page 48

John Bull and the Bear

Once Upon a Time, in the Frozen north, there lived a great big bear, whose habits and customs were shocking. He was reputed to eat little children, and his morals were terrible loose. There also lived a great bear-tamer, whose name was John Bull, and who lived all by himself in a little island in the sea. He wasn't really a very good bear-tamer, but he thought he was, and, of course, that made all the difference. Now the bear . . . . .

Enough of this. We have had enough of these clever prose pieces; we have revelled too long in their exquisite subtlety. Let such hyprocisy embellish the work of others. We will have none of it.

Quite obviously, this essay is about the relations between Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. since the Revolution. It is not an inspiring subject; a doddering society endeavouring to cripple and crush a young and virile nation; crabbed age and youth; an evil-eyed old neurotic and a fresh virgin.

Let the facts speak. No argument is necessary.

In November, 1917, the Russian people arose, and, with surprisingly little bloodshed, overthrew the bourgeois Provisional Government in ten days. Lenin stated that it was possible for a time for the new world and the old to exist side by side in an uncomfortable truce, but that there would come a time, maybe "overnight," when the Russian people would have to fight again for their existence.

In 1918, British troops landed in Murmansk; in the Spring of 1919 Sir Edmund Ironside's expedition endeavoured to join with Kolchak's forces in a united attack; in the Autumn of 1919 British forces assisted Denikin in the South; in 1920 the third Allied expedition reinforced the Polish army and Wrangel in the Crimea. Despite the most intense Allied activity, despite the support in arms and money given by the Allies to internal counter-revolutionaries and the other thirteen invading armies—no antidote was found for the poison of Bolshevism. The invading armies were driven into the sea.

Let him whose stomach is strong read the chapter entitled "Russia" in Lloyd George's "The Truth About the Peace Treaties." Let him read how the obscene old gentlemen in the Hall of Mirrors erected a "cordon sanitaire" around Russia, and hemmed her in with a chain of European client states, while their armies were invading her on eight fronts. The reader will detect the fear behind Clemenceau's disgusting outbursts; the fear behind Lloyd George's Memorandum to the Peace Conference:

"Bolshevik imperialism does not merely menace the States on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of Asia and is as near to America as it is to France. It is idle to think that the Peace Conference can separate, how-

page break page break page 49

ever sound a peace it may have arranged with Germany, if it leaves Russia as it is to-day."

Mr Winston Churchill had to delay his fanatical plan for the restoration of Christian civilisation in Russia; the pressure of decent working-class opinion in England, mutinous troops, and the crushing defeats of the counter-revolutionary armies, compelled the upper class crusaders to transfer the war to the diplomatic and economic front. The Soviet Government, of course, was not officially recognized until seven years after the Revolution; there are still several important European states which have not recognized it.

At Genoa, in 1922, the Allies, misunderstanding the nature of the N.E.P., calmly asked the Soviet Government to wipe out their socialist legislation and pay the interest on the Czarist debts; in return for this action Russia would be included again in the fold of civilized countries, and the foreign capitalists would graciously consent to continue bleeding the country as they had done before the Revolution. Russia's polite and logical reply was to retire to Rapallo with Germany and sign a treaty of mutual friendship. Despised and rejected of men, each looked for the other to have pity on him.

Soon it became apparent that the Bolsheviks weren't going to collapse at all, or even restore the delights of capitalism. On the contrary, they appeared to be flourishing. Quite obviously, a new orientation in Europe was indicated. At Locarno in 1925 England set out on the road to Munich.

After its doubtful revolutionary period, Germany was respectable once more: had not the social-democrats murdered Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg? So at Locarno, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia, endeavoured to detach Germany from Russia in the first "Federal Union" of nations. They even gave Germany a seat on the League; though owing to the sad defection of Brazil, she was not given a permanent seat on the Council. Germany sulked, and made another non-aggression pact with Russia.

