Page:Michael Farbman - Russia & the Struggle for Peace (1918).djvu/180

 168 peace" continued to be spread, and the more the Allies shouted about separate peace and about the alleged treachery of the Russian democracy to the Allied cause, the easier it was for them to avoid answering the direct questions and requests of the Russian democracy and the Provisional Government.

In the disastrous misunderstandings and misrepresentations which arose from this situation, a prominent part was played by the Allied missions to the young democracy. French, Belgian, British, and Italian Socialists and workers hastened to Russia to implore the democracy and the Soviets not to conclude a separate peace. It was a most unedifying procession, but there was a certain humorous element in it. Not only was their specific mission without any relation to the real situation in Russia, since the Russian democracy had no thought of making a separate peace; they were altogether out of touch with the feelings of Russia; in many cases people had to force themselves to take them seriously. They made the impression that their mission was simply to assure the Russian democracy that the French and British workers and Socialists were as good and faithful imperialists as their Governments. Fortunately the Russian democracy took their statements very sceptically, and in spite of their repeated assertions that they were the true representatives of Western Labour and Socialism, they were not believed.

These missions merely had a negative effect. They showed democratic Russia the weakness of the democracy in the Allied countries. The very fact that the Governments of these countries could choose the emissaries of Labour, and that in spite of the demands, not only of the Soviet, but even of the Provisional Government, the minority Socialists were unable to come, showed the Russian democracy how little help they could expect from the Allied democracies in their struggle for peace.

In speaking about the Allied missions, it is only just to record the sincere efforts made by Mr. Arthur