XXVIII THE UNITED STATES IN ASIA

It must be fairly obvious to the reader in following my account of what I saw and heard in Siberia that I regard the whole adventure on the part of the United States in Siberia as a failure, whether it is regarded in the light of being an attempt at international diplomacy, military intervention, a gesture of friendship toward Russia, or an enterprise in the nature of insurance against the spread of Bolshevism.

Primarily, it began as a new campaign against Germany-to prevent Germany from getting possession of war-stores in Russia and Siberia and replenishing her stocks of food, munitions and men and to prevent her from penetrating the country for conquest. There was every reason for our being in Russia, both on the Archangel front, and in Siberia, to accomplish these ends. Our presence in Siberia alone was a menace to Germany, a threat of a thrust through her back door in combination with the other powers involved with us, including Russians, Czecho-Slovaks, British, French, Japanese and others interested and concerned.

But we went about it even before the armistice was dreamed of, in a tentative manner. We did not start a campaign, we began a debating society. We twiddled our thumbs all winter in Siberia, while the forces of evil, Bolshevist and others, took advantage of our lack of decision on anything and acquired a certain technique in a chicane suitable to the conditions existing to thwart us in any decision we might reach in the future.

We kept insisting that we were helping Russia by being in Siberia. The Czechs, the Russians and the Japanese knew that only action could help, and action meant fighting those who were ruining the country. We were helping Russia and Siberia in just about the manner a man might help a family which was being beaten and robbed by burglars if the man sat out on the front porch and remarked: “If this thing gets too serious, I am here with a gun to help.”

And while he sat there, the members of the family still alive, yelled frantically: “This is serious now—half my children are dead, and the biggest robber has me by the throat.”

Whereupon the visitor on the porch would reply: “If I do anything rough I will hurt somebody’s feelings. I don’t want to do that. But if you kill the robbers, then you have settled the affair yourself, with my moral support. But I am not quite sure the robbers are not in the right. I am your friend, if you win this fight; if the robber wins it, I want to make friends with him. In the meantime, I can supply you with a Red Cross nurse to bind your wounds if you escape alive; I can give you food if the robber steals or destroys all you have to eat; I can send you ministers to bury you with prayers if you are killed, or to preach to you if you are spared. I am a Good Samaritan but I must not interfere.”

While we were thus pausing and surveying the wreckage, human and material, various Cossack chiefs, schooled in the methods of the old régime, seized power and began building up principalities of their own—Kalmikoff as governor-general of the Ussuri district, and Semenoff as boss of the Trans-Baikal.

They used the old tricks of autocracy—swords and ceremony—which the people feared and by which they were impressed with demonstrations of physical power. Then to catch the imagination of the nations which wished to see Russia rehabilitate herself speedily, they began to talk in a patter, the key-note of which was, and is: “I stand for a free and reunited Russia, a Russia greater than the old.” Whereupon they proceeded to deny anything in the nature of freedom, and to disunite Russia. All they stood for, and still stand for, is their own glorification and reward and the gambler’s chance that they will inherit the throne of the Czars. If they cannot attain to such ambitions, at least they hope to sell out their usurped powers in case some figure of imperial lineage comes out of hiding to take the shattered crown.

We kept assuring the Siberians that our government stood as their friend, at the same time neither denouncing, nor interfering with these usurpers. The people, for all their abysmal ignorance, knew perfectly well what was going on—they recognized autocracy because they had to submit to it. And, speaking generally, the attitude of the United States was: “Why cannot you people get together and settle up this mess—all you have to do is come to an agreement, and reunite Russia!”

This while several civil wars were being fought in the country!

At home our press and public were making a hue and cry against Bolshevism. Yet in Siberia were Cossack chiefs with little armies opposed to the Bolshevists, but inactive because they were not sure what we might do. Our failure to throw in with these chiefs, led the Bolshevist leaders to hope, if not actually believe, that we favored Bolshevism, or at least did not dare fight it. At any rate, our “do nothing” policy allowed the Bolshevist leaders, crafty in intrigue, propaganda and organization, to whisper to their wavering adherents that the United States was passively favoring them and that recognition of the Bolshevist government was only a matter of time.

