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THE 
 
 RUSSIAN COLLAPSE 
 
 A POLITICO-ECONOMIC ESSAY 
 
 By 
 BORIS KADOMTZEFF 
 
 Bachelor of Economic Sciences, Petrograd Polytechnicum. 
 
 New York 
 
 RUSSIAN MERCANTILE AND INDUSTRIAL 
 CORPORATION 
 
 1919 
 
RUSSIAN MERCANTILE AND 
 
 INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION 
 
 50 EAST 42nd STREET 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
THE RUSSIAN COLLAPSE 
 
 A POLITICO-ECONOMIC ESSAY. 
 
 By 
 BORIS KADOMTZEFF, 
 
 Bachelor of Economic Sciences, Petrograd Polytechnicum. 
 
 
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 a 11995 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE principal part of this essay was written in May, 
 1918, and was circulated among the author's intimate 
 friends in the form of a memorandum. Since that 
 time many great historic events have occurred, but 
 these have not caused the author to change the ideas 
 which are set forth in this essay, but rather have 
 made him believe in them the more. 
 
 The author is glad to see that at last the leading 
 statesmen of the world, like President Wilson, begin 
 to realise that "hunger does not breed reform; it 
 breeds madness and all the ugly distempers that make 
 an ordered life impossible." These words of President 
 Wilson may be taken to express the guiding idea of 
 this essay. 
 
 The author would like to express here his thanks 
 and indebtedness to Mr. CLIFTON MOORE for his kind 
 assistance in translating this essay into the English 
 language. 
 
 LONGFORGAN, 
 WIMBLEDON. 
 
 15th November, 1918. 
 
THE 
 
 Russian Collapse 
 
 A POLITICO-ECONOMIC ESSAY 
 
 By 
 BORIS KADOMTZEFF, 
 
 BACHELOR OP ECONOMIC SCIENCES, PETROGRAD POLYTECHNICUM. 
 
 ME. GLADSTONE, in one of his parliamentary speeches, 
 observed that more nonsense had been uttered about 
 the nature of Money than even about Love, and we 
 Russians might well express much the same senti- 
 ments respecting what has been 'said of the course of 
 Russian affairs during the last four or five years ; but 
 especially of that period which opened with the Revo- 
 lution in March, 1917, and has continued into a dark 
 and cruel anarchy. . . . 
 
 Seldom has the history of mankind witnessed an 
 abundance of stupid stories, of vulgar generalities and 
 of distorted descriptions equal to that which has sub- 
 merged the name and fame of our country. News- 
 paper correspondents, journalists, publicists, states- 
 men, even scholars all have tried to describe the 
 events in Russia as should best be suited to their 
 respective personal partialities: sympathies and anti- 
 pathies have played and interplayed ceaselessly. 
 
The events in Russia have had a critical effect on 
 the progress of the war in the West ; but the explana- 
 tions of those events that are commonly proffered are 
 usually framed with a view to propaganda. In the 
 circumstances it was not to be expected that the diag- 
 nosis of Russia's malady should attain a high degree 
 of scientific detachment. 
 
 It is far from my purpose to accuse politicians or 
 publicists of intentional misrepresentation. This war 
 has assumed an extent which could not have been fore- 
 seen by any military, political or economic student, 
 but only, possibly, by writers of the imaginative 
 temper of Jules Verne or Mr. H. G. Wells. In a word, 
 the actual could only have been matched by the fan- 
 tastical. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that in all countries 
 public opinion was unequal to the task of forming a 
 just estimate of the proportions that the European 
 War almost universally expected would assume; 
 not surprising when it is remembered that even the 
 most penetrating intellects of Europe not only failed 
 of a just prevision, not only failed to sound a warning 
 and to direct, but even mis-directed the current of 
 public thought. 
 
 Everyone knows how dearly Russia had to pay for 
 her unpreparedness. The majority of our military 
 authorities I mean Russia's as well as those of 
 Italy, France, England, Germany and Austria, reck- 
 oned on a war which, though cruel, should be short. 
 So far as the belligerent nations were preparing for 
 war, their preparations were made with a view to a 
 war of short duration. A lack of guns and ammuni- 
 
 8 
 
tion, though greatest in the case of Russia, was not 
 confined to her alone : the same unforeseen dispropor- 
 tion between means and end hindered the advance of 
 the German Armies on Paris and robbed i Marshal 
 Joffre of the full fruits of his victory of the Marne. 
 
 While, then, European military authorities so much 
 mistook and underestimated the requirements of the 
 Coming War, the politicians and social experts failed 
 also in their special business of anticipating and an- 
 nouncing the political and economic results that would 
 follow from a World War. ... I shall not restate 
 here all the predictions and pronouncements that 
 were made by politicians and experts in Russia as in 
 other countries. Let me mention only the name of 
 Peter Struve, a shrewd and penetrating critic, and the 
 acknowledged leader of Russian economic thought. 
 Here is what Prof. Struve said, in 1912, regarding so 
 critical a matter as Food-Supply: 
 
 "Speaking generally, it is at present unthinkable 
 that in any coming war a Great Power should be so 
 hard hit in the sphere of food-supply as materially to be 
 affected in its chances in the field." (Great Russia, 
 v. II., p. 146.) 
 
 Again he says: 
 
 "Well-informed and prudent economists, judging 
 from experience and general considerations, are not 
 inclined to attribute an exceptional and peculiar 
 importance to the economic disturbance evoked by 
 war: certain dilettanti of pacifism, however, such as 
 the late Russo-Polish Jew banker, John Blioh, create 
 pictures that are purely fantastic of the horrible eco- 
 nomic disasters that must, inevitably, flow from war." 
 (Ibid., p. 145.) 
 
The general feeling that the World War must neces- 
 sarily be decided by a few lightning strokes, and that 
 therefore length of duration was to be ruled out as a 
 determining factor led to a very remarkable and fate- 
 ful consequence namely, that the responsible states- 
 men of the various countries directed their attention 
 not so much to social and economic aspects as to the 
 military one. AND THEIR PREPERATIONS WERE MADE 
 ACCORDINGLY. Military and naval authorities in the 
 countries concerned aimed at a precipitate mobilisa- 
 tion of their armed forces to the end of inflicting a 
 sudden and mortal blow. It was not their aim to 
 mobilise the total military and economic resources for 
 a long and wasteful war. Experience has brought 
 the nations of the world to another understanding. 
 
 The Character of the World War. 
 
 The history of the present war may be divided into 
 two very distinct periods. The first of these term- 
 inated with the victory of the Marne and the Russian 
 reverse in Eastern Prussia. This period exhibited all 
 the main features of the Franco-Prussian war; for 
 both sides were expecting a rapid military decision, 
 and therefore needed to pay but little regard to the 
 consumption of men and material involved in the 
 military operations. But, for many reasons, into the 
 nature of which it is not possible to enter here, the 
 combatants in this later war were unable to achieve 
 a decisive victory. Consequently a new phase of the 
 war had perforce to be faced. The war became a test 
 
 10 
 
of endurance and of the power of sustained resistance. 
 Other factors, besides the naval and military, were 
 brought into play: the economic, political and social 
 forces of the respective belligerent countries were now 
 engaged. 
 
 In the first phase military force alone could have 
 snatched a victory; in the second a total reorganiza- 
 tion of military, naval and economic forces became 
 necessary: it became necessary also completely to 
 revise internal national policy. If the first phase of 
 the war may be said to have beeji dominated by con- 
 ceptions bred of the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, the 
 second phase was similarly influenced by the very 
 different conceptions flowing from the American Civil 
 War and wars more remote say the Seven Years' 
 War and the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 It is much to be deplored that Russia and the Allies 
 failed to grasp the changed character of the war imme- 
 diately. It is true that certain military and other 
 experts did perceive the new principles that were 
 coming into play, but it took a long time and it cost 
 millions of lives to bring about the realisation of these 
 principles in practice. And it must be admitted, too, 
 that it was our opponents chiefly Germany who 
 first grasped the main points in the new game, and 
 who first took the needful measures. Indeed, it is 
 probably owing to this more rapid assimilation of ideas 
 on the part of Germany that she succeeded in holding 
 out so long and had even some warrant for her hopes 
 of ultimate victory. The obstinate misapprehension 
 of Russia and the Allies of some of the most essential 
 factors in the World War as it proved to be and not 
 
 11 
 
as it was conceived to be brought in the catastrophe 
 in the Balkans, the disasters in Galicia and the final 
 collapse of Russia. 
 
 The Economy of the World War. 
 
 The initial failure, of which I have spoken, of either 
 of the belligerents to achieve a decision in 1914 at 
 once compelled them to increase their armed forces 
 to the utmost limit. But in order to do this the bellig- 
 erent countries were obliged to sacrifice, not only 
 present economic interests and the immediate material 
 welfare of the nation, but even to risk the very founda- 
 tions of the whole industrial and social structure of 
 the State. Owing to the completeness of the military 
 mobilisations many branches of industry were either 
 considerably reduced or closed down entirely. Only 
 those industries that directly or indirectly subserved 
 the purposes of war were spared partial or complete 
 extinction. 
 
 "Not only have enormous numbers of men, and 
 latterly of women also, been mobilised for military and 
 naval purposes, but the vast majority of the people 
 are now working directly or indirectly on public ser- 
 vice. If they are not in the Army, the Navy or Civil 
 Service, they are growing food, or making munitions, 
 or engaged in the work of organising, transporting or 
 distributing the national supplies," says the War 
 Cabinet Report, 1917 (p. xv) . 
 
 In all countries the war has produced an extensive 
 and deep revolution in the economic sphere. In the 
 first year of the war the influence of this economic 
 
 12 
 
revolution was small, for the people and the armies 
 were living on accumulated stores of goods. But the 
 longer the war continued the more clearly it began to 
 be perceived even by persons unversed in economic 
 matters that enormous military forces and the civi- 
 lian balance of the population could not be supported 
 on a basis of national resources only: the belligerent 
 nations highly industrialised England even came to 
 depend more and more on the world-market for their 
 supplies of foodstuffs and other commodities. 
 
 In short, military mobilisations of an unprecedented 
 extent, and the mobilisation of industry for (i) war 
 purposes and (2) to supply the needs of a civil pop- 
 ulation during a protracted war were not to be 
 achieved on a basis of national resources only. A 
 World War and a World in Arms demanded a World 
 Economy. 
 
 Quite correctly, Lieut.-General Baron von Loringh- 
 oven remarks in his book, "Deductions from the World 
 War," that "now, as always, it is the sword which 
 decides in war ; it is victory on the battlefield that gives 
 a decision; but its effect is far more dependent than 
 it used to be on world economic factors" (p. 11.) 
 
