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the Bolsheviki she has not made a lasting peace with Russia, and if her armies take Petrograd and Moscow, she has not conquered the Russian people. The will of the Russian people to settle their own destiny has gathered too strong an impetus to be permanently checked. The first alternative has already matured beyond the stage of an hypothesis. With the Ukrainians recognized as a de facto government and with the Bolshevist Government's declaration that Russia is a republic of soviets, a federation of Russian states may be regarded as a distinct possibility. This, however, is not properly an answer to the question of Russia's future. If Russia splits up into smaller units along natural lines of cleavage, and becomes a republic of independent states, the same problem which confronts the empire will still perplex the republic. The class struggle, the decision whether Russia is to be ruled by the extremists, the moderate socialists, or one of the various conservative or bourgeois factions. -which will, of course, involve the important question of Russia's future attitude toward us, our allies, and the Germans-must be fought to a finish by Russia united or divided. There is a certain national bond in this very conflict, common to all parts of the country, which is likely to postpone the possibility of disintegration. While the country is sharply broken up into national groups of radicals and conservatives, it will be difficult for a crosscurrent impelling a division into states to gather much headway. And, as I have said, if it does, its only effect will be to localize the social problem-to divide the national class struggle into an infinite series of local class struggles.

I shall, therefore, devote this article to a discussion of the alternatives which I have mentioned the possibility of a reversion, violent or peaceful, sudden or gradual, to relative conservatism. Is Bolshevism to remain forever triumphant, forcing by tyrannic methods far exceeding those of the despised autocracy, its minority will upon the majority, or are there already signs of a reaction which will sweep Bolshevism off the political map?

In this connection let me attempt an explanation of that dreadful bogy of the Russian extremists-"counter-revolution." The prospect of such a movement is, in the words of the radical factions, "imperiling the safety of the democracy." It is easier to

understand this fear of counter-revolution if one realizes that the Russian character is a victim of the constant illusion that some satanic influence is clouding the political horizon and threatening the liberty of the people.

There is and can be no counter-revolutionary organization in Russia, for the simple reason that the people will not allow it. There may be innumerable repetitions of the Kornilov uprising of last autumn. As long as Kornilov and Kaledine escape prison and death, they may conduct as many Cassock rebellions as they like, but until public opinion-that is to say, the opinion of the masses-veers around in their direction, there is no possibility of a successful counter-revolution of violence. The impulse toward a counter-revolution can not come from a few discredited generals and a very much overrated band of Cossacks. It must come from the people.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

One must realize even here by this time that the masses are in absolute control of Russia. The autocracy of the mob is much more complete than the autocracy of the former Emperor and there is much less chance of conducting counter-revolutionary propaganda at present than there was of conducting revolutionary propaganda in the days of the imperial government. The newly acquired freedom of speech and of the press is a pure fiction. There is freedom of speech for any one who wishes to express socialistic or anarchistic beliefs, but there is no free speech or press for any one else. There is, in fact, a much stricter censorship at present than ever existed under the old régime.

If there are any doubts about this, it is easy to convince oneself by a simple experiment. Get up in a public square and express a few "bourgeois" ideas. Say, for instance, that the feelings of employers should be considered or that the best way to save Russia is by electing a coalition cabinet which will consult with the Entente Allies before making peace-and see how far you get with it. If you are a person judged sufficiently important to have real influence over the people, you will go to jail. Express the same sentiment in a Petrograd newspaper and both the newspaper and you will be effectively suppressed.

The moment a bourgeois leader begins to

show any signs of spirit, the numerous factions of the proletariat cease squabbling among themselves and unite solidly against him. They have the power of completely muzzling any member of the bourgeoisie. The consequence is that most of the counterrevolutionary material is in retirement or hiding, burying itself in the obscurity of the Crimea or the Caucasus, slipping quietly out of the country, helpless and frightened, looking only for a place of refuge from the mad, topsy-turvy country which the fatherland has become.

After the Revolution an Irish friend of mine, with a highly developed sense of humor, was traveling from England to Norway on a North Sea boat which was sunk by a German submarine. Among the wretched survivors who crowded into one of the lifeboats were several Russians. One of them who knew that the Irishman had spent most of his life in Russia and in whom the Russian love of political discussion triumphed even over the miseries of shipwreck, asked him to what Russian party he belonged.

"I belong," said the Irishman to his shivering shipmate, "to the party of the 'frightened intelligentia.'

