8 
LAND & WATER 
November 15, 1^17 
cosmopolitan disiasi', arc quite i)cculiarly niaikia wiUi tlic 
national btaiiip. , 
It would Ix- a hidtous conclusion ui any cas<-. but we ncid 
not worrv- about that, for it is an impossible conclusion. Ihe 
war will come to an end— the present war upon a national 
basis so far as the West is concerned, and one of the two 
opposing national systems will, at the end. feel victorious with 
all the consequences of that emotion. . ' 
The first of these national groups i> the (ierman organi.std 
under Prussia and controlling Cent r.i I Ijuopt-. Th; second 
i^ that of the British and of the French in alliance : two very 
different civilisations, but both Occidental, botli ancient and 
<lceply rooted ; both intensely national, and both inheriting 
traditions for which the Prussian theory of war is death. 
There is no more room for the two opposing ideas than is 
room for botli of two men struggling on a precipice path. 
The one must master the other or !■« mastered. It is as 
great a tragedy as the most extravagant pacifist could describe 
It to be. But it is unavoidable. One of the two must go 
down. l^' Beli.oc 
Russia the Incomprehensible II 
By Charles Edward Russell 
THE wonder about Russia is, not that somethings^ 
do not seem to go well, but that anything goes at 
all. It is not that sonic conditions seem to show 
chaos, but that any conditions show anything else. 
According to all Inunan experience and history the only 
normal thing to follow the Kevolution was nuielstrom and 
iiiiash- 
Consider ! An enormous hulk, the i)raduct of centuries ot 
ertort of one kind and in one line, had borne up tlic whole 
structure of organized Russian society. The eyes and minds 
of all men were always upon it ; it regulated even the nimutia: 
of their lives. In a moment this huge thing turned turtle and 
went down. Naturally it should have dragged everything loose 
in its swirl. Always heretofore the violence of a revolution 
has been tuned up" to the cruelty of the oppression against 
which it recoiled. It ha^ always been like a tree bent over 
and then let go ; it has rushed almost as far in the other 
direction. The oppression in Russia was the most savage, 
implacable, blood-guilty and maddening that has been known 
among civilized men. certainly since Caligula. It was of the 
kind that relishes cruelty for its own sake ; that develops an 
exquisite and dainty taste in cruelty. Thoughtful men. 
looking upon it, always felt that if it should ever be over- 
turned, blood would surely have blood and anarcliy would pay 
the price of a monstrous wrong built of murder and tears. 
Wisdom and prophecy never went further astray. The Russian 
Revolution, when it came, was not only the least sanguinary 
■jl all great revolutions in history ; it was, all things considered, 
remembering its occasion and size, the most moderate, the 
ic^dst impassioned. What happened has no reproach for the 
Russian people ; on the contrary, it ought to be hung up for 
their everlasting praise. Whatever jarred as it went along, 
or still jars, was the logical, natiual, inevitable result of the 
things the Revolution rooted out. 
As soon as the Revolution came most of the existing local 
governments in Russia went out of business and their places 
were taken by Provisional Committees, which steered the 
machine until new City Councils could be elected. The world 
has been made to resound with tales, real and fictional, of 
things all askew in Russia. Nobody had ever pointed out the 
fact that most of these committees, although made up of men 
that about such a business were greener than grass, turned off 
an exceedingly workmanlike job of municipal management. 
Kronstadt. of course, went with the rest, wily farther 
than many. Instead of a Provisional Committee, it put all 
tlK' local power into the hands of its Council of Sailors'- and 
Workmen's Delegates, which immediately took the wheel 
and began to run things. 