 The same writer further mentions a very striking 
 example of the Economic Factor's effect on the final 
 decisive issue of a whole campaign, namely, the block- 
 ade of the Southern States of America by their North- 
 ern opponent. The Northern States succeeded in 
 cutting the communications between the Southern 
 States and the Centres of their food supply, with the 
 result that, notwithstanding an heroic defence con- 
 ducted by able leaders, the Southern States were 
 strangulated. 
 
 13 
 
Another German authority on military questions, 
 Admiral Baron Curt von Maltzahn, in his book, "Naval 
 Warfare," written 1905, describes the effect of the 
 blockade on the Southern States in the following 
 terms: "One must perforce admire the tough persist- 
 ence, the address and the valour that mocked at death 
 with which the Southerners, from the first always the 
 weaker side, maintained the struggle. But in face of 
 the blockade all their efforts were bound to prove abor- 
 tive. For as with an iron ring the whole area of war 
 was being ever more and more completely encircled in 
 its relentless grip, and as their strength to withstand 
 it failed, so little by little they weakened also in their 
 determination to continue the war. By the winter of 
 1862-63, the army in Richmond was already reduced 
 to half rations, and was in such straits for clothes that 
 one woolen blanket had to suffice for three men. It will 
 be readily understood that the discipline of the troops 
 suffered under such conditions, but the effects of the 
 blockade were not alone felt here, but spread over the 
 whole country. . . . The land was impoverished and 
 its credit was exhausted, and the Government found it 
 impossible to obtain the means for persevering with 
 the war. The progressive depreciation of the paper 
 currency by the end of 1863 a dollar was worth only 
 five cents was accompanied toy an ever-increasing 
 rise in prices, which affected even those foodstuffs 
 which were produced in the country itself. The whole 
 place, indeed, was like a beleaguered fortress in which 
 the temper of their fellow prisoners, the civil popula- 
 tion, was not without its effect upon the resolution of 
 the military forces. ... In Richmond [in the autumn 
 of 1863. B. K.] a ham was fetching 46s., a pound of 
 
coffee 17s., and a pound of tea 71s. . . . The railroads, 
 too, began to cease working because their rolling stock 
 got used up and could not be replaced" (p. 99). 
 
 I will add one more quotation, from a book by the 
 famous Admiral Mahan, "The Influence of Sea Power 
 upon History" (p. 44), as to the effect of the blockade 
 on the Southern States in the Civil War : "Dismay, in- 
 security, paralysis, prevailed in regions that might, 
 under happier auspices, have kept a nation alive 
 through the most exhausting war. Never did sea 
 power play a greater or a more decisive part. . . ." 
 
 As it has been said before, Germany was the first 
 to apprehend rapidly the full significance of the war's 
 new phase. Germany perceived that the problem was 
 one "of conducting a war governed by world-economic 
 considerations" ("Deductions from the World War," 
 p. 14), and she gradually and systematically proceeded 
 to the solution of that problem. Germany realised 
 that, owing to the withdrawal of labor from agricul- 
 ture and industry, it was impossible for her to endure 
 over a period of years without using the resources of 
 other nations. And it was for this reason that a 
 German Army moved to the Balkans, and, after crush- 
 ing the Serbian resistance, conquered the Peninsula 
 and established direct communication with Turkey. 
 Let me again quote from the above-mentioned book 
 of General von Loringhoven: 
 
 "The main object of the Serbian campaign was to 
 establish land communications with Turkey, whose 
 obstinate defence of the Dardanelles had rendered us 
 signal service, since it barred the exit from and entry 
 to the harbours of the Black Sea" ("Deductions from 
 the World War," p. 11). 
 
 15 
 
From this quotation one may see how well the Ger- 
 man military authorities understood the importance, 
 not only of direct communication with Turkey the 
 country of abundant raw materials but also of the 
 closing of the Black Sea ports. At a time when the 
 Dardanelles Campaign was meeting as it did, indeed, 
 from its very inception with a very strong opposition 
 from military and other quarters in both France and 
 England being regarded by some as an adventure 
 simply Germany was sending selected troops to the 
 Balkans in order to prevent by every means in her 
 power the opening of the Straits and the freeing of 
 Russia from the hard pressure of the Austro-German 
 blockade. Influential English and French newspapers 
 regarded this campaign of Germany's in the Balkans 
 as indicative simply of a desire to stimulate public 
 feeling with tidings of new victories. It is quite clear 
 now, however, that in this estimate these newspapers 
 and the body of opinion which they reflected were 
 mistaken. The meaning of Germany's activity in the 
 Balkans was simply this she was preparing for the 
 Second Phase. 
 
 Summing up the principal features of the World 
 War, we find that the creation of enormous armies, 
 the mobilisation of the civil population, the deflection 
 of industry from its ordinary channels, together with 
 the effects of enemy invasions and devastations, have 
 as it were automatically struck at the root of the Na- 
 tional Economy of the belligerent countries, and have 
 brought about conditions in which no belligerent nation 
 could fight and exist without the importation of goods 
 from without. 
 
 16 
 
Now this dependence on external economic assist- 
 ance, to be operative, presupposes a free intercourse 
 with foreign markets. But if this freedom of inter- 
 course with foreign countries, allied or neutral, be 
 restricted or prevented altogether, then the country 
 so cut off has the choice only of two alternatives : she 
 may either reduce her army to a minimum number in 
 order to feed and save her social and economic life, or 
 she may reserve a military power necessarily of 
 considerable dimensions to cope with that social 
 catastrophe which must follow upon national economic 
 failure. Russia was confronted with precisely these 
 alternatives from the very beginning of the war. 
 
 The Blockade of Russia. 
 
 Great Russia has been vanquished and overthrown; 
 but not on the field of battle, nor by the ordinary 
 weapons of war; she has been brought low by the 
 merciless and murderous paralysis which has been 
 slowly killing her ever since war was declared. True 
 to her traditions as a great nation, faithful to her 
 valiant Allies, Russia struggled long and desperately. 
 Mortally stricken herself, she yet delivered hard blows 
 to the enemy ; but her final defeat was only a question 
 of time, for she was a victim of the most powerful 
 weapon the war has produced namely, BLOCKADE. 
 
 From the very beginning of the war Russia found 
 herself under the pressure of a blockade of a magni- 
 tude such as even the enemy has not experienced ; for 
 while the enemy overseas trade was stopped in Decem- 
 ber, 1916 (see War Cabinet Report), Russian foreign 
 
 17 
 
communications were almost entirely cut off in August, 
 1914. What Russia could get from abroad through 
 the Arctic ports and Vladivostok was a mere nothing; 
 neither in itself nor in comparison with what the 
 enemy was able to import, either directly or through 
 neutral countries, was it anything but pathetically 
 meagre. How small was the influx of goods into 
 Russia may be judged by the figures of the arrivals 
 of ships in Russian ports. I think I do not mistake 
 if I say that during the first three years of war the 
 total tonnage of ships which arrived at the open ports 
 of Russia was not more than the tonnage which now 
 arrives at the ports of the United Kingdom during 
 two weeks only! 
 
 Moreover, the few ships which did arrive brought 
 goods which, if not of a purely military character, were 
 still destined for national defensive purposes only. It 
 is certain that the importation of military material 
 greatly assisted the reconstruction of the Russian 
 Army after the catastrophe in Galicia in 1915, and 
 ministered also to BrusilofFs victories in 1916; but 
 such imports were not of a nature nor an extent to 
 avert a national economic collapse. 
 
 The Effect of th<? Blockade. 
 
 That instrument of force which is called the Block- 
 ade has a powerful influence on the life of a nation 
 even in peace time. History can show some examples 
 of what effects the Blockade can produce in times 
 of peace in Greece, in Turkey, and other States. Such 
 a blockade has always been a real weapon in the hands 
 
 18 
 
of international diplomacy, a weapon at whose threat 
 have trembled alike haughty rulers and submissive 
 subjects. 
 
 But in war time the Blockade has a far greater 
 power than this. Napoleon understood its power. 
 The Northern States of America broke and crushed 
 the Southern resistance by its means. In many wars 
 of the past the Blockade has shown itself a weapon of 
 supreme potency. 
 
 In the World War the Blockade has had a special 
 and most mighty influence. Even the dry official 
 Report of the War Cabinet speaks of the Blockade in 
 these terms : 
 
 "One of the most important weapons in the hands 
 of the Allies is that of the blockade" (p. 21). 
 
 It may be added that the Blockade was one of the 
 most important weapons in the hands of Germany also. 
 
 Mr. Asquith, in a public speech ("The Times," Aug. 
 5th, 1918), said: "The decisive weapon in war has 
 often been found, and is likely to be found again, in 
 economic pressure. When countries were self-sup- 
 porting this was made effective by the defeat of their 
 armies, the ocupation of their territory, and the 
 consequent paralysis of their national life. To-day, 
 under the new conditions of the modern world, the 
 Allied blockade is working towards the same 
 paralysis." 
 
 Archibald Hurd ("Fortnightly Review," Aug. 1918) 
 describes the effect of the Allied blockade on the enemy 
 countries : 
 
 "We can trace the results of the naval blockade in 
 the conditions which now exist in the enemy countries. 
 Austria is starving; Germany is living on husks; 
 
 19 
 
Turkey is reduced to the direst privations; Bulgaria 
 is hard put to it to keep body and soul together. From 
 the North Sea and Baltic down to the Adriatic and the 
 Mediterranean, starvation stares the enemy nations 
 in the face. . . ." 
 
 I shall not add here the opinions of statesmen, 
 political students and publicists in Great Britain, 
 France, Russia and in Germany. They all speak 
 eloquently enough of the enormous power of the 
 Blockade in the war. 
 
 Blockade has the same paralysing effect on the 
 national organism in whatever country it seizes upon ; 
 and, as in the case of other deadly maladies, its whole 
 power does not develop immediately. The first symp- 
 toms have not the appearance of leading to a great 
 national disaster; people regard them lightly, and 
 blame the "bad government" or the "greedy specula- 
 tors" for the lack of goods. But where the Blockade 
 has laid its paralysing finger, notwithstanding the most 
 energetic Government measures against speculation, 
 one by one the necessaries of life vanish from the 
 market; prices begin to rise; the family budget loses 
 its meaning, proportions and stability; existence 
 becomes insecure. . . The Blockade crosses all front- 
 iers, penetrating into the house of every citizen, greet- 
 ing every citizen at his morning awakening, shares his 
 meals with him and accompanies him darkly as he goes 
 about his business or his pleasure; it speeds him to 
 his bed and companions his dreams. 
 