In effect, our operations for nearly a year, were a subsidy to Bolshevism. Our civilian-aid agencies were unwitting helpers to the secret Bolshevists of Siberia, for they gave comfort and encouragement to the idea that Bolshevism in Siberia was a success. We repaired a lot of damage that Bolshevism had done, before the people of Siberia could realize what the destruction meant—before they could learn for themselves what a mess they had made of things.

Our government did relief work, and became actually thereby an ally of the Bolshevist régime, though maintaining an attitude of non-interference—neutrality.

“One faction is as bad as another,” was the way our spokesmen put it. That was a comforting phrase, but not true. It meant blaming our own ignorance on the factions. It was on the same scale as the statement made so often after the outbreak of the war: “Europe has gone war-mad—one nation is as bad as the other,” a frame of mind which helped Germany. How the Bolshevist leaders must have chuckled when they heard that the United States classed them as no better and no worse than the Russians who were actively fighting Bolshevism, and opposing it in other ways. And the gallant Czechs were amazed and discouraged by our failure to coöperate with them to the extent they had been led to believe that we would.

Kalmikoff and Semenoff, more particularly the former, carried on executions by the wholesale. It was a system of eliminating such persons as might oppose them. Some of the victims were probably Bolshevists, but many of them were decent and orderly Russians from our viewpoint. They dared whisper their suspicions against the Cossack chiefs—that was enough to send them to the execution party.

For instance, men and women of Khabarovsk protested to Colonel Styer that Kalmikoff had their friends and relatives in prison and would shoot them. Colonel Styer took the matter up with Kalmikoff. That night fifteen or twenty men were chosen at random from the prison, taken out into a grove, and shot down. They did not know what they had been arrested for, they had never been tried.

This sort of thing went on for months after our forces were stationed in Khabarovsk. But with Washington giving strict orders that there should be nothing in the nature of “interference,” what could Colonel Styer do? Yet at the same time we were assuring the “loyal” Russians that our troops were on the ground for their protection.

To the Russians, who could not possibly fathom our policy and could not know what was going on between our commanders and Kalmikoff, it looked as if our troops were there to protect Kalmikoff while he decimated the population. And Kalmikoff continued to lift himself into power by the simple process of killing off everybody who objected to his assuming autocratic powers.

Yet Kalmikoff and Semenoff, if properly dealt with from the first, might have joined forces with us against the Bolshevists. They could not have opposed us. They both have certain qualities as military leaders, and while they undoubtedly are monarchists or “men on horseback,” they are certainly anti-Bolshevist. And if we had adopted an anti-Bolshevist policy from the start, this policy would have given us a point of contact with the Cossack chiefs. We could have demanded that they behave themselves, get busy and fight Bolshevists at the front.

But they camped down in Khabarovsk and Chita, clamped a tight lid on the press in their districts, and inspired the writing of articles for the local newspapers which extolled their own virtues as Russian patriots, and denounced the other Cossack chiefs with whom they were at odds. And the peculiar fact about this press campaign, was that when each told of the others faults and selfish ambitions, he was telling the truth, as truth goes in Siberia.

The press muzzled or subsidized, the whole country became befogged in a mass of rumors, gossip, lies and slander. The Americans heard all kinds of stories against the Japanese, as no doubt the Japanese heard the most fanciful tales about us; the Czechs became disgruntled and sullen because they felt we were not helping them as we should; if an American officer became friendly with a Russian and sought his views on the situation, another Russian sought the American out to warn him against his informant. Each Russian professed to be a “loyal” Russian. I found that all Russians are loyal Russians. The difficulty was to ascertain just what “loyal” meant. The test for us, should have been, loyal to what idea of government?

I am familiar with the assertion that our expedition was opposing the Bolshevists with armed force. When did we threaten any Bolshevists till the Bolshevists attacked us? Is inviting all factions to “get together” at Prinkipo, opposing Bolshevists? Is it opposing monarchists? Is it opposing hetmen who emulate Villa? Is it backing a democratic form of government in Russia?

One thing is certain—neither a monarchy nor a republic can be formed in all Russia so long as Bolshevism remains in the saddle. And our unwillingness to oppose Bolshevism was in effect giving it aid and strength. Many who were wavering in their sympathy for Bolshevism, turned to it again secretly when they saw what the Cossack chiefs were doing with apparent sanction of the United States.

