Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  I have said a lot about this Manchurian affair. It is important because it affects the future of China. But it is more important still because it shows up the League of Nations and its utter ineffectiveness and futility in the face of proved international wrong-doing. It also shows up the duplicity of the big European Powers and their intrigues. In this particular matter America (not a member of the League) tried to take up a strong attitude against Japan and almost drifted into war with her. But then the secret support that England and other Powers gave to Japan nullified America’s attitude, and, fearing isolation against Japan, America became more cautious. The League piously condemned Japan but did nothing to follow this up. The puppet State of Manchukuo was not to be recognized by the League members, but this non-recognition became little more than a farce.

  In spite of the League’s condemnation of Japan, British ministers and ambassadors go out of their way to justify Japanese action. This is a strange contrast to England’s behaviour towards Russia. In April 1933 some English engineers were tried in Russia for espionage. Some were acquitted, and two were sentenced to light terms of imprisonment. There was a great outcry at this, and the British Government immediately put an embargo on the entry of Russian goods into Britain. Russia responded by keeping out British goods.1

  So China lost Manchuria and much else, and Japan continued to threaten the rest of the country. Tibet was independent. Mongolia was a Soviet country allied to the Russian Soviet Union. China also had trouble in another huge province, Sinkiang or Chinese Turkestan, which lies between Tibet and Siberia. To Yarkand and Kashgar in this province go caravans regularly from Srinagar in Kashmir, via Leh in Ladakh. The population of this province consists largely of Muslim Turks. They are Chinese in their outlook and culture and even names. But they are very far from the heart of China and are cut off by the Gobi desert. Communications are very primitive. The bonds that tie them to China are not strong and there is a feeling of Turkish nationalism which breaks out from time to time. This vast area has been the scene of international intrigue ever since the Great War. England and Russia and Japan spy and intrigue against each other and the Chinese government, and support rival chiefs locally.

  Early in 1933 there was a Turkish revolt in Sinkiang; Yarkand and Kashgar fell and a republic was proclaimed. The British accused the Soviet of encouraging this revolt, but the Soviet openly charged the British with having instigated it with the object of creating a buffer State between China and Russia, like Manchukuo. Even the name of the British army officer who organized the revolt in Sinkiang is mentioned.

  Note:

  This revolt in Sinkiang was suppressed by the supporters of the Chinese Government, apparently with some unofficial help given by the Soviet authorities. Soviet prestige went up in Central Asia in consequence and British prestige fell.

  179

  The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics

  July 7, 1933

  Let us now go back to Russia, the land of the Soviets, and take up the thread of her story from where we had left off. We had reached January 1924, when Lenin, the leader and inspirer of the revolution, died. In the many subsequent letters that I have written to you since about other countries, Russia has frequently found mention. In considering European problems, or the Indian frontier, or the Middle-Eastern countries, Turkey and Persia, or the Far East, China and Japan, Russia has cropped up again and again. The fact must be becoming evident to you that it is very difficult, and indeed impossible, to separate the politics and economics of one nation from those of others. The inter-relations and interdependence of nations have grown tremendously in recent years, and the world is becoming, in many ways, a single unit. History has become international, a world history, and can only be understood even as regards one country if we keep looking at the world as a whole.

  The enormous area covered by the Soviet Union in Europe and Asia stands apart from the capitalist world, and yet everywhere it comes into contact, and often into conflict, with this other world. I have told you in previous letters of the Soviet’s generous Eastern policy, of the help given to Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, and of its intimate relations with China, followed by a sudden break. I have also told you of the Arcos raid in England, and of the “Zinoviev letter” which turned out to be a forgery, but which nonetheless influenced a British general election. Now I want to take you to the centre of Soviet land to watch the development of the strange and fascinating social experiment that was taking place there.

  The first four years after the Revolution, from 1917 to 1921, had been a period of fighting to preserve the Revolution from a host of enemies. It was a thrilling and dramatic period of war and revolt and civil war and starvation and death, brightened up by the crusading zeal of the masses and the heroism shown in defence of an ideal. The immediate reward was nothing, but great hopes and promises filled the people and made them bear their terrible sufferings and forget even, for a while, their empty stomachs. This was the period of “militant communism”.

  Then came a slight relaxation when Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy, or NEP, in 1921. It was a going back from communism, a compromise with bourgeois elements in the country. This did not mean that the Bolshevik leaders had changed their objective. All it meant was that they had taken a step back to rest and recuperate in order to be able to take several steps forward again later. So the Soviets settled down and faced the mighty problem of building up a nation that had been largely destroyed and ruined. In order to build and do constructive work, they wanted machinery and material, such as railway-engines and carriages and motor-trucks and tractors and factory equipment. They had to buy these in foreign countries, and they had little money for them. They tried therefore to get credits in these foreign countries so that they might be able to pay for the goods they bought in convenient instalments. Credits could only be obtained when the countries were on speaking terms with each other, not if they did not recognize each other officially. Soviet Russia was therefore very keen on getting recognition from the big Powers and having diplomatic and trade relations with them. But these big imperialist Powers hated the Bolsheviks and all their works; to them communism was an abomination that must be put down. They had, indeed, tried their best to put it down during the wars of intervention, and they had failed. They would have preferred to have no dealings with the Soviets. But it is difficult to ignore a government which happens to control one-sixth of the whole surface of the earth. It is still more difficult to ignore a good customer who is prepared to buy a great deal of expensive machinery. Trade between an agricultural country like Russia and industrial countries like Germany, England, and America was beneficial to both sides, for Russia wanted machinery and could supply cheap food and raw material.