Probably the Council had its head turned. Men suddenly 
Swept out ot slavery into great power are not usually noted for 
a sweet and -lambhke disposition. Anyway, the Council 
sent word to the Provisional Government in Petrograd, 
demanding to be represented in its deliberations. The only 
notice the provisional Government took of this was to send 
a man to represent it in the Kronstadt Council. This was the 
worst possible species of misplay. As ojie Of the Kronstadt 
lien, who had lieen in America, put it to me, it was as if the 
Senate at Washington had refused to seat a Senator from New 
\'ork, but had sent one of its own members to sit in the New- 
York Legislature. So they seceded, started an independent 
Republic of Kronstadt, and walked their wild and picturesquely 
lunatic road until they ciaslied into the Cossack macliine- 
giins that July day in front of the old Duma building. After 
which the Independent Rejiublic of Kronstadt seems largely 
to have disappeared from the scenes. • 
But all this sort of thing opened the door wide to that iiu)st 
ingenious of human devilries. German propaganda, and 
after the hrst lew days there was plenty of trouble, all of a 
familial' brand. Ixing truly made in Germany. German 
agents were ut that time chiefly busy along the wliole Russian 
front telling the soldiers that tJie Kevolutions ciced ol public 
ownership meant an immediate division of all the lands, 
and if thev wanted to get in they must be on their way home, 
but in the intervals of these employments time was found 
to foment disaffection at Kronsta.lt or elsewhere. The 
vast army of German agents that infest Russia found such 
things alliii the day's work. 
Here is where most of tlie difficulty lies in getting the 
Western world and Russia straigljt with each other. It is 
psychological. We are willing to admit, in a general way, 
that the old regime in Russia was pretty bad, but it is the kind 
of thing that we cannot really sense and feel unless we have 
seen it, and as for describing it, nobody c&n do that because 
there are no words in use among men that seem to apply to it. 
It was not merely a form of government belonging to' an age 
in human history long gone by. and it was not merely a frozen 
horror crushing down upon the hearts and lives of men. It wa; 
also a vast and curious foundation forthat government, carefully 
cunningly built and developed by generations of astute minds. 
In the end the base became one of the most astounding pro- 
ducts of man's tireless ingenuity, infinitely more wonderful 
than the thing it held up. 
Every year, you might say, the government system o: 
Russia "demanded of depravity a greater skill to keep it going. 
The task was to maintain a ,)rimitive despotism in an age 
moving swiftly toward complete demociacv. The faster the 
rest of the world forgot the Stone Age the harder the task 
became to preserve a social system suited to nothing else. 
ThQ two chief assets in the vast, elaborated and scientihc 
business they built up for the minute supervision of people's 
, lives were terror and ignorance By maintaining Russia in 
a state of perpetual perdition for all persons that were sus- 
pected of favouring freedom, it was possible to hold over all 
such minds an unchanging fear of a still worse perdition — 
which was Siberia 
People that know fret>dom and were born in it can no more 
grasp the meaning of this than a blind man can grasp the tones 
of a sunset. Russia lived with a huge iron heel upon her 
breast. This was the marvellous police system, divided 
into three main organizations. There was, fiist, the mounted 
gendarmerie, heavily armed, ready to ride down any mani- 
festation of disorder. Then there was the acknowledged city 
police, black-suited and menacing, chosen for physical strength 
and aptitude for cruelty. These were known and (with reason) 
feared of all men. There was scarcely a block in a city or 
town that was not patrolled by them. But the true wonder, 
of course, began with the third division, or secret police, whose 
strange network of espionage wound itself round every 
hearthstone in Russia, peeped in at e\erv window, listened at 
every keyhole. It was this that chiefly kept the Czar's crown 
on his head and his head on his shoulders, year after year. 
Let me see if by some examples I can convey to those that 
have never known anything but freedom an outline of life as 
it was under the Russian police. Say that there were two 
friends .-Jniong the Intelligentsia, the class most suspected and 
pursued If they njde down-town in a trolley-car of a morning 
going to work or business, they never dared "to e.vchange more 
than formal salutations and sometimes not I'ven these. If 
the car conductor were not a jiolict-agent in disguise there 
was sure to be a police agent lurking among the passengers. 
Almost any innocent remark droppid by citlier friend might 
be reported as of sinister import, entered against them in the 
colossal records that the police/maintained; and used at any 
time as a fingeijwst to Siberia. In restaurants v'"" must 
guard every word with the greatest care ; the waiter is probab- 
ly a disguised poli<-emaii. Be careful atwut your calMuan ; 
many police-agents have lately tak'-n to driving cabs. A. beggar 
solicits alms at your door, he may have been sent to over-hear 
a disloyal expression or take note of vour callers. \\ rite yoiir 
letters with scrupulous attention ; they will Drohaljlv be opened 