Our attitude of neutrality in Russian affairs gave the Bolshevist agents their chance to decry our promises of aid. They said: “Look! The United States knows Bolshevism is too strong to quarrel with openly. Who is the United States standing in with? Your enemies, the Cossack chiefs, who are fighting us in order to restore to power the old régime. The United States stands back and allows the Cossacks to execute you. The American commanders protest mildly, but do the executions stop? No. The United States hopes the Cossacks will defeat us, but the United States does not dare fight, because they want to be able to make friends with us when we control the whole country. They know they will have to recognize us in time.”

No doubt Bolshevism will die out in time. All zealots are born despots, and Russia will not submit to the despotism of Bolshevism any more than it will submit from now on for a long period, to any form of cruel despotism. Can we claim, when Bolshevism burns out, to have aided in breaking its back?

Neutrality, between right and wrong, is a crime. It was invented by militaristic criminals who want to murder nations, and make sure that there will be no interference by neighbors.

The thug, murdering his victim, resents the interference of the passerby, by saying: “This is none of your business.” He demands neutrality.

So it has become a virtuous act for a nation, when two nations engage in war, to declare itself neutral. We realize now that something is wrong in this system, so we have devised the league of nations idea. This idea is nothing more than an agreement that there shall be no more neutrality. If a nation threatens war, all the others agree to take sides. The fact that all the others may combine against the aggressor, or the nation adjudged to be in the wrong, automatically prevents the war. Unless the aggressing nation feels strong enough to defy the others, or able to accomplish its purpose of destruction before the others can get into action.

But issues between nations are often beclouded, or the minds of peoples are befogged, or populations become divided over what is right and what is wrong. A league of nations, to operate according to the ideals of the idea, presupposes the ability of peoples, or their leaders, to make swift decision as to who is right and who is wrong. It calls for not merely national statesmanship, but international statesmanship—which is always for right.

We wanted to operate on the patient in Siberia but the doctors could not decide whether to take out the appendix of Bolshevism, or cut off the head that ached without a crown. The patient is still suffering from a bad appendix—and a violent headache.

We said at home that Bolshevism menaced the world. It had ruined Siberia. We were in Siberia with troops. We should have attacked Bolshevism on its native heath, and declared to Russia and the world that once the Bolshevists were whipped and knew they were whipped, we would stand beside the nation till it had reorganized itself in its own non-Bolshevist way.

Japan expected us to do those things, just as England did. We practically forbade Japan from going into Siberia without our sanction, or without us. We decried intervention or interference, and then proceeded to intervene. I do not care what other term is used in describing our landing an expedition in Siberia—it was intervention. It was a measure for the safety of Russia, and for our own protection.

The minute our first armed man stepped upon the dock at Vladivostok, we had intervened—we had interfered. It was our business to be effective, to justify our presence there, to act in the manner we thought proper and be responsible for our acts. All the others would have been glad to coöperate with us, I am sure.

In fact, all parties looked to us for leadership, regardless of what their private ideas or ambitions may have been. Japan was ready to coöperate with us, but we disgusted Japan by our failure to do anything but sit on the lid of the Pandora’s box in Vladivostok. Japan went ahead and did a few things on her own account, and then there were whispers in certain quarters that Japan wanted to grab Siberia.

If Japan did want to grab Siberia, it was because the lackadaisical attitude of the United States made Japan feel that whatever Japan did, the United States would not do much more than mildly protest.

I do not doubt that Japan would like to have Siberia, or at least the littoral of the Maritime Provinces with ownership or control of Vladivostok. She would like to hook that country up with Korea, and have a barrier between her own Empire and whatever Russia will develop or degenerate into in the future. And considering Japan’s position in Asia, her necessity for expansion, and more particularly her system of government, this ambition to control the Siberian littoral is consistent with her whole scheme of self-protection. The morality of the policy is not for discussion here.

England would have been willing to follow our lead, and coöperate with us. But tired of our dallying, England sent her forces up to the front, and took a chance of having the Trans-Siberian railroad break down between her advanced troops and their base. And England stands higher in the regard of Russia to-day than we do, and always will, despite the fact that we talked much of friendship for Russia and Siberia. England said little, but acted with troops in supporting the anti-Bolshevist forces.