The phrase has become classic in Russia as a description of the helpless and intimidated non-socialist classes. To expect vigorous action from them is like expecting a manacled prisoner in the dock to perform sleight-of-hand tricks. There is not a bourgeois leader who is not under suspicion, who is not living in a period of stern probation expecting imprisonment or death.

If this counter-revolution, about which there has been so much fearful surmise, is really to take place and it is my belief that it is as certain as anything can be in a country of infinite surprises, where logic leads one to false conclusions and the laws of cause and effect seem temporarily suspended-then it is not to be expected from the powerless aristocracy or bourgeoisie; it must come from the proletariat which now shudders at the very idea. But before going further with assertions which may seem extravagant and unwarrantable, let us examine the evidence. I will try, with illustrations of what I saw and heard in Russia, to show how this counterrevolution of the people is coming about.

The counter-revolution of which I speak had already begun when I left Russia, but it

did not consist in conspiracies or plots against the people or their representatives. It is a slow but steadily gaining disillusionment in the hearts of the Russian masses with the result of the Revolution, in which so many high hopes were placed. To use the words of M. Shingareff, first revolutionary minister of agriculture and later minister of finance, recently murdered by the red-guard of the Bolsheviki, it is not so much a "movement as it is a mood."

The mood of the soldiers and workmen has drooped from the high exaltation of the early days of the Revolution to a brooding scepticism. After all, what has the Revolution done for them? Where are the mighty things which the release from past oppression promised? Where even, indeed, are the things more lowly but more vital to the comforts and welfare of the people? They were hungry and now they are starving. They wanted land and all they have received they have been compelled to steal or take by force. Formerly, they were oppressed by corrupt representatives of the imperial authority under German influence; and now they are bossed by dishonest representatives of the proletariat who have played even more directly into the hands of Germany.

The arguments of the Bolshevik leaders appealed at the outset to the workmen and soldiers, chiefly because they stood stubbornly for immediate peace, which is what all Russia, except the bourgeois classes, has ardently desired since the Russian Revolution. But these arguments were based on the conception of two democratic states making peace according to the principle of no annexations and no indemnities. Not even the wildest of the radicals dreamed of a peace on the terms which Germany is now dictating. The leaders who have driven Russian Democracy into this trap will have difficulty in retaining their hold over the outraged masses. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the definite acceptance of Germany's humiliating peace terms and the continued advance of German forces into the heart of Russia will both foment a counterrevolutionary spirit in the people against the Bolshevist Government which has brought this degradation upon Russian Democracy.

The immediate cause of the revolution last March was a vast swelling volume of political discontent, ignited and exploded by the spark, which, so far as I know, usually sets off

revolutions-physical suffering and hunger. This cause of revolution has changed in no way in Russia except to become more acute. The food situation in Petrograd and Moscow and in a great part of western Russia has become steadily worse since the Revolution, until it is now desperate. Starving people lose sympathy rapidly with idealistic experiments which fail to supply their primitive wants. Hunger has a way of eclipsing abstractions and drawing a clear line between the foreground of physical necessity and the background of political privilege. The starving man is much less interested in his right to vote than he is in something to eat.

There

Since the food problem is contributing in such a definite way to the counterrevolutionary spirit, I may, without digressing, briefly sketch the conditions in the cities and in the country. The poorer classes in Petrograd are now living on less than half a pound a day of a soggy, almost inedible substance, euphemistically known as black bread. is no milk; there are no eggs; there is no white flour. There is too little tea and coffee and sugar, and the prices for what little meat there is are prohibitive. In the factory districts, on the Viborg side of the Neva, there is not even any milk for babies. The infant mortality, I have been told by physicians, has risen to alarming figures.

WANT OF FOOD

The forever-vaunted German efficiency and power of organization will be put to the supreme test when it attempts to bring order out of the Russian chaos and to disentangle the economic resources of the country from the total wreck which Russia has become. For months Russia would certainly be more of a liability than an asset to Germany.

Petrograd has become, since the Revolution, a dismal, starving city with endless queues of desperate people filling its wide, desolate streets. Wherever there are provision stores, these lines form before midnight and stand until the bleak dawn, like long gaunt arms of hunger, stretching out for food in a foodless city. They are mostly wretchedlooking women, with chalky faces, almost smothered in dark shawls, and supporting wicker baskets and other receptacles for food. Sometimes these queues stretch for a quarter of a mile, making a somber, ragged human fringe for the somber streets. Now

and then someone collapses and is borne away to a hospital and often later to a morgue. When the stores open the line moves slowly up, but before the latter end has reached the shop, everything has been sold.