 The whole life of the people becomes infirm : customs 
 and habits must be changed continually in an attempt 
 to conform to the novel prices of goods. The masses 
 begin to grumble ; dissatisfaction, like a fire among dry 
 
 20 
 
grass, spreads quickly over the whole country; and as 
 it were marking singular conflagrations, hunger-riots 
 and violence consume and destroy the bonds of civil 
 order. . . . Government steps in, we will suppose, and 
 rations the nation's food; but to meet the demands of 
 even the narrowest rations supplies of some sort must 
 be forthcoming from somewhere; not to mention that 
 the Governmental Machine itself is seamed with the 
 common discontent, for the servants of a bureaucracy 
 will suffer from high prices not less than any labor- 
 socialist. The social structure cracks from top to 
 bottom and the country quests eagerly for ministers 
 to mend it. Energetic ministers succeed each other 
 with the rapidity of a cinematograph picture, and by 
 the very fact of rapid change introduce new disorder, 
 into disorder. . . . 
 
 The public faith in government as government 
 so much a matter of course in ordinary times, weakens 
 and goes, and is supplanted by Revolution, against 
 whom the old debilitated authorities are well-nigh 
 powerless. And be it observed, revolution bred of 
 Blockade is a different thing from the more familiar 
 revolution which is the birth-throes of a new state- 
 order: it is rather a death-agony the death-agony of 
 Authority. It is mortal in character, not natal; it is 
 the sign, not of the birth of a new order or a new 
 national will but of the decease of these Block- 
 ade crushes the old order very effectually, but it does 
 not create a new one. Blockade smashes to pieces the 
 very foundations of the state; political excesses and 
 their necessary concomtitant, brute violence, hasten the 
 dissolution of social order. Secondary revolutions 
 follow closely each upon the heels of the other, drawn 
 
 21 
 
on and urged in the desperate hope of somehow shak- 
 ing off the sullen tentacles of the Blockade ; and failing 
 of their aim, of course, but exhausting the body politic 
 as the excesses of a drunkard in his efforts to elude 
 despair, exhaust him and make him more a prisoner. 
 
 Revolution such as this issues in anarchy, dislocation 
 of economic life becomes decomposition of the social 
 organism: this is a summary representation of what 
 befalls a country that has the misfortune to suffer the 
 pressure of Blockade. It is the tragic history of 
 Russia during the last four years. 
 
 Every Englishman knows from his childhood the 
 horrible story of the Black Hole of Calcutta, into which 
 the Nawab threw one hundred and forty-six English 
 prisoners. These were driven by clubs and swords 
 into a small chamber which had only two little gratings 
 to let in fresh air. The poor prisoners went mad with 
 agony and despair. They fought with each other and 
 struggled desperately for places at the gratings, while 
 their guards scoffed 'and jeered at them, mocking their 
 tortures by handling in scanty supplies of water. By 
 degrees the tumult died down. When morning came 
 and the door was opened twenty-three only were 
 dragged out alive. 
 
 Such is the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and 
 such is the story of Russia. The Blockade was as 
 effectual as the Black Hole. Whilst her people died 
 of hunger and privation her gaolers the Germans 
 and their slaves, the Bolsheviks jeered and sneered 
 at the agony of a once great nation. 
 
 22 
 
The Economic Disintegration of Russia. 
 I. From August, 1914, to February, 1917. 
 
 The economic disintegration of Russia, under the 
 influence of Blockade and of the sudden Stress that had 
 drawn all Europe taut, began from the very first day 
 of the military campaign. 
 
 From the point of view of Economics Russia was a 
 German colony. Germany was the chief consumer 
 of Russia's raw materials and the principal importer 
 of manufactured goods. She organised and supplied 
 Russian industry. Russian national economy was 
 interlaced with German industry in a thousand visible 
 and invisible ways. Not only had Russia adopted the 
 German principles of industrial organisation, and the 
 German Banking System, but the whole industry of 
 Russia was actually equipped with German machinery, 
 consumed German partly-manufactured products, and 
 depended for its efficiency on the regular supply of 
 spare parts of machines from Germany. Moreover, 
 even a great part of the raw materials she needed, such 
 as cotton, jute, rubber, hides, wool, etc., came to her 
 through Germany. In fact, Germany's relation to 
 Russia may be expressed by saying that she was the 
 Organiser of Russia's industry ; the Source of her raw 
 and partly-manufactured supplies; was her Banker 
 and Intermediary in foreign trade. 
 
 Such being the Economic situation, the closing of 
 the Austro-German frontier and of all other foreign 
 communications was bound to shake the Russian 
 
 23 
 
economic structure to its very foundations, more 
 especially as its cause and accompaniment was war 
 and European war at that! Even in peace time such 
 an interruption or rather even simply an interruption 
 of Russo-German trade relations must have meant 
 something very like an industrial revolution, or, at 
 any rate, the throwing out of gear of the whole econo- 
 mic machine; must have meant a situation such as 
 would have demanded tremendous exertions and great 
 skill on the part of the Russian Government and Com- 
 mercial Bodies to overcome it. A great readjustment 
 requiring much time and a stable society is the least 
 consequence that could be anticipated. But in the 
 actual case there was neither time, nor stability, nor 
 any mitigation. Everything that can be conceived 
 to aggravate the unfortunate consequences of Russia's 
 dependence on Germany was effectually incident and 
 operative. 
 
 Let us review briefly what the importation of for- 
 eign goods meant and means to Russia. Before the 
 war Russia used to get from abroad about 13,000,000 
 tons of goods and materials yearly. Out of this total 
 9,000,000 tons of coal and coke, 250,000 tons of textile 
 materials, over 200,000 tons of metals, over 300,000 
 tons of machinery and more besides were absorbed 
 by Industry, Transport, etc. The fundamental industry 
 of Russia agriculture was dependent on the impor- 
 tation from foreign countries of manure (over 400,000 
 tons), of machinery and implements, of packing 
 materials (bags for example) and other necessaries. 
 Every family in Russia needed, from imports alone 
 yearly: 22 Ibs. of herrings (herrings and potatoes are 
 the staple food of the industrial and peasant classes), 
 
 | 
 
 24 
 
4 Ibs. of rice, 5 Ibs. of tea, 1 Ib. of coffee, 3 Ibs. of lard 
 or oil, etc. 
 
 From these few figures one can see that the sudden 
 disappearance of foreign imports was a blow felt in 
 every town, in every village, in every family, in every 
 industry, in every "key-industry." 
 
 But the disappearance and the sudden disappear- 
 ance of imports was not all. From the very beginn- 
 ing many millions of men were taken out from their 
 productive work and placed in an army which produced 
 nothing and consumed much. The military reverses 
 in Galicia, the retreat from Poland and from some of 
 the Baltic provinces, were not only grave military and 
 political events but also economic disasters, producing 
 a kind of chaos. ... In this great retreat Russia lost 
 many industrial centres, many mining centres, suffered 
 disorganization of the whole transport system and 
 received an overwhelming influx of millions of panic- 
 stricken refugees, who flooded and congested Russian 
 towns and swept away all normal standards of food- 
 consumption. 
 
 This retreat was a blow of such force as to make 
 the Russian economic system tremble to its base ; nay 
 whilst the Russian army withdrew from the retreat 
 covered with undying glories, the Russian economic 
 edifice was cracked from top to bottom. 
 
 Following on the retreat as its chief immediate 
 effect was Russia's necessity to mobilise her total 
 human and economic resources for national defence. 
 The previous mobilisation had already deprived 
 
 25 
 
Russian industry and agriculture of its best workmen ; 
 this further desperate mobilisation was as it were 
 a mine driven beneath the foundations of a fabric now 
 tottering to its fall. 
 
 Agriculture was the first to suffer. From the 18 
 millions of male producers engaged in the agriculture 
 of the 47 governments of European Russia 10 millions 
 were taken into the army ("Vestnik Finansov," 
 No. 31, 1917). The country had to fall back on all 
 available reserves of labour but these reserves were 
 not abundant; not nearly so abundant as in other 
 countries. ... In peace time the whole Russian 
 village population, old and young, worked in the fields, 
 there was no need, when war came, to enlist the 
 women, to invent more convenient modes of attire, 
 to recruit battalions: in Russia the women were 
 already enlisted, equipped and serving in the armies 
 of industry. 
 
 Consequent on a reduction of agricultural workers 
 followed a reduction of agricultural produce. The 
 government made some attempt to replace the 
 mobilised workmen by prisoners of war, soldiers 
 specially drafted from reserve divisions, refugees and 
 imported coloured labour ; but this substitution was not 
 a great success. In the 47 governments of European 
 Russia the area under cultivation for cereals was 
 reduced by 8 per cent, (in 1916 as compared with 
 1914) . In Siberia this reduction reached over 20 per 
 cent., and in some provinces of the Caucasus even 30 
 per cent. (Torgovo Promishlenia Gazeta, No. 28, 
 1917.) Though the peasants endeavoured to maintain 
 the same area under cultivation they were unable to 
 do so, moreover were unable to cultivate as produc- 
 
 26 
 
lively as before, because (1) they had not enough 
 labour, (2) they lacked agricultural machinery and 
 implements, (3) they were deprived of many artificial 
 manures, (4) they were unable to maintain a due 
 succession of crops. The result was that, notwith- 
 standing comparatively good climatic conditions, the 
 crop of cereals (in European Russia) in 1916 was 400 
 million poods short of the average for the years 
 1909-18 (76., No. 1, 1917). 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the consumption of cereals had 
 greatly increased. The prohibition of the sale of 
 Vodka left much money in the hands of the peasants, 
 who could therefore now afford more cereals for their 
 own home consumption. The soldiers, too, were better 
 fed than they were accustomed to be; and finally, the 
 industrial classes of the towns had more money to 
 spend on food. 
 
 The official organ of the Russian Government, "The 
 Promishlenia Gazeta," reviewed the critical position 
 of Agriculture in the following terms: 
 
 "In last autumn (1916) there was not enough labour 
 to cultivate the already reduced area of winter fields. 
 The mobilisations made since then have still further 
 aggravated the situation. Therefore we enter upon a 
 new food campaign with rather serious indications of 
 a more acute development of the crisis in production. 
 In these conditions all hopes must be based on the 
 spring. If in the spring we succeed in collecting 
 enough labour for the short time of sowing, and in 
 sowing those fields which were left untouched last 
 autumn we shall enter upon the food campaign of 
 1917- 18 under more or less favourable conditions. 
 Otherwise the shortage in the cereal harvest iwill 
 
 27 
 
increase so much that the difficulty of the food ques- 
 tion will become insurmountable. In the spring, 
 therefore, the fate of the whole food campaign for next 
 year, or perhaps till the very end of the war, will be 
 decided" (No. 28, 1917). 
 
 From this statement we can see how anxious the 
 Russian Government was about the serious crisis in 
 agriculture. Nor did the Government over-estimate 
 its seriousness; the situation was very acute not only 
 in Petrograd, but also in many other large towns. 
 