I consider the Siberian campaign a failure, for the simple reason that what we failed to do in Siberia will eventually aid Germany. Germany is bound to penetrate Russia economically, and control the country financially unless we change our tactics. We went to Siberia to checkmate Germany—we have aided her. This is because the Russian will never take us seriously again—we are regarded nationally as a “bluff.”

We went into Siberia with armed forces to help Russia, and did little but talk, nurse the railroad, distribute pamphlets, and show pictures to prove to the Russians what a great nation we were—at home. Among the pamphlets we distributed was one in Russian, entitled: “If you want a republic we will show you how to build one.”

In effect, we told them that everything we did was right, and everything that they did was wrong. The wiser ones smiled, shook their heads, and tolerated us. How, they asked, are you showing us the way to build a republic if every time we submit a problem to you, you throw up your hands and say: “We cannot advise you, for that would be interfering. This is something you must settle for yourselves.”

There was no reason why, when the Siberian situation developed its own peculiar problem after the armistice, the Siberian expedition could not have been increased to a strength which would make it possible to protect itself, and carried out a definite policy in regard to Russia. If we could formulate no policy for Siberia which seemed to fit our national aims toward Russia and Siberia, our expedition should have been withdrawn.

I feel that none of the things we set out to accomplish in Siberia has been accomplished. And many of the things we wished to prevent, have been carried out by Bolshevist forces—at least we have had little if any hand in checking Bolshevist activities.

The American expedition degenerated from a military expedition into a political expedition, or probably what might be termed a diplomatic expedition. I maintain that it is a great error in governmental policy to attempt to turn a soldier into a diplomat, or a diplomat into a soldier. The soldier should not be called in until the policy of the nation had been clearly defined, and then the soldier should act, free from all political complications. An American military expedition should never leave our shores, till the government can tell its commander what to do, and his instructions should be defined in terms of action.

If Washington did not want to restrain “agitating peasants” by force of arms, it never should have allowed our forces to enter Siberia, or to remain a day after the signing of the armistice.

To land an expedition in a country, and then attempt to tell the country that we do not intend to interfere in its internal affairs, is absurd.

If a foreign power, during the Civil War, had landed military forces on the Atlantic coast, no matter how much that power had assured us that it did not intend to interfere, we would have demanded instant withdrawal. And in replying to assurances of a non-interfering intention, we would have replied: “You have already interfered—you are on our territory, and if you do not come to aid us, our enemy will be able to assert to his adherents, that you have come to aid him. You must do one of two things—fight with us or against us. We mistrust you, for we feel that if things should go against either side in this quarrel, you would throw your forces in with what appeared to be the winning side.”

And in Russia, and Siberia to-day, we are inclined to think that the issue is between Bolshevism and non-Bolshevism. It is a greater issue than that—it is a fight between an imperial form of government and a republican form of government.

When Maximilian set up his Empire in Mexico, we regarded it as an unfriendly act, and drove him out; and our own Monroe policy forbids foreign powers from landing forces for aggression or anything else in any part of the Western Hemisphere. No matter what a European chancellory might assert as the motive for sending a military expedition to this side of the world, we would regard it as an unfriendly act.

I wish it borne in mind that I am not attacking the administration for sending an expedition; but I am criticising the sending of an expedition; and having no policy.

We sat around all winter in Siberia, refusing to oppose “agitating peasants,” or “anti-Kolchak forces,” and when Spring came our own men were killed and captured at the Suchan Mines, not far from Vladivostok, by agitating peasants and anti-Kolchak forces, now revealed as Bolshevists. The errors of statesmen are corrected with the lives of soldiers.

What should we have done in Siberia? We should have done the only thing a military expedition is supposed to do—prevent disorder, insure safety to the inhabitants who go about their business, and demand that the Russians in such places as we occupied get busy with plans for government, and till they did so, go on and administer local government with their coöperation in accordance with our own ideas, and with our future intentions toward the people clearly stated and pledged.

That sounds like a big order. But those are the things we were expected to do by all hands—Russians, and our Allied interventionists. Also, no doubt, the decent element of our own country expected such action—and thought it was being done.

