army—that most gallant and most unfortunate body, which might have and would have co-operated to preserve both Russia and Rumania from the tyranny of the Central Powers—had been betrayed by Russia itself. The unhappy results of the revolution from the military point of view are quite plain and obvious to the most casual observer. The actual course pursued by the Bolsheviki has rendered them completely helpless in the face of German aggression. Now they express the desire—I am sure they express it genuinely and earnestly—that they should reconstitute the Russian Army for the purpose of Russian defense, and they would welcome our assistance, doubtless, in carrying out this object. But can you reconstitute it for purposes of national defense? Can you improvise a new instrument when fragments of the old instrument are lying shattered around you? It cannot be done in a day.
Had Russia not been at war I believe it would have taken many years to complete what I hope and believe is to be the beneficent course of the Russian revolution. Autocracy—and it is very difficult to see how the Russia we know could have been created without it—showed itself quite incapable of bringing into existence that frame of mind which makes a great self-conscious nation independent of the particular form which its institutions may have at the moment. Autocracy was destroyed, and immediately Russia fell into chaos.
I am not sure that it was not my honorable friend (Mr. MacCallum Scott) who said exactly the same thing happened in France. The same thing really did not happen in France. I do not say we cannot find in this or that episode parallels to the French Revolution, but the total effect of the Revolution was not the disintegration of France but its integration. The units out of which modern France was constructed were no doubt compacted into a nation under the old monarchy, but the divisions between these units were still obvious; they still remained in the institutions of the country, and it was not until the Revolution that France became homogeneous from end to end and all the old provincial distinctions were swept away.
Precisely the opposite has happened in Russia. The revolution comes and immediately all the old divisions between populations, between different regions, between different creeds, suddenly become marked and prominent. First this body and then that body threatens to fall way, and it must inevitably take time before we see the end of that process and know clearly how much of the old Russia, if any, ought to cease to form part of the new Russia and how the new Russia will be constituted. A very difficult process in time of peace, a very difficult process in time of prosperity, but how are you going to carry it out in time of war when you have at your gates an enemy remorseless, persevering, quite unscrupulous, like that which is dealing at its own sweet will with Russia at the present moment? That is the real difficulty which we have always had to deal with and to think over to the best of our ability when we consider some of the problems raised by the honorable gentleman who initiated this debate.
JAPAN AND SIBERIA
[The speaker then took up an inquiry regarding a suggestion of Japanese intervention in Siberia. He said the hypothesis that whenever one country sends troops into another country those troops invariably stay where they are sent, and annexation is the result, was false; if such were the case there would be a bad outlook for the north of France. He argued that if the Japanese did intervene it would be as friends of Russia and enemies of Germany, to preserve the country from German domination, and he proceeded thus:]
Russia lies absolutely derelict upon the waters, and now it has no power of resistance at all; there can be a German penetration from end to end of Russia, which, I think, will be absolutely disastrous for Russia itself, and certainly will be very injurious to the future of the Allies. I suspect that at this moment a German officer is much safer traveling at large through Russia than an allied officer. Why? Not because the Russians love the Germans, but because, as a matter of fact, the German penetration has really struck at the root of Russian power. I was informed the other day that only one bank was allowed at Moscow. That bank is a German bank.