 Rumors were current that the town populations 
 could not get cereals because the peasants refused to 
 deliver their stocks. Official statistics, however, show 
 that the whole stock of cereals in European Russia 
 was up to the end of 1916 only 16,700,000 tons, as 
 against 24,000,000 for the corresponding period of 
 1915 ("The Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 227, 1918). 
 "The Daily Telegraph" (Nov. 3rd, 1917) gives the 
 following picture of the privations of the Russian pop- 
 ulation before the Revolution : "It may be stated posi- 
 tively that since the middle of 1915 there has not been 
 a day on which queues have not been outside the 
 provision shops of Petrograd or Moscow. Not one 
 winter morning, even though the thermometer was 
 below zero, on which women and children have not 
 waited in the streets for hours to get a loaf of bread, 
 a pint of milk, or a pound of meat. And how often 
 have these weary vigils not been in vain. . . . For six 
 or eight weeks in the middle of last year it was im- 
 possible to buy so much as an ounce of sugar over the 
 counter of a shop in Petrograd. ... In the villages 
 the food question was not so acute, but there were other 
 privations which were felt only less severely. Nearly 
 
 28 
 
all the implements, tools and accesories which the 
 peasant needs for his work are imported articles, and 
 now the country is drained dry of them." 
 
 The Russian food supplies were diminished both 
 directly and indirectly; production fell, and the dis- 
 organization (already referred to) of the transport 
 system increased. Moreover, this disorganization 
 increased in an increasing ratio : the more the military 
 needs of the nation demanded of the railways, the less 
 as time went on were the railways able to meet 
 those demands, for the inexorable increase in wear and 
 tear could not be met by the repair shops. . . . Stories 
 of corruption among the railway officials circulated 
 freely from mouth to mouth, and to this cause an 
 exasperated public sentiment conveniently assigned 
 the evils of transport disorganization. But venality, 
 though by no means absent, was far from adequate 
 to cause a national disaster of such magnitude as the 
 breakdown of railway transport. 
 
 The number of railway cars under repair at the 
 beginning of 1916 was 20,130, and it had increased to 
 25,810 by January, 1917. The number of locomotives 
 under repair in May, 1916, reached the figure of 
 3,387 out of the 19,951 which comprised the total 
 equipment. ("Vestnik Finansov, " No. 27, 1918.) 
 
 The chief cause of the breakdown was a lack of all 
 sorts of materials for repair work. 
 
 Railway transport suffered from lack of fuel. The 
 situation in respect of the supply of fuel grew very 
 critical towards the end of 1916. It is no more than 
 the simple truth that Russia, at that time, was face to 
 face with fuel-hunger as well as with food-hunger. 
 
 The Government created a special public body to 
 
 29 
 
consider the fuel question : here is the opinion of that 
 Commission : 
 
 "Owing to the suspension of the import of foreign 
 coal (British and Silesian) and to the enemy occupa- 
 tion of the Dombrow district there were difficulties 
 in the fuel suppply from the very beginning of the 
 war. But in the first year of war the crisis was alle- 
 viated by the stocks of British coal. . . . Down to the 
 autumn of 1915, industry, in connection with its mobil- 
 isation for war purposes, demanded more and more 
 fuel; besides which there was a great increase in the 
 demand for fuel by the railways, which were constantly 
 developing their activity to the point of feverish 
 strain." ("Vestnik Finansov," No. 52, 1916.) 
 
 The Fuel Commission further states that it was 
 obliged to make extensive requisitions of fuel for rail- 
 ways under a pressure no less than that of saving the 
 situation. 
 
 At the same time that the production of fuel was 
 decreasing the demand (both for coal and naphtha 
 oil) greatly increased. 
 
 In 1914 the Donez district produced: in the first 
 half-year 896 million poods of coal, and in the second 
 half 787 millions only. In 1915 the total production 
 of coal in Russia was short by 60 million poods in com- 
 parison with 1914. By great efforts the production 
 of coal in 1916 was increased by 79 million poods as 
 against 1915. ("Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 14, 1917.) 
 
 No better was the production of naphtha. There 
 was no decrease in the actual figures of production, 
 but many firms were obliged to stop work on new 
 borings on account of the lack of labour and of 
 materials. 
 
 30 
 
The Government came to the assistance of the 
 collieries, and assigned to them a certain number of 
 prisoners, besides releasing from the military mobilisa- 
 tion horses and materials. The Government further 
 improved the food situation in the coal districts in 
 order to make life there more attractive. But all 
 these measures could not avert the most serious sort 
 of crisis a fuel crisis. 
 
 I shall not speak in detail nor do I need of the 
 effect of a shortage of fuel on industry. It is enough 
 to say that even workshops with military "orders" 
 were obliged either to limit their production or to close 
 down for a longer or shorter period. Public services, 
 like tramways, electric power stations and so forth had 
 their operations similarly restricted. 
 
 At the same time that industry was thus attacked 
 in its basic necessity fuel the civil population stood 
 in great need of manufactured articles of daily need 
 such as clothes, boots, &c. Yet the woollen industry 
 for example was necessarily working entirely to 
 supply army requirements, and the textile industry 
 was only allowed to allocate 25 per cent, of the pre-war 
 output to the needs of the civil population. 
 
 Life in Russian towns was exceedingly hard. Lack- 
 ing warmth in their houses, the people also lacked 
 warm clothing and sound foot-gear. They suffered 
 the daily torture of the Food-Queue the Russian, not 
 the British variety and they suffered also the fear 
 of worse to come. 
 
 These are not conditions to raise the national spirit 
 and inspire patriotism. These are conditions to sap 
 the national spirit of any country, to feed discontent 
 and to hasten demoralisation. 
 
 31 
 
Such then was the situation in Russia in the Feb- 
 ruary of 1917. Discontent was daily increasing, and 
 since it seems to be a necessity of human nature 
 always to blame something or somebody blame was 
 freely apportioned to the share of the Government. 
 Few understood or wanted to understand that no 
 Government in the world could support an enormous 
 army remember that the Russian Government was 
 forced, in the lamentable circumstances, to mobilise 
 no less than 15 millions of men and a vast civil 
 population on a crippled agriculture and industry 
 chained down to the necessities of national defence. 
 In such a case the presence or absence of imports 
 makes the whole fortunate (or tragic) difference. 
 . . . But the people were not and perhaps could 
 hardly be expected to be reasonable. All sorts of 
 charges were levelled at a "bad, corrupt Government," 
 and "high treason against the nation" was a favourite 
 phrase. 
 
 It should be needless but, alas! it is perhaps not 
 quite needless to say that these accusations so easy 
 to make, so impossible to refute were the anguished 
 cries of a sick people ; a people tormented by a malady 
 whose true name was Blockade, but whose current 
 label was ''a corrupt and incompetent autocracy." The 
 Russian people blamed the Government: is there a 
 people in the world who would not have done precisely 
 the same in the same circumstances? The unhappy 
 Russian nation was mistaken as a sufferer usually is 
 mistaken when he attempts naturally enough to 
 diagnose and prescribe for his own symptoms. . . . 
 Nobody would absolve the Tzar's Government of all 
 the blunders laid to its charge, but in bare justice it 
 
 32 
 
should be understood and conceded that the Imperial 
 Government did its best to avert disaster; and if this 
 Government was not the most efficient conceivable it 
 was certainly well-nigh one of the best that the real 
 Russia not the Russia of legend could have had. 
 
 The scandalous and exciting stories that circle round 
 the figure of the monk Rasputin are excellently adapted 
 to the purposes they subserve, namely, of creating a 
 thrill in the breasts of the credulous, and of providing 
 a ready-made substitute for sober judgment; but they 
 should not be taken seriously by serious people; nor 
 should the "crimes of the old regime" be taken as the 
 real explanation of the Russian collapse. 
 
 By February, 1917, the Russian Government was on 
 the horns of a dilemma: either they might conclude 
 peace with Germany and betray the Allies, or they 
 might persevere in their dual war against the Germans 
 on the one hand and a ruined national economy on the 
 other. 
 
 It may quite well be that some experienced states- 
 men advised the Tzar to save his country from the 
 disaster that they foresaw by secession from the Allied 
 cause: but if that was so the Tzar of Russia refused 
 to listen to these dishonourable advisers, and remained, 
 to the last minute of his power, faithful to the Allies. 
 But his martyr-death alone could remove him from the 
 aim of the vile charges which were made against him 
 in Russia and in other countries. One need not be a 
 monarchist to read with a pain at the heart the last 
 words which the Tzar addressed to Russia : 
 
 "In the days of a great struggle against an external 
 enemy who for three years has been striving to enslave 
 our country, it has pleased the Lord God to send down 
 
 33 
 
on Russia new and severe trials. The internal tumults 
 which have begun threaten to have a fatal effect on the 
 further progress of this obstinate war. The destiny 
 of Russia, the honour of our heroic army, the welfare 
 , of the people, and the whole future of our dear father- 
 land demand that the war shall be conducted at all 
 costs to a victorious end." . 
 
 The Economic Disintegration of Russia. 
 
 II. From the March Revolution to the Bolshevik 
 Revolution. 
 
 The Bolsheviks love to repeat that they, are the 
 direct successors of the masters of the Paris Commune 
 of 1871. And it may be so ; for as we know from the 
 history of France the Commune was established in 
 Paris when the town was besieged (or blockaded) by 
 the enemy. 
 
 The Russian Revolution of March, 1917, broke out 
 first in a town which, though not literally besieged, 
 was suffering most from the effects of Blockade; it 
 broke out in Petrograd. The setting up of the Com- 
 mune in Paris and the outbreak of revolution in 
 Petrograd were both produced by the same force, 
 namely, the power of Blockade. 
 
 But the term "Blockade" as applied to Petrograd 
 requires a little explanation. The external blockade 
 of Russia, together with the internal process of 
 economic disintegration, disorganised the system of 
 internal communications so much as to transform 
 Russia from being one economic whole into a congeries 
 
 34 
 
of separate provinces separate because of the great 
 difficulty of communication between one and another. 
 Province was cut off from province as much as though 
 the enemy had really penetrated deeply into Russia and 
 by force had isolated part from part. And Petrograd 
 suffered from this "internal blockade" most of all. 
 
 The railway communications between Petrograd and 
 the centres of food and fuel supply were disorganised 
 from the first day of the war, and right on to February, 
 1917, the greatly reduced railway traffic was main- 
 tained only by the most drastic measures of the 
 Government. Consequently it was in Petrograd the 
 Revolution broke out first. It began like any ordinary 
 hunger riot: the shouting people in the streets 
 demanded bread, not any new political liberties. The 
 Revolution was started, not by fiery demagogues, but 
 by an old woman, who, with trembling hand, smashed 
 a baker's window. 
 
 The Revolution which the whole world has acclaimed 
 in a hurry as the liberation of Russia from the fetters 
 of slavery and despotism was in reality a sign to the 
 whole world that a great social state was entering upon 
 its death agony. The Tzar and Tzarism were destroyed 
 and so also, for the time being, was a great nation. 
 The Revolution was a sickness unto death, not the flush 
 of returning health. 
 
