in a position analogous to that of China in 1854, ought, like her, to be
helped by the Great Powers. It was, they held, quite as much in the
interests of Europe as in hers. But however forcible their arguments,
they encountered an insurmountable obstacle in the fear entertained by
the chiefs of the leading governments lest the extreme oppositional
parties in their respective countries should make capital out of the
move and turn them out of office. They invoked the interests of the
cause of which they were the champions for declining to expose
themselves to any such risk. It has been contended with warmth, and
possibly with truth, that if at the outset the Great Powers had
intervened they might with a comparatively small army have crushed
Bolshevism and re-established order in Russia. On the other hand, it was
objected that even heavy guns will not destroy ideas, and that the main
ideas which supplied the revolutionary movement with vital force were
too deeply rooted to have been extirpated by the most formidable foreign
army. That is true. But these ideas were not especially characteristic
of Bolshevism. Far from that, they were incompatible with it: the
bestowal of land on the peasants, an equitable reform of the relations
between workmen and employers, and the abolition of the hereditary
principle in the distribution of everything that confers an unfair
advantage on the individual or the class are certainly not postulates of
Lenin's party. It is a tenable proposition that timely military
assistance would have enabled the constructive elements of Russia to
restore conditions of normal life, but the worth of timeliness was never
realized by the heads of the governments who undertook to make laws for
the world. They ignored the maxim that a statesman, when applying
measures, must keep his eye on the clock, inasmuch as the remedy which
would save a nation at one moment may hasten its ruin at another.

The expedients and counter-expedients to which the Conference had
recourse in their fitful struggles with Bolshevism were so many
surprises to every one concerned, and were at times redolent of comedy.
But what was levity and ignorance on the part of the delegates meant
death, and worse than death, to tens of thousands of their protegees. In
Russia their agents zealously egged on the order-loving population to
rise up against the Bolsheviki and attack their strong positions,
promising them immediate military help if they s