Leon Kozłowski

The Triumph of the Soviets

Three treaties signed on the same day (18 March) in Riga, Berlin, and London, and before their signing, the conclusion of agreements with Afghanistan and Persia and the accession of Georgia — these are the latest and greatest triumphs of the Soviets. And of these triumphs undeniably the greatest is the Red diplomacy’s victory over England.

The Red diplomacy, which, contrary to what might have seemed to its partners, had kept initiative in the diplomatic struggle in its hands the whole time and finalized the political and trade agreement with England, when that agreement could no longer bring England the only real advantage that England could derive from it. The English policy’s goal in the negotiations with the Soviets was to prevent the Bolsheviks from moving southward in Asia, which was dangerous to England.

The Bolsheviks signed the agreement after the facts accomplished, which this agreement cannot change. By annexing Georgia,1 Soviet Russia ended the forced gathering of the lands that had been part of the Russian Empire in the south, while by concluding treaties with Persia and Afghanistan aimed against England, Red Russia secured her influences in Asia extending beyond the past charm of the “White Tsar.” As for the communist agitation in India, one must be very naive to expect it to cease.

The Soviet government with which England entered into that agreement and the Third International, which is conducting the agitation in India, although in fact one and the same, are formally different organizations, and the agreement with England is by no means binding to the Third International. So here too England was led astray.

The British government wished to use that trade agreement to appease and win over the Bolsheviks. The trade agreement is a tribute paid to the communists. But when a great empire begins to defend itself from its enemies by paying tribute, it is a bad omen for it. When the mighty Rome, having ceased to arouse fear in the barbarian tribes, began to pay them to stop them from raids and plunder, that was the beginning of the end of its reign. By paying tribute to the Red barbarians England will not be able to defend her power in Asia.

If the agreement with the Soviets fails to give England the real advantage which the British government had wished to achieve, then the ideal goal which the agreement was supposed to serve was not met either. For the goal was to calm the working masses in England and prevent social unrest. Lloyd George2 demanded a free hand in foreign policy, promising to cope with the dangerous situation at home. And the agreement with the Soviets has been concluded but in England there is both a miners’ strike, which threatens to spread onto other branches of labor, and a state of emergency.

England won the war, in which she gained one and a half million square miles of new terrains in Asia and Africa. She also balkanized Europe and disposed of the German rivalry. It seemed that Pax Britannica would take over the old world. And so this mighty Great Britain capitulates to the Red diplomacy, which is victoriously carrying out its plans. In some of the Old World, in the East, it is no longer Pax Britannica, but Pax Sovietica that is beginning to reign, and in the West of the Old World is it still facing strong opposition only in France.

Pax Sovietica — peace with the Soviets, trade with bandits, peace to people of ill will, death to the principles of our law — is this what the present day is bringing to the Old World?

Lloyd George said in the English Parliament that his intention to enter into the trade agreement with Soviet Russia had been clear and that “if there had been any real opposition to it, whether for moral or commercial reasons, it would have been more visible.”

In this respect, Lloyd George is totally right: the opposition to the trade agreement with the Soviets, that is, to the renunciation of those legal and ethical principles which, even in the commercial world, had hitherto been hard and fast, had been too weak.

The Old World, undermined by war, lacks moral power in the fight against Bolshevism, and this explains the recent great triumphs of the Soviet government, which is not strong at all because of the civil war.

Footnotes

1 The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1921 after Soviet Russia had invaded the Democratic Republic of Georgia. In 1922, it was annexed to the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, later renamed the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which was incorporated into the USSR on 30 December that year.

2 David Lloyd George (1863‒1945) — British politician of Welsh origin, associated with the Liberal Party, member of the House of Commons (1890‒1945), and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908‒1915). During World War I Minister of Munitions (1915‒1916) and Secretary of State for War (1916), then Prime Minister of a coalition government (1916). Remained Prime Minister after the 1918 elections, but lost power in 1922, when he resigned as a result of a crisis in the government coalition.

Leon Kozłowski (1879‒1927) — journalist, Polish literature scholar, and political activist. Born on 5 May 1879 in Kharkiv, where he attended a secondary school. Studied law at Kharkiv University, but before graduating was arrested for socialist activity and deported to St. Petersburg, where he spent fourteen months in prison. After his release he was put under police supervision and prohibited from staying in academic cities. Hence, he was unable to complete his studies in Russia. In 1904, he moved to Paris to study political and social studies. At that time, the Polish Freethinkers Union published his debut brochure entitled Po co człowiek żyje [why man lives]. After his return to Russia, he passed the state exam in law. In 1910, began to cooperate with Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper. Wrote texts devoted to, for instance, Polish literature, which were also published in other periodicals. In 1914, joined the editorial staff of Echo Polskie weekly and then daily, founded in Moscow. Spent the war in Russia, advocating the Polish cause. In 1918, appointed to the Representation of the Polish Regency Council, whose activity was soon prevented by the Bolsheviks, who imprisoned him in July 1919 and held him in custody for six months. After his release, he arrived in Warsaw in January 1920 and then became an editor of Tydzień Polski and then Kurier Poranny. At that time his views had little to do with his youthful fascination with socialist radicalism. He turned to religion and as a publicist he criticized the Bolshevik ideology, devoting a number of articles to describing the Soviet reality. Died on 3 September 1927. Among the admirers of Kozłowski’s journalistic talent and personality was Marian Zdziechowski, who expressed his appreciation in the introduction to a selection of Kozłowski’s writings entitled Półksiężyc i gwiazda czerwona [the crescent and the red star], which included this article (Vilnius: 1930, pp. 128‒131).