 At first the Revolution awakened a great enthusiasm 
 in the masses of the Russian population ; everyone saw 
 the future in terms of rose-coloured hopes. But the 
 illusion soon faded, . . . The normal progress of the 
 economic life of any country can be twisted awry 
 by political conflict and unbridled demagogic activity 
 alone. The whole population of Russia was already 
 
 35 
 
greatly incensed by the lack of commodities of prime 
 necessity; consequently a political agitation unscru- 
 pulously directed towards the creating and fostering 
 of suspicion against one class of the population was 
 bound to meet with an overwhelming success. It was 
 whispered, proclaimed, believed that the richer classes 
 were consuming their own and others' share of the 
 common stores. 
 
 The first revolutionary Government was torn 
 between anxiety for the military situation on the one 
 hand and the civil situation on the other. The discip- 
 line of civil life was failing, and with it the discipline 
 of the army. The country could have been saved only 
 by introducing the most severe discipline at the front 
 and also at home: only the minimum of goods 
 necessary to stave off cold and starvation should have 
 been doled out. The revolutionary Government was 
 able to do neither the one nor the other : it was incap- 
 able of grasping the deadly nature of the effect of the 
 Blockade on Russian social and economic life. Milukoff 
 and Kerensky failed to break the Blockade : the Block- 
 ade broke them. 
 
 I am far from accusing Mr. Kerensky and [his 
 friends of ruining Russia. Powerful as they were, 
 they were not quite so powerful as that would imply. 
 A mighty Empire is not so easily brought to ruin. 
 His Revolutionary Majesty, Blockade, was Russia's, 
 real destroyer. . . . But although Mr. Kerensky and 
 his friends did not destroy Russia, it is just conceivable 
 that they might have saved her. That is to say, a 
 more energetic, a more severe, I will venture to say a 
 more Russian Government might have guided the 
 national enthusiasm to better purpose. For the 
 
 36 
 
blunders of the revolutionary Government were such 
 as Russia had never yet in all her history experienced. 
 . . . But even the best possible Government in the 
 circumstances could not have saved Russia but by 
 breaking the Blockade or by ending the war. At that 
 time there was no hope of breaking through Turkey 
 and so of establishing direct communication with the 
 Allies. The Kerensky Government tried to end the 
 war with one mighty blow delivered against the 
 enemy : the event was an utter and shameful failure. 
 
 The position of Russia was now desperate: the 
 country was not in a state to continue even a defensive 
 war without substantial support from the Allies. I 
 am unable to explain and I cannot understand how the 
 Allies failed to hear the one cry that rose with a 
 dreadful unanimity from every town and village, from 
 the throat of every soldier, that broke from the 
 famished lips of every Russian mother Save us from 
 the Blockade or we shall perish! Instead of sending 
 to Russia an Economic Commission composed of the 
 best experts, a band of half -educated labor represen- 
 tatives were despatched. . . . 
 
 While refusing all the enemy propositions for peace, 
 the Kerensky Government attempted to lighten the 
 burden laid upon the shoulders of the population by 
 reducing the army to a minimum. It was a palliative 
 only, and like all palliatives it failed. It was patheti- 
 cally inadequate to the needs of a country in which 
 social and economic disintegration was making more 
 and yet more rapid progress. 
 
 As I mentioned before, the events which followed 
 the March Revolution precipated the economic crisis. 
 If before the Revolution there was a dearth of food 
 
 37 
 
and material, after the Revolution all the signs 
 appeared of an approach to actual starvation (Torg. 
 "Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 116, 1917). 
 
 The Revolution struck specially hard at the agricul- 
 tural system of Russia. The pillage of agricultural 
 properties, the feverish sharing among the peasants 
 of private land, and other revolutionary excesses 
 greatly reduced the productivity of the agricultural 
 industry. The whole position of agriculture grew 
 very serious indeed towards the spring of 1917, and 
 as was said in the above-quoted official report only 
 by energetic measures could a crisis have been averted. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate how much the production 
 of cereals was reduced by the influence of the Revolu- 
 tion. The whole area of cultivated land owned by 
 landlords in European Russia was 7.6 millions of 
 desiatin, which had ordinarily produced about 500 
 million poods of cereals. For a long time the peasants 
 were unable to effect a division of this land among 
 themselves; and even if they had been able to arrive 
 at a division that all would agree to at once they would 
 still have been unable to effect anything like its former 
 measure of cultivation. Therefore, if not the whole 
 of this 500 million poods of cereals was lost to Russia, 
 certainly by far the larger part of it was, to which 
 must be added 400 million poods lost before the Revolu- 
 tion. Moreover, the production of cereals was reduced 
 owing to yet other causes. For the old regime had 
 allotted to agricultural works the labour of soldiers 
 and prisoners. After the Revolution the soldiers 
 refused obedience, and by main force compelled the 
 prisoners to follow their example. Further, the need 
 for machinery and implements was more acute than 
 
 38 
 
ever. It was ascertained that 5 millions of scythes 
 were urgently wanted : the home industry could supply 
 20,000 only. The harvest in some provinces perished 
 in the fields. The need for agricultural implements 
 was so great that in many places the peasants began 
 to seize, in revolutionary style, the Government stocks 
 of iron. 
 
 Meanwhile the revolutionary Government ignored 
 the advice and warnings of the business community. 
 The peasants, also, had no ears except for mad incite- 
 ments to pillage and the division of estates amongst 
 themselves. The spring season was lost. The last 
 trenches held by the Russians against starvation were 
 lost, and Tzar Hunger made his solemn entry hand in 
 hand with the Bolsheviks. 
 
 Other industries were quickly ruined too. The 
 production of mineral fuel in the Donez district had 
 diminished in September, 1917, as compared with 
 September, 1916, as follows: 
 
 Coal, 25 per cent.; Coke, 43 per cent.; Briquets, 
 67 per cent. 
 
 The production of pig-iron in the same district 
 dropped from a monthly average of 14.7 million poods 
 in 1916 to 9 million poods in October, 1917. (Torg. 
 Promishlenia Gazeta, No. 229, 1917). The disorgan- 
 isation of transport reached enormous dimensions. 
 In May, 1917, on many of the principal railways there 
 were 33 per cent, of broken-down locomotives. The 
 number of broken-down railway cars in 1917 was 
 double that of 1916. 
 
 Labour grew very slack in the repair shops, and their 
 production was reduced 50 per cent. The district 
 
 39 
 
railway committee of Kharkoff issued a touching 
 appeal to the railwaymen : 
 
 "Citizens, railwaymen, employees, stewards, and 
 workmen: It is really you who hold in your hands the 
 fate of Russia. ... A bleeding country asks you for 
 sacrifice. Forget your own interests as did our 
 children and brothers who lost their lives honourably 
 on the field of battle. . . . Forget your quarrels and 
 disputes. Begin to work with more energy: increase 
 your production." (V. Finansov, No. 27, 1917). 
 Needless to say, the appeal was made to deaf ears. 
 The "Promishlenia Gazeta" (No. 230, 1917), said: 
 "In much of his behaviour the ordinary Russian work- 
 man clearly displays his standard of political education. 
 Public interests, the interests of the State, of the 
 nation, of the town, of society, are strange to him. He 
 does not understand them and he does not want to hear 
 of them." 
 
 How rapidly the devastation of Russia's industry 
 went on during the Revolution may be inferred from 
 its condition in the Petrograd district. The Ministry 
 of Trade and Industry made a census of the state of 
 industry in this area soon after the Revolution. ("Torg. 
 Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 87, 1917). It appeared 
 that production diminished from January to April 
 (1917) in the following proportions: cotton, 17 to 29 
 per cent.; woollens, 28.3 per cent.; bag materials, 21.8 
 per cent. ; metal goods, 60 per cent. ; various food stuffs, 
 12 to 61 per cent.; leather goods, 41.9 per cent.; foot- 
 wear, 30.4 per cent. The census showed that the chief 
 causes of reduced production were (1) reduction of 
 the number of workmen, (2) lack of fuel and raw 
 materials, (3) political agitation, (4) the expulsion 
 
 40 
 
of skilled supervision, (5) abolition of piece-work, (6) 
 shortening of working hours (by 20 per cent). 
 
 From these dry figures of the official census we may 
 infer the terribly destructive effect that the Revolution 
 had on industry at the very beginning. Later on 
 continual strikes, violence directed against the super- 
 vising engineers and the administration, the still 
 further shortening of working hours together with 
 a lowering of the quality of the work all these things 
 delivered blow upon blow where rather the most 
 careful cherishing was called for. This mad work of 
 a frenzied people was called by those who had taken 
 over the task of governing the people, "deepening the 
 Revolution." 
 
 According to information possessed by the Moscow 
 Labour Exchange (T. Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 224, 
 1917), wages rose by over 50-0 per cent, during the war 
 and the Revolution. Yet "with closed eyes, exhausted 
 hoarse voice," Mr. Martov (alias Zederbaum) speaking 
 in the Provisionary Council of the Russian Republic, 
 "accused the bourgeoisie of selfish interests" (ib.). 
 Shortly speaking, desperate war was declared against 
 Russian industry, not only by the enemy and by the 
 Blockade, but also by Russian labour. 
 
 The natural organization of Trade was also 
 "flippantly" attacked by the various Committees of 
 Public Security and such like. Prices were fixed for 
 goods qtiite arbitrarily; goods were airily irectfuisi- 
 tioned, merchandise seized at the railway stations, 
 firms were forcibly liquidated, all sorts of violence 
 was practised against traders, and the export of goods 
 from one province to another was frequently prohi- 
 bited. By the June of 1917 Trade had ceased in many 
 
 41 
 
parts of Russia, and panic-stricken traders sought 
 safety in flight. 
 
 A word more about the finances of Russia after the 
 Revolution. The total State Expenditure in the year 
 
 1916 was 18.000,000,000 roubles against a revenue of 
 4,300,000,000 roubles (V. Finansov, No. 37, 1917). In 
 
 1917 the total State Expenditure was 30,000,000,000 
 against 5,000,000,000 of revenue. The revolutionary 
 Government was as recklessly lavish as the old regime 
 was prudently economical. Though the total taxation 
 was greatly increased by the revolutionary Govern- 
 ment, the revenue dropped from 580 million roubles in 
 June, 1917, to 307 million roubles in October of the 
 same year. I remember in August, 1917, how bitterly 
 the newly-appointed Minister of Finance, Professor 
 Bernazky, spoke when he told me that "the same 
 workmen who so loudly demanded the introduction of 
 the new income tax now refuse to pay it, and tear up 
 the inquiry forms and beat the Government inspec- 
 tors." 
 