So started the assiduous fostering and fattening of German capitalism. The comparison with the morbid activities of Frankenstein has been made so often that it has become hackneyed. Russia watched the campaign of vilification developing; she sub-mitted meekly to the insults of the Arcos raid; she supplied new ambassadors in the places of those who were assassinated; she strengthened her defences; she signed non- aggression pacts with every nation which condescended to treat with her; she systematically proposed disarmament from 1922 to 1934.

In 1931 the Japanese seized Manchuria; Sir John Simon indignantly refused to allow the League to apply sanctions. The Pope concocted "Caritate Christi," German capitalism, with the sine qua non of British capital, enthroned Hitler in 1933.

Russia was reduced to joining the League of Nations.

Italy invaded Abyssinia. Hoare and Laval unhappily disclosed their infamous plot. The League machinery was sabotaged. Mr Chamberlain took his umbrella to Rome; returned and recognized the conquest. Italy and Germany invaded Spain. The League was not consulted, and a Non-intervention Committee was set up in order to ensure the success of the Fascist intervention.

The U.S.S.R. assisted Spain, strengthened the Red Army, and introduced an even more democratic constitution.

page 50

page 51

Germany invaded Austria. Mr Chamberlain had nothing to say, and the League was given nothing to do.

Mr Chamberlain and his clique consistently ignored Russia, and played Santa Claus to Germany. The right honourable gentleman told some American journalists that he thought Germany should be given parts of Czechoslovakia; he plucked the famous flower, stepped into a plane that had been waiting for weeks, and flew to Germany to fix things up. The U.S.S.R., which had been the only nation prepared to honour its pledges and whose proposals had been ignored, and Czechoslovakia, which might have been thought to be faintly interested, were not consulted. Mr Chamberlain flew back, waving a gentlemen's agreement of great anthropological value, and underwent an apotheosis. The House of Commons and The Times wept hysterically together. The official press announced our entrance into a Golden Age. It was Peace In Our Time.

On March 18th, 1939, Russia timorously proposed a conference of Britain, France, Poland, Rumania, and Turkey, to endeavour to check aggression. Britain made the remarkable suggestion that the proposal was "premature," a word so often used that the existence of some obscure Freudian complex in our leaders seems to be conclusively proved. After the rape of Memel, Mr Chamberlain gave the unilateral guarante to Poland (a guarantee impossible of fulfilment without the assistance of the U.S.S.R.), and after Albania, distributed some more to Greece and Rumania.

Mr Chamberlain, on April 15th, made the suggestion to Russia that she also should unilaterally guarantee Poland and Rumania; which would be a sure way of bringing Russia and Germany into conflict. Russia even at this stage did not entirely reject this proposal; she counter-proposed a military mutual assistance pact between France, Great Britain, and herself.

The story of the delays and vacillations of the British Government during the next few months have been told ad nauseam; how it negotiated through a clerk from the Foreign Office, refused to send Halifax to Moscow, refused to give their delegates any power at all, all the time putting peace and appeasement proposals forward to Hitler, until it became quite obvious that Britain herself had erected the famous "wall" between the two Governments and did not intend to pull it down. Quite naturally Russia made a non-aggression pact with Germany, echoing Rapallo and Locarno.

The succeeding events have been so graphically described in our National Service talks that any resume would be superfluous. But it is necessary to mention the war against Finland—a war which even the "Herald" recently described as "probably a defensive war"—during which it was clear that the British Government realised it had picked the wrong partners during the Air Raid Dance.

But the most dramatic event of all was the amazing resurrection of the League of Nations. Britain and France having successively crowned it with thorns over Japan, broken its legs over Spain, Austria, etc., and finally crucified it at Munich resuscitated it in the twinkling of an eye, and ushered it from its grave-clothes, to an obligato of blurts from the costive Press, in the anomalous role of the champion page 52 of democracy, liberty, and, of course, Christianity.

This story has no moral and no end. It is going on all the time, even now during the present struggle. It will not end until the ghosts of Mr Chamberlain and his confederates cease to squeak and gibber in the lobbies. Until that splendid day, we can offer no hope. In the meantime, our inspired suggestion is that the faithful should diligently pray that the spirit of the Lord should descend upon Sir Stafford Cripps.

R.L.M.