I do not like to dwell upon these conditions. I have lived too long among them to see anything picturesque or colorful in this spectacle of hungry people. Moreover, everyone is too meagrely fed in Petrograd at present to be able to regard the misery of the masses as a detached phenomenon for which he can display a proper sympathy. I lived in Petrograd at the Military Hotel (formerly the Astoria) which had unusual privileges in the matter of Government requisitions of food. One was supposed to fare better there than elsewhere. than elsewhere. But the best I could do for breakfast was a square chunk of black, halfcooked dough, sometimes with a small pat of rancid butter; and a cup of tea or chicorycoffee without milk, sometimes with a little sugar. A hundred dollars could not have procured an egg or a piece of white bread. You occasionally met some fortunate person who had mysteriously acquired a few pounds of white flour or a half dozen of cans of condensed milk which he would offer you at an exorbitant price. But if you were keeping house, there were equal difficulties. For example, wood which used to cost seven rubles a Russian cord, now costs more than seventy.

The food question as a topic of conversation has completely preempted the place formerly taken in polite social chatter by the opera, politics, or the war. In the manner in which an art collector used to exhibit to his friends some recently acquired masterpiece, a man now says instead, with the same pride of the collector, "I picked up something to-day which I think would interest you. It is a comparatively fresh and undoubtedly genuine Siberian ham."

Take this company of society women who are having lemonless, milkless tea in the five-o'clock room of the Military Hotel. They are not discussing music or clothes. They are debating the food question. And this prosperous-looking business man whose somewhat drooping and pendulous features are wrapped in a temporary grin of complacence. He has not signed a contract involving millions. I know because I asked him how he dared to smile in Russia. He said someone

has just sent him a leg of lamb from the country. There is another man in the tea room whose mental state demands explanation. He is a long-haired intellectual with a flowing tie and an expression of antagonism toward everybody, eyeing the orchestra for the moment with particular suspicion. He is not considering the ethics of the social question. He is wondering how the devil he is going to get a square meal.

A few days before I left Petrograd I met on the Nevsky a business friend, whom, it was easy to see, some tragedy had overtaken.

"I have just been robbed," he complained, "of two poods (about seventy-two pounds) of good white flour."

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"It was in the tonneau of my automobile in the garage," he said, "and someone stole the automobile!"

THE STORY OF IVAN PETROVITCH

The usual explanation of the food shortage in Petrograd and Moscow is the lack of proper railroad organization and transportation facilities. It is true that the economic condition of the country has suffered greatly from railroad mismanagement, but there is a deeper reason. I can explain best by letting Ivan Petrovitch, a Russian peasant temporarily in Petrograd, tell the story. Imagine then, Ivan speaking as he spoke to me a little while ago in Petrograd.

"I live in Samara on the Volga, and until the war began I was very poor and miserable. Tomara Andrevna (his wife) and the two boys and I hardly managed to live. We had a small piece of land which might have been enough to support us if we had worked well. But we didn't. We became drunk with vodka very often and sometimes the farm was idle for weeks at a time. Our dacha (cottage) was badly kept and we had little to eat. Nearly all the produce of the farm we had to sell to pay for clothes and other expenses. All we ate was black bread. We sent everything else to the city.

"Then the war began and my two boys had to fight. And there was no more vodka to drink. I found I was able to do all the farm work which three of us had done before. But every month the Government sent us money to make up for the service of our sons at home. And I saved all the money we used to spend on drinking. It was many rubles a It was many rubles a

month. We became rich. I had more than five hundred rubles in a savings bank.

"Then I found out there was nothing we could do with this money. We had all the food we wanted except sugar, and we couldn't buy sugar no matter how much money we had. And we couldn't buy plows or any other machinery for the farm. There wasn't any oil to be bought, either. So all we were doing was selling our food and getting money which we couldn't spend. I talked about it with my wife and the other farmers, and we decided we would not sell our grain any more. We would keep it and we would eat more. We began to eat things we had never thought of eating in the old days. We ate eggs-all the eggs we wanted. We drank milk and we began to cook white bread. We had never eaten these things before and we hadn't missed them. But we got used to them and liked them very much. It was better to eat them than to get money for them, for you cannot eat money. There was lots of grain left over, of course. We stored this until we could either get very high prices or something in exchange for it that we needed.