  The U.S.S.R. Opens up Central Asia

  The pull of the pocket was at last greater than the hatred of communism, and nearly all countries recognized the Soviet Government, and many of them made trade treaties with it. The only Power that consistently refused to recognize the Soviets was America. There has, however, been trade between Russia and the United States of America.1

  In this way the Soviets established relations with most of the capitalist and imperialist Powers, and to some extent they profited by the rivalries of these Powers, as they did when defeated Germany turned to them in 1922 and the Rapallo Treaty was signed. But the compromise was a very unstable one, and there was a fundamental incompatibility between the two systems—capitalist and communist. The Bolsheviks were always encouraging the oppressed and exploited people, both the subject peoples in colonial countries and the workers in factories, to rise against their exploiters. They did not do so officially, but through the Comintern or Communist International. The imperialist Powers, on the other hand, and especially England, were continually intriguing against the very existence of the Soviets. So there was bound to be trouble, and there was frequent conflict, resulting in a break of diplomatic relations and in war scares. You will remember my telling you of the breach with Eng
land that followed the Arcos raid in 1927. This friction is easy to understand, as England is the leading imperialist Power and Soviet Russia represents an idea which strikes at the root of all imperialism. But there seems to be something even more than that between these hostile countries, something of the hereditary and traditional enmity which existed for generations between Tsarist Russia and England.

  The fear today in England and other capitalist countries is not so much of Soviet armies, as of something more intangible and yet more powerful and dangerous, of Soviet ideas and communist propaganda. To counter this a continuous and largely untrue propaganda is kept up against Russia, and the most amazing stories about Soviet villainy are circulated. British statesmen use language against the Soviet leaders which they have never used except against their enemies in war-time. Lord Birkenhead referred to the Soviet statesmen as “a junta of assassins” and “a junta of swollen frogs” at a time when the two countries were supposed to be not only at peace, but had diplomatic relations with each other. Under these conditions it is obvious that there can be no really friendly relations between the Soviets and the imperialist Powers. The differences between them are fundamental. The victors and vanquished of the World War may come together, but not the communist and capitalist. Peace between the latter two can only be temporary; it is but a truce.

  One of the recurring grounds of dispute between Soviet Russia and the capitalist powers was the repudiation of foreign debts by the former. This is not a live issue now as, in these hard times, almost every country is defaulting in the payment of debt. But still the subject crops up from time to time. Soon after the Bolsheviks came to power they repudiated the former Tsarist debts to other countries. This policy had been declared as early as the unsuccessful revolution of 1905. Consistently, the Soviets also gave up such claims as they had on the eastern countries, China, etc. Further, they did not claim any share in Reparations. In 1922 the Allied governments presented a memorandum to the Soviets on the question of these debts. To this the Soviets replied reminding the governments how many of the capitalist States had in the past repudiated debts and obligations, and confiscated the property of foreigners. “Governments and systems that spring from revolutions are not bound to respect the obligations of fallen governments.” The Soviet Government especially reminded the Allies of what one of them, France, had done during her great revolution.

  The French Convention, of which France declares herself to be the legitimate successor, proclaimed on the 22nd December, 1792, that the ‘sovereignty of people is not bound by the treaties of tyrants’. In accordance with this declaration, revolutionary France not only tore up the political treaties of former regimes with foreign countries, but also repudiated her national debt.

  In spite of this justification of repudiation, the Soviet Government was so keen to come to terms with the other Powers that it was perfectly prepared to discuss the question of debt with them. But it took up the position that such discussion could take place only after the foreign government had given unconditional recognition to the Soviets. As a matter of fact the Soviet gave many assurances about payment of obligations to England, France, and America, but there was no great eagerness on the part of the capitalist Powers to come to terms with Russia.

  As against the British claim the Soviet had made an interesting counter-claim. The total British claim against Russia for government and war debts and railway bonds and commercial investments amounted to about £840,000,000. The Bolsheviks counter-claimed from Britain for her share of the damage done during the Russian Civil War, as Britain and British forces had supported the enemies of the Soviets. The total damage was estimated at £4,067,226,040, and of this Britain’s share was said to be approximately £2,000,000,000. So that the counter-claim was nearly two and a half times as great as the claim.

  In making this counter-claim the Bolsheviks were not on very weak ground. They gave the famous instance of the Alabama cruiser. This cruiser was built in England for the Southern States during the American Civil War of the sixties. The cruiser left Liverpool after the Civil War had begun, and it did a great deal of damage to the shipping and trade of the Northern States. England and America were on the verge of war. The United States Government claimed that England had no business to hand over the cruiser to the Southern States during war-time, and they claimed compensation for all the damage it had caused. The matter was referred to arbitration, and ultimately England had to pay £3,229,166 to the United States as damages.

