With regard to Russia there is little of the idealistic spirit in French policy. Her att.i.tude towards Russia has little to do with her att.i.tude towards Europe as a whole. France does fear that Poland may come to nothing, and that Germany and Russia may come into vital contact. Otherwise Russia is a place apart. Russia is a place where many millions of French francs have been lost. France does not understand Russia, does not want to. France is quite sufficient for France. But she has received a terrible blow in a most sensitive part.
France"s vice as we have said is avarice. She does not expect to lose money. France is not like America where one loses a fortune to-day and makes one to-morrow. In France when you make a fortune you keep it.
The Russia which confiscated foreign holdings and ceased to pay dividends is a thief of portentous guilt to France. France, therefore, steadfastly opposes that Russia, and she has as steadfastly supported the other Russia which says she will recognize these old debts and pay them back plus dividends. France disapproved of the original revolution, but is said to have been persuaded to it by England.
France thought the March "17 conspiracy very risky. And she soon realized that she had been right. Revolution meant repudiation of debt. And Russia will never pay back her debts now unless in the form of "rights of exploitation."
France backed Koltchak and Yudenitch and Denikin and Wrangel and the Polish War--all for the sake of her money. Not because she was sorry for the Russians or for the rights of humanity, or because she was scandalized by Communism. Her plan generally has been to persuade England to supply the outfit and pay for the expense, but she has also paid somewhat and has thrown good money after bad--the thief gone with so much and so much to find the thief! Russia is a sore point, an aggravated loss. And now that the counter-revolutionaries have failed, France is almost as much out of sympathy with the Russian refugees as she is with the Bolsheviks themselves.
Paris, however, remains the capital of Russia in exile. There are more distinguished Russians there than in any other capital of Europe, and Russian world-policy is organized from there. It is General Wrangel"s civil headquarters. During the last days I was in Paris the Russian National Congress const.i.tuted itself a "National Union of Russia,"
dedicated to the task of liberating Russia from the Third International and at the same time excluding partisans of a Tsaristic restoration.
It rejoiced in glowing terms in a Russian army which though now vanishing was still the hope of Russia. It p.r.o.nounced against the trade treaties made by Great Britain and other powers with Soviet Russia, and it pa.s.sed a resolution recognizing Russia"s old debts and commercial obligations as contracted under the Tsardom.
A national committee of seventy-four members was elected, from Paris, Constantinople, London, Belgrade, Berlin, Finland, Poland, Switzerland, Sofia, Vienna, Athens, Riga, the United States, and amongst those elected were the following well-known Russian personalities--Burtsef, Struve, Kartashef, Bunin, Kuprin, Roditchef, Savitch, Tyrkova, Dioneo.
This powerful organization is likely enough to go back to Russia if Lenin and Trotsky fall. The latter are doing their utmost to safeguard themselves, but they are weaker than the Tsar was. The Tsardom had most of the brains and abilities of the Russians at its disposal, but Lenin has driven nearly all the educated and trained minds out of the country. Russia as an internationalist State is a failure; as a peasant Communist State she has not succeeded in straightening out the comparatively simple problems of her economic subsistence.
Of course, there are many abstentions from the Russian National Union, and among the most notable is Milyukof who characterizes their actions as "words without force." Milyukof and Burtsef have quarrelled.
Burtsef stood for backing General Wrangel, but Milyukof has taken a strong line on that matter. He does not believe that Wrangel can do anything, or that force applied externally can bring Bolshevism down.
He believes in the renovation of Russia from within. Milyukof"s contention is undoubtedly sound, but it has resulted in a wordy warfare in the columns of Burtsef"s "Obshy Delo" and Milyukof"s "Posledny Novosti," both Paris daily papers in Russian which keep up a malevolent cross-fire on one another.
One of the happiest evenings spent in Paris was at Babief"s toy theatre--"The Flittermouse," where I saw again a programme rendered in Moscow in 1914. Russians in themselves are the most unmechanical people, the most emotional and unexpected in their ways. It is, therefore, curious that they should shine so much when they pretend that they are dolls, when they take on extra human limitations. In the Russian Ballet it is the doll-stories of "Petrouchka" and "Boutique Fantasque" which charm most, and so it is in the programme of the Flittermouse Theatre, "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" and the toy-box story of "Katinka" are the favourites every night.
I was touched, however, by one of their lesser successes, that was called "Minuet," which seemed to have a national pathos in it.
A young man is sitting on a seat in the garden of Versailles or some such place of formal grandeur. It is after the revolution and the death of the King--one evening at twilight time--
"How I love to come here and dream a little," says the young man.
"This is a beautiful place. And sometimes one sees strange people, the old courtiers of the King come walking as they used to walk."
Presently an aged man in Court attire appears with a tall, gilded stick in his hand. "The King gave me this," says he in a quavering voice.
And then an aged dame appears. They will not explain themselves to the young man, for he cannot understand. How can youth understand those who are old?
The two old courtiers are bent and stiff. But they dance in the late dusk a minuet again. You fear all the time their stiffness and age will prevent them, but they dance it, not for the young man, but for themselves and for their King. How poignant it was, how terrible!
Like ghosts at Ekaterinburg.