"Besides, we don't like the way our tovarishi (comrades) in the cities and in the army are acting. I do not understand politics, but I do not think that everyone should stop working and fighting to talk. We are working in the country and if the soldiers and the men in the factories do not work, we do not see why we should send them our food."

One

It is impossible for me to improve upon this statement of Ivan Petrovitch. might write a five-thousand-word thesis on the economic condition in Russia without getting to the heart of the matter as he has in a few words. M. Shingareff gave me exactly the same information in different language.

"We have," he said, "the unique situation of a country whose peasants are prosperous, well-fed, and living like princes, while the people in the cities are starving. Let me give you a few figures. The peasantry of this country has received since the beginning of the war four billion rubles in allowances made to families whose male members are fighting. They have saved two billion rubles on account of prohibition. They are not merely comparatively, but actually, wealthy. There is no reason in the world why they should want to sell their grain. If you wish to know the primary reason why the cities are without

food, it is because the peasants are eating and storing it. They feel a natural resentment against the deserters from the army and the men in the factories, and really believe, I think, that the best way of punishing them is not to send them food."

THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION

I asked M. Shingareff if he foresaw a counterrevclution.

"It seems inevitable," he said. "It will be precipitated by the starvation of the people in the cities. February and March will be our hardest months. Snowstorms as usual will tie up transportation, and the little food which we are now receiving from the country will be held up. It seems to me exceedingly It seems to me exceedingly doubtful if Petrograd will survive this winter, at least not without the help of many American locomotives and cars.

"Meantime, the discontent and indignation of the people is growing daily. It is producing a distinct counter-revolutionary movement. The masses which thought the old government was responsible for the food shortage are slowly coming to the conclusion that their own socialist government is making a far worse muddle of things. But the counterrevolution will not be a question of reasoning or political wisdom; it will be physical-a pure matter of food shortage and hunger. When people are starving they revolt against their government."

One must banish, then, the conventional idea of a counter-revolution by the Russian aristocrats and conservatives and accept the notion of a disenchanted people rebelling against their own leaders. The power of the genuine reactionaries is gone beyond recall. I traveled across Finland into Sweden in the same compartment with a man typical of the class from which one has been led to expect counter-revolution. He was a captain in one of the old guard regiments. Every now and then he relapsed into fits of melancholy reminiscence and spoke tenderly of the glories, the pomp, and splendor of the old empire of the days when he used to attend wonderful balls in the Winter Palace and was permitted to kiss the hand of his empress. But he always finished bitterly with the statement that he was no longer a Russian. "Not until my country has a government and a flag of her own, shall I again own or set foot in Russia," he said repeatedly.

There is pathos in the plight of these fugitives from the country which they once loved and honored, but there is little chance of a counter-revolution led by them.

The political pendulum has swung to its left-most limit. It has run all the way from Lvoff and Miliukov to Lenine and Trotsky. It is inconceivable that it will rest with the latter much longer than it tarried with the former.

There is nothing unique in the political evolution which has happened in Russia. It is natural for an oppressed people to hail revolution as a millennium. The cause of their suffering and unhappiness was an iniquitous and unjust government. Remove the government and you automatically abolish injustice and tyranny. This, I mean to say, is the way it appears to the masses. The new government must either immediately fulfill all the exalted expectation of a new government by the people or it is doomed to failure. It is, of course, doomed. The people decide they have not chosen the men who really represent them. For have not the people a supreme, unfaltering, if somewhat vague and undemonstrated wisdom which will make errors and injustice impossible? This, at least, is the Russian socialist's hypothesis.

So they delve into another political stratum and elect new leaders. Again the experiment fails. They have not chosen the real champions of the people. They dig lower still. And so Russian democracy tries all experiments and their failure begets the mood of disenchantment and discontent which I have described. The proletariat is beginning to feel and to express its doubts. Perhaps the supposed wisdom of the people is a myth. Perhaps, at least until they are trained and educated, it would be better for them to depend for leadership upon the hated but more competent bourgeoisie. This is the doubt which is assailing the disillusioned people of Russia. In this way, sobering public opinion, evolving slowly out of the turmoil, is about to push back the political pendulum. The question is, which experiment has been least costly, least dangerous, promising the nearest approximation to the revolutionary ideal. To this point the pendulum will race back and perhaps stick. Perhaps it will stop again with Kerensky or it may go back as far as Miliukov or some other representative of the cadet party. But it can not fail to go back. This will be the counter-revolution.

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