Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/275

Rh minted into bonanza dividends for the benefit of foreign bankers. The Soviet was the instrument of this refusal to all exploiters.

Meeting the same obstacles as the Russian bourgeoisie, the Allied exploiters had the same reaction. They lent a ready ear to the cursings and ravings of their Russian brethren, who saw the Soviet and its members as the very spawn of hell.

It was in this circle that the Allied consuls, officers, Y. M. C. A. and Intelligence men largely lived, moved and had their being. They rarely got outside of it. They were in revolutionary Russia, but out of touch with the Revolution. And quite naturally. Peasants and workers knew little French or English or how to dress well or order dinner.

Not that Allied society was without "information." Their Russian bourgeois friends and their own prejudices gave it to them. Very direct and dogmatic, it passed current in phrases like:

"The Soviet is made up mainly of ex-criminals."

"Four-fifths of the Bolsheviks are Jews."

"These Revolutionists are just ordinary robbers."

"The Red Armies are mercenary and will run at the first shot of a gun."

"The dark, ignorant masses are swayed by their leaders, and their leaders are corrupt."

"The Czar may have had his faults, but Russia needs an iron hand."

"The Soviet is tottering, and will not last longer than two weeks at the outside."