Britain's Recognition of the Soviet Government

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DURING the last three years I have been approached by various people who have first professed complete agreement with what I have written in The Nineteenth Century (of which I became Editor in 1919) on the subject of the recognition of the Soviet Government by Great Britain,--and who have then asked me to print articles by themselves favoring traffic with and recognition of the Soviet Government! For this grotesque line, namely, hatred of Bolshevism combined with an eager desire to enter into friendly relations at once with Bolshevism, they have offered various arguments which are worth mentioning because, judging by public speeches in this country and by articles in many popular newspapers, they are by no means peculiar to a few propagandists; on the contrary, they are common-form among many thousands of people today in Great Britain. One of their explanations is in effect: "We must have World Peace or civilization will perish. If we do not adopt a friendly attitude towards the Soviet Government and go in with it there will soon be another World War, and then we shall all be destroyed." This is the popular nonsense known as pessimism. There is of course not the least likelihood of another World War on the scale of 1914-18 for at least some decades to come. Any great leader of armies, indeed any sane civilian who has thought at all about the matter, will, I think agree with this. As to civilization or the human race perishing, there was far more likelihood of this a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years ago, when the world's population was small, when there was frequent and furious internecine warfare, and when civilization--its material side at least--was minute compared with what it is today...