  England’s part in the Russian Civil War was far more important and effective than this supply of a cruiser for which she had had to pay such heavy damages. During the wars of foreign intervention in Russia, it has been officially stated by the Soviet that 1,350,000 lives were lost.

  This question of Russia’s old debts has only been partly decided so far, but it is losing all importance through sheer lapse of time. Meanwhile, we see great capitalist and imperialist countries like England, France, Germany, and Italy doing almost the very thing which had shocked them so much in Russia’s case. It is true they do not repudiate their debts or challenge the basis of the capitalist system. They merely default and do not pay.

  Soviet policy with other nations was one of peace at almost any cost, for they wanted time to recuperate, and the great task of building up a huge country on socialistic lines absorbed their attention. There seemed to be no near prospect of social revolution in other countries, and so the idea of a “world revolution” faded out for the time being. With Eastern countries Russia developed a policy of friendship and co-operation, although they were governed under the capitalist system. I have told you of the network of treaties between Russia and Turkey and Persia and Afghanistan. A common fear and dislike of the great imperialist Powers were the link that joined them.

  The New Economic Policy which Lenin introduced in 1921 was meant to win over the middle peasantry to socialization. The rich peasants, or kulaks, as they are called—the word kulak means a fist—were not encouraged, as they were capitalists on a small scale and resisted the process of socialization. Lenin also started a huge scheme for the electrification of rural areas, and mighty electric plants were put up. This was meant to help the peasants in many ways and to prepare the way for the industrialization of the country. Above all, it was meant to produce an industrial mentality among the peasantry, and thus to bring them nearer to the town workers or proletariat. The peasants, whose villages were lighted up by electricity and much of whose farm work was done by electric power, began to get out of the old ruts and superstitions and to think on new lines. There is always a conflict between the interests of the city and the village, the town-dweller and the peasant. The worker in the city wants cheap food and raw material from the countryside and high prices for the factory goods he makes; the peasant, on the other hand, wants cheap tools and other factory goods from the city and high prices for the food and raw materials he produces. This conflict was becoming acute in Russia as a result of the four years of militant communism. It was largely because of this and in order to relieve the tension that the NEP was introduced and the peasants were given facilities for private trading.

  Lenin was so keen on his scheme for electrification that he used a formula that became famous. He said that “electricity plus Soviets equals socialism”. Even after Lenin’s death this electrification continued at a tremendous pace. Another way of influencing the peasantry and improving agricultural methods was to introduce large numbers of tractors for ploughing and other purposes. The Ford Company of America supplied them. The Soviets also entered into a very big contract with Ford for the construction of a huge motor plant in Russia which could produce as many as 100,000 automobiles every year. This plant was meant chiefly for tractors.

  Another activity of the Soviets, which brought them into conflict with foreign interests, was the production and sale abroad of oil and petrol. In Azerbaijan and Georgia in the Caucasus there is a rich oil-producing area. Probably this is part of the larger oil area which spre
ads to Persia, Mosul, and Iraq. Baku, on the Caspian Sea, is the great oil city of South Russia. The Soviets started selling their oil and petrol abroad at cheaper rates than those charged by the great oil companies. These oil companies, like the Standard Oil Co. of America, and the Anglo-Persian, the Royal Dutch Shell Co., and others, are very powerful, and practically control the petrol supply of the world. The under-selling by the Soviets caused great loss to them and angered them greatly. They started a campaign against Soviet oil, calling it “stolen oil”, because the oil wells in the Caucasus had been confiscated by the Soviet from their previous capitalist owners. After a while, however, they came to terms with this “stolen oil”.

  I have been constantly referring to the “Soviet” or “Soviets”, in this and other letters. Sometimes I have talked of “Russia” doing this or that. I have used all these words rather loosely to mean the same thing, and I must now tell you what this thing is. Of course you know that the Soviet Republic was proclaimed in November 1917, in Petrograd, after the Bolshevik Revolution. The Tsarist Empire was not a compact national State. Russia proper dominated over a large number of subject nationalites both in Europe and in Asia. There were nearly 200 of such nationalities, and they varied tremendously. In the Tsar’s time they were treated as subject peoples, and their languages and cultures were to a greater or less extent suppressed. Practically nothing was done for the improvement of the backward peoples in Central Asia. The Jews, although they had no special area to call their own, were one of the worst treated of the minority communities, and Jewish pogroms, or massacres, were notorious. This led to many people from these oppressed nationalities joining the Russian revolutionary movement, although their chief interest was in a national revolution and not a social one. The Provisional Government after the February Revolution of 1917 made many promises to these nationalities, but in effect did nothing. Lenin had, on the other hand, from the early days of the Bolshevik Party, long before the Revolution, insisted on giving each nationality the full right of self-determination even to the extent of complete separation and independence. This was a part of the old Bolshevik programme. Immediately after the Revolution the Bolsheviks, now the Government of the country, reaffirmed their faith in this principle of self-determination.