We have lost face in Asia, and if we ever find we wish to make a threatening gesture in that direction, we will not be taken very seriously till we have carried out the threat at large cost in blood and treasure. We may never have to make that threat, but we may be menaced from that direction some day, because Germany will expand in that direction, if not territorially at once, at least economically. And one thing we must realize—Germany has far better chances of merging with Asia than we have, because Asia understands the German idea.

Asia does not understand our ideas or ideals in government, and since seeing us operate in Siberia, is more puzzled with us than ever. Asia realizes our strength, and fears us for that reason alone; but she has seen our strength poorly demonstrated on her own soil, and she feels inclined to say: “Pooh! The giant of the Western Hemisphere is afraid of us, after all. He shakes his fist, but does not want to fight, he does not want to exert himself in this direction, he does not want to control us in any way. He is a good-natured giant, and there is no reason why we should fear his bluster.”

Asia is saying that herself. If ever the day comes when another power whispers to her that she is right about us, and that if she will join up with them we can be driven out of Asia and kept out, then Asia will in time be a serious menace to our peace and safety, and our existence as a nation with Western ideals.

We may think Asia is “slow”—in many ways Asia can out-think us. The land that had Confucius, the land of soul-searching which is India, the land of the Grand Lamas which is Thibet, the land which produced Buddha—they cannot be fooled.

We had better take care that we do not legislate ourselves into a feeling of security, till we have educated Asia as to our aims and purposes and feel that Asia feels as we do about the things we prize the most. Not till that time is it possible to federate the world, though we must attempt such a federation. Though the League of Nations may fail as a preventive of wars, it will serve humanity by revealing secret enmities and anti-American ideas, it will make for discussion of world interests, it will clarify our purposes, it will serve to educate nations about other nations. Though it never gets beyond anything but an international debating society (assuming that fact for the sake of argument) it gives the nations of the world a chance to go somewhere with their grievances. It will do much for the United States in making us internationally minded, though nationally conscious. No doubt President Wilson is actuated by some such idea in his willingness to forego many things he would like to have gained at the Peace Conference, if only the League of Nations is saved as an idea.

The nations need a safety valve. The old diplomacy served to conceal national aims and aspirations, either good or bad. The consequence was that one-half the world found the other half arrayed against it, and did not suspect it, till the war broke.

Asia must not be allowed to misunderstand us, and we must not misunderstand Asia. Europe, with the same civilization, got into conflict, by diplomatic concealment of opposing ideas. Frank discussions under the old-style diplomacy was something in the nature of an affront—we could not be frank with each other till we were at war. We need to look facts in the face, to argue a little more and fight less. We cannot assert that a condition exists merely because we wish it existed, we must tell the truth to Asia about ourselves and we must not be afraid to tell Asia what we want Asia to know, even though Asia may resent it. We must educate Asia to our ideas, or she will educate us to hers—which is subjection.

Asia’s history is a history of great conquests with intervening periods of degeneration. She rises and falls like tides between cycles of time. We have known her during a period in which she has bent the neck to the white man in various ways.

We have been teaching her to build modern machinery for construction and destruction. The old jig-saw geography of Asia is being juggled into a new pattern, and seems ready for a new era and a new master. She may develop another Ghengis Khan, another Tartar horde, (civilized in modern warfare this time) and our Chinese wall which we call the Pacific may not protect us.

This is not “Yellow Perilism” as we have understood it heretofore, but a consideration of the possibilities in all Asia during the next hundred years, under the ægis of a sort of Prussianism in a new form, welding China, India, Persia, Asiatic Russia and all the East to an idea which combats the American ideal of government.

As I have said, Asia can think. She almost has a league of nations in her religion (the various sects agree among themselves better than they all do with Christianity) and religion offers a splendid means of communicating an idea to numberless people who are otherwise illiterate. The Buddhist Mongol from Manchuria can carry a message to the far-off temples of the Himalayas, without cable tolls or cable censors.

Russia aflame with Bolshevism startled us. The propaganda had been going on a long time before we considered it a serious menace, because we did not believe that so many people could be trained to such absurd ideas by absurd promises. We did not understand the possibilities for united destruction in a vast, ignorant and subject people. We must understand Asia—or our children’s children will wash the pots in Asiatic sculleries.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling have been standardized.

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