 Into every economic sphere the Revolution brought 
 a demoralising and a destructive element. The process 
 of economic disintegration which the old regime fought 
 so bravely met with no obstructions after the Revolu- 
 tion. In November, 1917, Mr. Kerensky made up the 
 accounts of the six months of Revolution in the 
 following terms : 
 
 "Russia is worn out. . . . The masses are worn out 
 economically. . . . The disorganised state of life in 
 general has had a psychological effect on the people." 
 ("Daily Telegraph," Nov. 3, 1917.) 
 
 A few days later Mr. Kerensky was replaced by the 
 Bolsheviks. 
 
 42 
 
The Economic Disintegration of Russia. 
 III. During the Bolshevik Rule. 
 
 The Kerensky Government was thrown down by the 
 Bolsheviks as easily as the Tzar's Government was 
 dethroned by the revolutionary masses. History 
 repeated itself even in details. In March, 1917, the 
 Tzar, Nicholas II., was abandoned by everybody, his 
 bodyguard included. In November, 1917, all Russia 
 turned its back on Mr. Kerensky: his last stronghold, 
 the Winter Palace, was feebly defended only by the 
 Women's Battalion and by a few officers of cadets. 
 
 The appearance of the Bolsheviks at the head of 
 affairs in Russia was not the mere result of accidental 
 circumstances, nor is it to be explained as the work of 
 German agents and German money. And it would be 
 a mistake to assume that the Bolsheviks are a purely 
 Russian product. Bolshevism is an international 
 epidemic like the "Spanish 'flu" and every nation 
 in the world has the bacillus in its blood. So long as 
 the national organism is economically strong and 
 healthy Bolshevism remains dormant, but as soon as 
 that organism becomes exhausted (as Russia was and 
 is, and as some other nations are) Bolshevism raises 
 its head. 
 
 By the masses of the Russian population soldiers, 
 labourers and peasants all the miseries of the country 
 were attributed, not so much to the unfavourable strate- 
 gical position of Russia during the war as to the war 
 itself. The desire of the Russian people to withdraw 
 from the war was not dictated by pacifism nor by any 
 
 43 
 
feeling against the Allies. The desire had a deeper 
 root. As I said before, the Blockade, in conjunction 
 with the natural process of exhaustion induced by war, 
 was strangling Russia. The Allies failed to liberate 
 Russia from the pressure of the Blockade, the Russian 
 army failed to end the war by a decisive victory in the 
 field, and the country had nothing before it but to 
 make a separate peace with the enemy. The movement 
 for peace in conditions by no means without 
 precedent in history was not so much the work of 
 German agents though these had their part as of 
 the instinct of national self-preservation. 
 
 The Bolsheviks made peace with the enemy, but it 
 was not the peace for which an exhausted nation was 
 longing. It was a blunder nay, it was a forgery. For 
 the Bolsheviks promised the nation the peace it hoped 
 for, a peace which should liberate country from the 
 Blockade, which should save it from utter economic 
 collapse. They gave the conntry a void peace, empty 
 of the blessings of peace. 
 
 It is true that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk opened 
 the frontiers, and that at that part the Blockade ceased 
 to operate. But it soon appeared that Germany and 
 Austria were themselves far too much exhausted by 
 war and Blockade to afford Russia any economic 
 assistance. A door was opened, but it was the wrong 
 door. As for the Allies who alone were able to 
 render support they stopped sending even those 
 goods which they had hitherto sent : the Blockade was 
 more powerful and cruel than ever. The peace of 
 Brest-Litovsk was brought at a great price, and it 
 was worth nothing. It was worth less than nothing : 
 it was not only not a blessing, it was a curse. 
 
 44 
 
The Bolshevik dictatorship took up and continued 
 the pernicious work of the Blockade and the Revolu- 
 tion. The disintegration increased its pace till it 
 became an orgy of destruction. That once mighty 
 Empire which had withstood all onslaughts for a 
 thousand years was falling to pieces beneath the 
 Bolshevik hammer like an old brick wall. 
 
 Let us not, however, pay the Bolsheviks too much 
 honour. They, like their predecessor, Mr. Kerensky, 
 were servants not masters of the Blockade; and it is 
 only in this subordinate capacity that they can justly 
 be recognised as really talented destroyers. 
 
 The dissolution of Russia now received a further 
 powerful impetus. The misery of the people was such 
 that the general cry became "Save what we can !" The 
 people ceased to think and feel as citizens of a great 
 Empire : each district came to regard its own interests 
 simply. Great Russia broke up into dissevered parts, 
 like the Ukraine, the Don, the Caucasus, the Volga 
 districts, and Siberia ; and we may see from the number 
 of these "little Russias" that their frontiers were 
 determined not so much by national character as by 
 economic needs. The Blockade having ruined that 
 enormous and very complicated economic organism, 
 the Russian Empire, compelled the people to return 
 to the primitive form of self -supply ing communities. 
 . . . Before the war all the Separatists and the 
 Bolsheviks could have been put in a student's room. 
 But -when the economic soil of Russia grew sterile of 
 healthful growth, the bright, poisonous weed of 
 Separatism spread like a dull fire. 
 
 The greater part of Russia dropped away from 
 Bolshevik control, but where the Bolsheviks remained 
 
 45 
 
masters they continued to serve the Blockade: under 
 them agriculture, industry, transport, trade, and 
 finance were finally destroyed. 
 
 We have seen that by October, 1917, agriculture was 
 in a most critical state, the cultivated area having 
 fallen by 20 per cent, and more; by May, 1918, the 
 shortage of sowing was increased, in the northern 
 provinces to 40 per cent, and in other provinces from 
 20 to 45 per cent. ("T. Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 
 52, 1918) . According to a statement of the Bolsheviks 
 themselves, the peasants had "neither machinery nor 
 scythes nor reaping-hooks." Under these conditions 
 the peasants could hardly produce cereals enough for 
 themselves, and there was very little hope that they 
 would share their supplies with the hungry towns. 
 
 The Bolsheviks were cut oif from the bread-produc- 
 ing provinces not only by severe civil wars but also 
 by the destruction of railway transport. The number 
 of broken-down locomotives on the Petrograd-Moscow 
 railway increased to 47 per cent.; on the Northern 
 railways to 50 per cent. ; on the Samara-Ural, Moscow- 
 Kasan and Tuman lines, 40 per cent.; on the South- 
 Eastern, Moscow-Kiev and Voronej lines, 39 per cent., 
 etc. ("T. Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 51, 1918). 
 River and canal transport was destroyed also ; from the 
 opening of the navigation season in April to the 20th 
 of May, 1918, only 33,900,000 poods of goods were 
 carried, against 219,000,000 poods for the same period 
 of 1917. 
 
 The production of naphtha and coal greatly dimin- 
 ished. The output of mineral oil for the Baku district 
 for the half of 1918 was 1,878,000 tons only or one- 
 third of that of corresponding period of the previous 
 
 46 
 
year. The work of boring was reduced by about 60 
 per cent, as compared with the previous year ("Times," 
 Oct. 1, 1918). During the first four months of 1918 
 the Donez district produced less than 200 million poods 
 of coal or 35 per cent, less than the corresponding 
 period of the previous year. The average monthly 
 output of one miner was in 1916, 673 poods ; in 1917, 
 450 poods ; whilst from the beginning of 1918 the fall 
 increased in rapidity until, by April, many pits had 
 to be closed down altogether (Reconstruction Supple- 
 ment, No. 9, Vol. II., 1918). According to a Bolshevik 
 census of the Petrograd Industrial District the number 
 of workmen diminished by 56 per cent, from the 1st 
 January, 1917, to the 1st of April, 1918 ("T. Promish- 
 lenia Gazeta," No. 52, 1918). From the 1st of April 
 the flow of workmen from industrial centres to the 
 villages increased greatly. The extreme revolutionary 
 newspaper "Novaia Jizn," in reviewing the economic 
 situation at the end of the year 1917, says: "The 
 economic productivity of the country has been deter- 
 iorating progressively from month to month. The 
 monthly output of coal, for instance, dropped between 
 January and October from 157 to 115 million poods. 
 The output of pig-iron, which amounted in 1916 to 
 173 million poods, dropped in 1917 to 130 million poods. 
 No fewer than 568 factories and works were shut down 
 in the last six months of the year. Since the Bolshevik 
 Revolution the shutting down of works and factories 
 has become wholesale. . . . Speculation in foodstuffs 
 and even in money has attained unheard-of dimensions, 
 and bribery, corruption and drunkenness have revived 
 again. ("Novaia Jizn," Economic Supplement, March 
 19, 1918, London.) 
 
 47 
 
It is worthy of remark, and profoundly significant, 
 that the self-same forces which brought the Bolsheviks 
 to the head of affairs, mocked their efforts and 
 disfigured all their undertakings: even where these 
 were sound in principle the "powers that were" dis- 
 torted them into a gross and rude caricature. The 
 Bolshevik "nationalisation of industry," with all its 
 high and noble aims for the building up of an ideal 
 state and community, proved in practice to be a very 
 ordinary plunder, a common wholesale robbery of a 
 few owners by a demoralised populace. Whilst it is 
 true that the Bolsheviks failed in every branch of state 
 activity, nowhere did their ignorance and folly so 
 glaringly appear as in the department of National 
 Finance. The Bolsheviks made an estimate ("T. 
 Promishlenia Gazeta," No. 63, 1918) of state revenue 
 and expenditure for the first six months of 1918. The 
 revenue was reckoned as 2,852,000,000 roubles and the 
 expenditure as 17,602,000,000. These simple, yet 
 remarkable, figures are sufficiently eloquent of the 
 nature of Bolshevik Statesmanship. 
 
 The Blockade threw an exhausted Russia into the 
 hands of the Bolsheviks: the Blockade will drag the 
 Bolsheviks to the scaffold. The Tzar's Government, 
 and the Kerensky Government, failed to liberate the 
 country from the Blockade, to open the world's market 
 to Russia, and to restore her economic structure. The 
 Bolsheviks have failed also, and they too must go. 
 
 It would be difficult to describe in better or more 
 eloquent language than that of their friend, Mr. 
 Arthur Ransome (correspondent of "The Daily 
 News"), the coming end of the Bolsheviks' rule: 
 
 48 
 
"The Soviet revolution is being slowly and surely 
 tortured to death by starvation. Such happenings as 
 peasant uprisings, reported from N. Novgorod and 
 Toula, east and south of Moscow and the armed dis- 
 persal of an anti-soviet open-air meeting in a Moscow 
 suburb do not, however, signify conscious patriotic 
 revolts. They are rather the terrific blind gestures of 
 a starving revolution tearing at its own flesh. Starv- 
 ation in the towns accentuates the conflict between 
 town and country. . . . Discontented, blind, groping 
 and angry, the nation asks for food and peace, but 
 seeks dimly any change although no possible change 
 can put an immediate end to starvation, or do more 
 than change one war for another" ("Daily News," 
 September 10, 1918). 
 
 The Effect of the Blockade on other Belligerent 
 Nations. 
 
