Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/143

 faces, if it will tackle the work of organization on a sensible basis and turn its back on all those excesses which the old regime and threat of intervention naturally called out, then through these economic relations the bolsheviks will adopt many institutions of the former regime, perhaps pervaded by a changed spirit; they will take over the whole construction of the old social order which will of course be so changed in its character and spirit that it would deserve the name of new regime compared with the old. I have no doubt that the intervention policy meant a policy of the old regime, while the triumph of the present policy will mean new regime.

The ministry of foreign affairs endeavored constantly to carry on policies of the new regime and would consider it radical mistake, in fact under present conditions extremely dangerous, for the Czechoslovak state to carry on policies of the old regime.

I believe that the bolsheviks will not find the solution to the Russian problem, that for lack of efficient workers they will be unable to organize the state properly and make it what they dream of making out of it. I believe that, their government will fall, because they also committed mistakes and even crimes and above all because they will be unequal to the tremendous task which the reconstruction of Russia means.

One more question we must face. We talk of future Russia and of future Slav policy, but we do not ask, whether future Russia will be so far advanced as to desire co-operation. It is for us so to shape our politics that Russia will desire to work with us in a Slav policy. Old Russia had a leaning toward Germany; now we do not know what sort of Germany will new Germany be. Former efforts at the rapprochement of Austria and Russia meant in reality the rapprochement of Russia and Germany. We must act so that the Russia of new regime will want to go with us in a policy of peace. A responsible minister cannot be blind to the possibility that the future Russia, unless it is governed by the new regime, may want to go with Germany against Poland regardless of us, especially should Poland commit great mistakes in its policy towards Russia. What would we do then? This is an eventuality with which we must reckon.

To resume: I have sketched a special conception of the Russian problem, of the problem of Slav statesmanship, of our entire national policy. I contrasted the old regime with the new regime. I believe that the world catastrophe called into being much that is new, a whole new generation. I belong to this new generation and will defend its policies. Ever and ever again my spirit soars back to the one corner of the earth where I spent perhaps the most beatiful week of my life. But let no one imagine that I am speaking of a happy first love or anything of that kind. The joys which fell to my lot there proceeded only from charms of nature which I had never before beheld. You may perhaps smile and class me in your mind as one of those morbid enthusiasts for nature who are always raving about it in that hackneyed and bombastic manner, with which Berlin book-keepers on their holidays spoil their fellow-travellers’ enjoyment of the finest views in the mountains. But I assure you that the region of which I am speaking really inspired me with a fervid love, and that perhaps I am only unfortunate in the choice of words with which to express this sentiment of mine.

Imagine that you suddenly stepped from a European apartment, furnished even in the most splendid style, into a magnificent Eastern room where every object would astonish you by its unusual form, differing with poetic boldness from the sober patterns of the West, or surprising at least because of the unusual radiance and peculiar grouping of colours, where a magical lustre would heighten the fairy-like impression of the whole, where a wonderfully sweet music of unknown and hidden instruments and a delicate blending of unfamiliar fragrances would intoxicate your senses, where your heated imagination would paint the magical figures of oriental poetry behind every curtain. Such was my state of mind when, after traveling for several days by rail and ship, I suddenly found myself in the midst of that distant region where the greenish waves of the sea with their metallic glitter flung their white foam at my feet with a medley of many-coloured and gracefully shaped shells, where I was surrounded by mountains which lifted their peaks higher and higher even far beyond the limit of eternal snow, where I saw forests of an unusual kind animated by the alert movements of strange animals, where the rich plant-life captivated me with the beauty and vividness of its colours, and intoxicated me with the strength of its delightful fragrance, and where even natural objects, familiar to me from my home, assumed a new and more magnificent aspect in the brilliant illumination of the southern sun.

If you have in your hands a map of Russian Empire, search at the southern border of the Black Sea for the name Novorossijsk. The black spot beside it has a very sober appearance upon the map.