 The Blockade has ruined Russia, has disfigured all 
 its social, political and economic life, and has brought 
 such a degree of humiliation upon Russia that her 
 name is now become "a by- word of contempt among 
 mankind" ("Daily Chronicle," September 5, 1918). 
 But not only has Russia suffered, not only is Russia 
 still suffering from the Blockade ; the Central Powers 
 also have had to sustain the same pressure; and even 
 the Allies cannot be said not to have felt the pinch of 
 it at times. 
 
 The fate of Austria-Hungary reminds us in many 
 ways of the fate of poor Russia. Neither has ever 
 had a strong and solid economic constitution; both 
 
 49 
 
have had to suffer considerable invasions of territory. 
 If the blockade of Austria-Hungary was not so power- 
 ful nor so prolonged as the blockade of Russia, it was 
 still one of the most complete blockades ever effected. 
 War-strain and blockade together have ruined the 
 economic foundations of the Austro-Hungarian Em- 
 pire. Like Russia, Austria-Hungary suffered first 
 from lack of goods, and later from lack of food and 
 at last from starvation. As in Russia, so here also 
 industry, agriculture, transport underwent a progres- 
 sive destruction, with a consequent serious perturba^ 
 tion of social life. The "Neue Freie Presse" described 
 the situation as it was in August, 1918, in the following 
 terms (quoted from "The Times," August 14, 1918) : 
 
 "Austria has scarcely a more dangerous enemy than 
 high prices. The disintegration of the middle classes, 
 who are the hardest hit, the forcible eviction of so 
 material an element as the bourgeoisie from their 
 traditional social surroundings, this break-up of all 
 that was best and strongest in the State in time of 
 peace, is a development so grave that the purchasing 
 power of money ought now to be the central point of 
 our whole policy. If the money standard should ever 
 fail, and if some day we should be able to throw into 
 the balance only ware for ware, a crisis would arise, 
 on the workings of which Taine's books speak 
 eloquently enough, even for our time." 
 
 Another Vienna newspaper, the "Zeit," gives the 
 following picture of the economic distress in Austria 
 as it was at the end of 1917 (quoted from "The New 
 Europe," September 13, 1917) : 
 
 "The war has taught us modesty in our methods of 
 life. But there is a lower limit of requirements, below 
 
 50 
 
which even the most modest cannot sink The 
 
 war has put us upon short rations, has forced us to 
 one economy after another, and forced back our habits 
 of life far behind those of former generations. This 
 took place more or less automatically: we kept on 
 
 tightening our belt But, after all, there comes 
 
 a moment at last at which one cannot go on cutting 
 down and tightening one's belt, because the primitive 
 necessity of life has been reached, and because this 
 can no longer be put off. Man must eat, and he must 
 also clothe himself. He need not have sweets or 
 oysters, or tarts or cream, he can give up roasts, and 
 even meat; but bread and potatoes he simply must 
 have to fill his stomach. In his dress, too, he can do 
 without all kinds of superfluities, all that is mere 
 fashion, adornment and foppery ; but a whole coat, an 
 untorn shirt, and boots whose soles are not full of 
 holes these are things which are really needed and 
 which the most modest citizen wants and must have." 
 
 Mr. George A. Shreiner, the representative of the 
 Associated Press of America in the countries of the 
 Central Powers during the war, has written a very 
 interesting book, "The Iron Ration," which is con- 
 cerned with the economic and social effects of the 
 Allied Blockade in Germany and Austria-Hungary. In 
 this book there is a great deal of valuable matter about 
 the gradual dissolution of economic and social life 
 throughout the countries of the Central Powers. The 
 book may be compared to a doctor's bulletin, recording 
 the progress of some horrible disease which reduces 
 an active and happy man to the similitude of a spectre. 
 The author gives a vivid picture of how economic 
 decay ruined family life and public morality in these 
 
 51 
 
countries. In his preface Mr. Shreiner summarises 
 his view of the Central Powers during wartime in 
 these words: 
 
 "The struggle for bread was the major aspect. The 
 words of the Lord's Prayer, 'Give us this day our daily 
 bread/ soon came to have a great meaning for the 
 people of Central Europe. ... It will be noticed that 
 I have given food questions a great deal of close atten- 
 tion. The wartime life of Central Europe could not 
 be portrayed in any other manner. All effort and 
 thouglht was directed towards the winning of the 
 scantiest fare. Men and women no longer strove for 
 the pleasures of life, but for the absolute essentials of 
 living. During the day all laboured and scrambled for 
 food, and at night men and women schemed and plotted 
 
 how to make the fearful struggle easier So 
 
 intense was that struggle for bread that men and 
 women began to look upon all else in life as wholly 
 secondary. A laxity in sex matters ensued. . . . 
 When human society is driven to realise that nothing 
 in life counts when there is no food, intellectual 
 progress ceases. When bread becomes indeed the 
 irreducible minimum, the mask falls, and we see the 
 human being in all its nakedness." 
 
 Somebody has said that Germany had a corpse 
 hanging to its neck from the beginning of the war. 
 But this is only partially true. Austria-Hungary was 
 not a "corpse" till after one or two years of war. Then, 
 indeed, it may be said to have had a moribund arm 
 encircling Germany's neck, and to have stood on its 
 legs by virtue of such support. 
 
 Blockade and war strain wore out the State organ- 
 ism of Austria-Hungary, and political crises became 
 
 52 
 
the ordinary news of the day. The Austrian Imperial 
 Government made every endeavour to keep the process 
 of dissolution within the bounds of an established and 
 recognised order; but at last the revolutionary forces 
 broke through and the Austrian, like the Russian 
 Empire, crumbled. 
 
 While it is true that many causes were operative in 
 the downfall of Austria which were absent or nearly 
 so in the case of Russia: the riational question was 
 very acute in Austria, but by no means so in Russia; 
 yet it remains true that both Empires fell by force of 
 Blockade. 
 
 The resemblance of the two revolutions the Aus- 
 trian and the Russian is so plain that the man in the 
 street may understand that the force which caused the 
 collapse of Russia is playing a great role in the case 
 of Austria. 
 
 We know that the chief justification advanced for 
 the March Revolution in Russia was an accusation 
 against the old regime of "high treason against the 
 nation" and against the Tzar's family of taking part 
 in Rasputin's orgies. Similarly, public "opinion" in 
 Austria accused the Emperor Karl and his wife Zitta 
 of having sold military secrets to the enemy, and of 
 leading a life of continual Court orgies. . . . The 
 similarity of these rumours with those that were 
 circulated in Russia is of secondary importance ; what 
 matters is that these rumours found an echo in the 
 country and brought on the political crisis. 
 
 The reason why Austria-Hungary did not fall before 
 she did was because, at critical moments, Germany 
 accorded aid. As Germany perceived that Austria- 
 Hungary was suffering beyond her powers the pressure 
 
 53 
 
of Blockade, she sent her, not only soldiers, guns, and 
 munitions, but also what may be said to have been at 
 the time her last pound of bread, her last pair of boots, 
 her last ton of coal. And owing to these sacrifices 
 made by Germany, Austria-Hungary was able to 
 survive long after Russia had gone down. 
 
 Even as I re-write these lines news is coming 
 through of the outbreak of revolution in Austria- 
 Hungary. It would be unwise to prophesy about these 
 events, but I am sure at least of this: If Austria- 
 Hungary does not liberate herself from the pressure 
 of Blockade, revolution in that country will develop 
 into Bolshevik anarchy. . . . The Allies may them- 
 selves yet save these national democratic movements 
 from degeneration into Bolshevik orgies. But if the 
 economic position of Austria-Hungary is not relieved 
 there can hardly be any hope that the Austro-Hunga- 
 rian revolution will escape the fate of the Russian. 
 
 I shall not. speak at length of Germany. The further 
 resistance of that country will bring it face to face 
 with utter economic exhaustion and final social and 
 political collapse. Even if the German Army can 
 continue to fight it is still doubtful whether the country 
 is able to resist the further pressure of the Allies' 
 blockade which will assume a most hard character. 
 
 As regards Italy, in 1917, owing to many reasons, 
 the transport of coal and bread became disorganised. 
 For several months the population of Italy suffered 
 from an insufficiency in the supplies of bread, fuel, 
 and other necessities. The disorganisation of trans- 
 port was a kind of blockade ; a blockade in effect though 
 not in fact. The lack of coal necessitated a consider- 
 able reduction of railway traffic, and of all kinds of 
 
industry including the production of munitions. The 
 comparative collapse of railway transport immediately 
 interfered with the supply of necessities of the town 
 populations and of military necessities to the army. 
 The soldiers' rations were greatly reduced, a circum- 
 stance provocative of much discontent amongst them, 
 and the population of Northern Italy was brought to 
 the verge of starvation. In short, the consequences 
 of this pseudo-blockade manifested themselves very 
 quickly. Hunger-riots of a serious character broke 
 out in the northern towns, and the propaganda of the 
 extreme socialists, hitherto heeded by a comparative 
 few, spread rapidly among the discontented masses of 
 the population. This propaganda invaded the army 
 with the deplorable result of the defeat at Caporetto. 
 
 Italy was saved from national disaster only by the 
 assistance of the Allies, who sent her soldiers, guns, 
 and munitions, and -what was of far greater and 
 more instant value bread, coal, meat. This interven- 
 tion of the Allies with supplies of food, fuel, &c., was 
 the most effective sort of military intervention 
 though nobody called it so. Anyhow, it was the precise 
 sort of intervention that Russia was longing for, and 
 has not even yet received. 
 
 The United Kindom has not had to endure the 
 Blockade. There is no hope for Admiral Tirpitz that 
 he will ever be able to get his fingers on the throat 
 of England. But last year, 1917, and at the beginning 
 of this, owing to the great loss of tonnage, at least the 
 shadow of Blockade rested on England. There was 
 a measure of disorganisation in the food supply of 
 this country: in the towns long queues waited at the 
 doors of the butcher and the butterman, though never, 
 
 55 
 
happily, at the baker's : and the fact is that discontent 
 was spreading rapidly throughout the population, 
 especially in the ranks of unskilled labor. Latent 
 Bolshevism began to stir, to open drowsily its dull 
 eyes of menace : a certain sort of thrill passed through 
 the world of political movement from end to end : into 
 certain circles of English society fear looked, and 
 passed, and left a memory. . . . The more conserva- 
 tive elements of the country were ready to follow the 
 lead of Lord Lansdowne, to make a peace of compro- 
 mise with the enemy rather than risk as it seemed to 
 them political and social collapse through the wear 
 and tear of war. 
 
 The Government of Mr. Lloyd George correctly 
 estimated the approaching dangers, and took all 
 possible measures to meet them. With the help of 
 America, and by an energetic and able introduction of 
 the system of rations, the Government succeeded in 
 satisfactorily solving the complicated problem of food- 
 supply : the menace of the Blockade disappeared. The 
 political and social results of the Government's mea- 
 sures showed itself in the effective check administered 
 to Bolshevism by Labor itself, in the triumph every- 
 where at home of the Lloyd George Government, and 
 in the eloquent silence of Lord Lansdowne. 
 
 I have listened to the argument that military defeats, 
 rather than the Blockade, destroy national life. But 
 the example of England is a refutation of this thesis. 
 So long as there was failure to control the submarine 
 attack the existence of the Lloyd George Government 
 was subject to moments of sharp peril; yet the same 
 Government never lost the people's confidence through- 
 out the precarious days of March June, 1918, though 
 
 56 
 
the German Army was advancing on Paris and towards 
 the English ports. 
 
 Blockade and war together are able to destroy even 
 the strongest and healthiest state; but Blockade alone 
 is a very dangerous enemy to any nation. Spain, 
 Holland, Sweden Switzerland and other neutral coun- 
 tries suffer greatly owing to the difficulty of getting 
 necessary supplies from abroad. These countries are 
 not "officially" subject to Blockade, but, in reality, they 
 experience an effective pressure from it, though in a 
 mild form. In all these countries we see the develop- 
 ment of strong revolutionary movements, of hunger- 
 riots, and an alarming progress of Bolshevism; we 
 see the fall of state authority and the coming of 
 general political and social disintegration. 
 
 Blockade and, other Factors of National Disintegration. 
 
 At the present time it is difficult, from lack of mate- 
 rial, to achieve any satisfactory analysis of the 
 economical social and political collapse of Russia. 
 Therefore, at present, one must be satisfied with mark- 
 ing only the outlines of the process which has 
 undermined the strength of Russia and has caused her 
 downfall. 
 
 It is possible, however, even with the general 
 information we already possess, to picture to our- 
 selves the terrible extent of the havoc the war has 
 made in Russian economic life. It is not necessary to be 
 an expert in economic matters to understand that no 
 nation in the world can continue to exist when nearly 
 40 per cent, of its able workmen are taken away from 
 
 57 
 
the production of goods whilst the thus depopulated 
 national industry is at the same time called upon to 
 yield up one half its production to the army. 
 
 Russia, after the mobilisation of industry for war 
 -dn 1915, was in the tragic position of having to supply 
 the needs of 150 millions of population on a production 
 which was one quarter of the standard production in 
 peace time, and to suffer the entire cessation of the 
 influx of goods from abroad. 
 
 It is not surprising that Russia fell : it is surprising 
 and the world will acknowledge it when all the facts 
 of Russia's privations shall be made known it is sur- 
 prising that she should have stood so long. 
 
 The Blockade was the chief cause of all the disasters 
 in Russia ; but I am far from asserting that the Block- 
 ade was the only cause. The present war has taken on 
 such an exhausting character that even under the most 
 favourable conditions one or another nation must have 
 had to drop out from utter exhaustion. There is no 
 nation in the world which could bear for an indefinitely 
 prolonged period the strain that such a war imposes. 
 Under any given economic, social and political condi- 
 tions any nation can hold out but for a limited time. 
 It is true that the present war has, in a sense, dissolved 
 national frontiers among the Allied nations, but even 
 so the position is still only that the degree of resistance 
 which any one country is capable of is largely determ- 
 ined by the degree of resistance of which its partners 
 are severally capable. The power of resistance of 
 Italy is determined by the power of resistance of 
 France, Great Britain and America. The power of 
 resistance of Turkey is dependent on the resources of 
 
 58 
 
Germany and Austria-Hungary. Completely block- 
 aded nations, isolated from their Allies, are, of course, 
 limited in their power of resistance by their internal 
 resources strictly which was the case with Russia. 
 
 The isolation of an enemy by Blockade is, then, the 
 most powerful of all factors in this war. Other 
 weapons destroy armed forces, but the Blockade 
 delivers blow upon blow, now here, now there, till 
 every bone in the national body is broken. Such a 
 nation may not bleed visibly ; it simply collapses. . . . 
 It is remarkable, by the way, how little attention has 
 been paid in the past to the Blockade as a decisive 
 weapon of war. Many histories of wars would need 
 to be entirely rewritten if the influence of the Blockade 
 in the affairs of war as well as in "the history of the 
 world" were to be given its true place. People speak 
 at great length of the influence of sea-power in the 
 war; but what is that but the use of effective means 
 to establish Blockade or to fend it off? 
 
 Naturally, the measure of the effect of the Blockade 
 is determined by circumstances like the political organ- 
 isation of the country, its social constitution, economic 
 resources, public discipline, the policies of political 
 parties, the quality and temper of its statecraft and 
 of its statesmen and so forth. Take Great Britain: 
 her degree of endurance of, and resistance to the 
 exhaustion of war was far less under Mr. Asquith's 
 Government than under that of Mr. Lloyd George. . . 
 If it had been possible for Russia, from the very 
 beginning, to have had a better government than the 
 old Imperial Government, it is probable that the ex- 
 haustion of the country would not have come on so 
 rapidly nor the effect of the Blockade have been so 
 
 59 
 
disastrous. And again, if the new revolutionary 
 Government had used the national enthusiasm to better 
 purposes than mad socialistic experiments, and had 
 firmly suppressed the pernicious propaganda that was 
 spreading through the country and the army, Russia 
 might then perhaps have prolonged her integral exist- 
 ence for a year or more. But in any case, Russia's 
 time was bound to be short; much shorter than that 
 of any other belligerent nation. Looking at a map 
 of Russia, we may permit ourselves to perceive a 
 certain fanciful resemblance of the configuration of 
 the Baltic Sea to a woman on her knees. Let us accept 
 the figure : see how it fits the case. The Baltic stretches 
 out her arms to Russia with the gifts, if not of the 
 world, certainly of Europe. But the Blockade paral- 
 ysed these bounteous arms, and during the whole 
 period of war the Baltic could give Russia not a single 
 pound of bread, not a ton of coal or iron, not so much 
 as a pair of boots. . . . The Black Sea was closed too. 
 Russia began the war with a millstone about her neck. 
 The enemy saw to it that she was not loosed : the noose 
 grew tighter, and the weight dragged more cruelly; 
 and the more this old strong nation struggled the more 
 she might, for her struggles only served to hasten the 
 end. 
 
 How to save Russia. 
 
 Russia has fallen beneath the blows of the Blockade, 
 and so long as the Blockade continues it is useless to 
 expect that the country will be restored to the normal 
 conditions of life. So long as Russia is left at the 
 
 60 
 
mercy of the Blockade all the noble efforts of Russian 
 patriots and of the Allies to save the nation from the 
 red terror of anarchy will be useless sacrifices made 
 in vain. Any internal rising of patriots against the 
 Bolsheviks is doomed to failure; the intervention of 
 the Allies at Murman, Archangel or Vladivostok are 
 palliatives only; all warm words of sympathy are void 
 and meaningless so long as Russia is not freed from 
 the Blockade. 
 
 At last (November, 1918), after a long delay, the 
 Dardanelles and the Bosphorus are open to the Allied 
 Fleets ; and Southern Russia is open to the world again 
 a most momentous event for Russia. At last an 
 opportunity is come to help Russia and to save her 
 people. It is Russia's Day. 
 
 Every Russian man with religious feeling will cross 
 himself on hearing of this event. Every Russian 
 patriot will rejoice and say, "Now we have a chance 
 to restore our Fatherland!" 
 
 The Blockade is raised; yet, by a paradox, the 
 Blockade still rests heavily upon Russia. For the 
 country has no money wherewith to buy goods, has 
 no wares to exchange for wares, has no ships to bring 
 cargoes to her starving populations. Four years of 
 Blockade. Think what it means. Let any man 
 picture to himself what would be left of his own coun- 
 try after four years of Blockade. If the Allies had 
 raised the Blockade just one year earlier Russia would 
 have begun quickly to recover, would not need to ask 
 the Allies for sacrifices. As it is Russia lies prone, 
 and cannot rise without the Allies help her. 
 
 As soon as communication is restored with the Black 
 Sea ports of Russia it will be necessary to send there 
 
 61 
 
all kinds of goods. When the most vital needs of the 
 country are satisfied the Allies should send support 
 for the task of restoring industry, transport, the 
 money system, &c. Give the Russian people some sort 
 of sufficiency of food and of clothing, and so you will 
 bestow upon them a little leisure to think of something 
 else than cold and hunger. With minds not so pre- 
 occupied they will hearken to you, and talk with you, 
 and confide in you precisely how much they like Bolshe- 
 viks and Germans. But do not, I pray you, send 
 political men to Russia, nor agitators from America, 
 nor demagogues from the East End of London. Rather 
 despatch there all the engineers you can spare (re- 
 member! I have already mentioned sacrifices), 
 skilled workmen and commercial men of experience to 
 assist Russia in the task of reconstructing her eco- 
 nomic life. 
 
 No eloquent proclamations to the peoples of Russia 
 can take the place of measures immediately instituted 
 for the restoration of economic life in Russia. At the 
 present time the most eloquent speech of Mr. Lloyd 
 George, of President Wilson, or of M. Clemenceau, is 
 worth less for Russia than a pound of bread, a pair of 
 boots, or a suit of second-hand clothes except in so 
 far as they tend to bring these necessaries to Russia. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 If this little work serves to further a better under- 
 standing of the chief cause of Russia's collapse I shall 
 be fully recompensed for the trouble of writing it; 
 
 62 
 
and if it should help towards the formation of new 
 ideas as to the nature of the great social upheavals and 
 dislocations produced by the war, it will have done 
 more than I dare to hope. But I should like, as a 
 Russian, as it were to underline the warning that the 
 Russian collapse into anarchy proffers to the whole 
 world. The Allies have fought with great success 
 against the German Military Power, against the 
 dictatorship of the German Mailed Fist. But the 
 exhaustion of war has greatly weakened State power 
 and has loosened the social structure of nations. These 
 conditions offer a great temptation to leaders of labor 
 to utilise them to the end of establishing another 
 dictatorship the dictatorship of a proletariat. In 
 my opinion it should be made clear that any attempt to 
 introduce Socialism by force will be met mercilessly by 
 the forces that would still stand for orderly evolution ; 
 for the world is weary of the dictatorship of Hohen- 
 zollerns and Bolsheviks alike, and has tasted the fruits 
 
 thereof There is no firm barrier between 
 
 Socialism and Bolshevism. Bolshevism is simply a 
 more militant form of Socialism. Bolsheviks are a new 
 military caste of Socialists. Bolsheviks threaten anew 
 the peace of the nations. Great as are the sacrifices 
 that the children of men have been called upon to make 
 ?ince August, 1914, they are slight compared with 
 those that the altars and the priesthood of internecine 
 strife would require of us. This war has scourged us 
 with whips; but that war would scourge us with 
 scorpions. 
 
 63 
 
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