Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/140

Minister of foreign affairs, Dr. Edward Beneš, delivered a memorable address on the foreign policy of the Czechoslovak Republic in the committee on foreign relations of the National Assembly on January 30. The greater part of his speech dealt with the Russian situation and the policy of the Allies toward Russia. Because of its general interest it is given here in translation:

Even during the war, and while we were still in Bohemia, there was evident in our nation something like twofold orientation in the views taken of the world war and its possible outcome, as far as we ourselves were concerned. There were some who believed that Russia would win on the eastern front, would march into our territories and bring us independence. They believed in the immense strength of the Russian colossus which by its bulk would overwhelm Europe and would be the principal victor in the war against the Central Powers, thus gaining decisive influence on world politics. These men looked with romantic eyes on everything that was happening in Russia through the glasses of our traditional Slavophilism, lacking the critical faculty and the sense of reality, without comprehension for the social, political and economic conditions of Russia. In short they did not understand the Russian problem at all. Slavism meant to them a misty dream about solidarity and co-operation with Russians, Poles and other Slavs. And this attitude was accompanied by the naive faith and hope that the great Slav colossus, regardless of others, by its own material strength, would solve the problem of other Slav nations and of all Europe. They did not see first of all that this colossus was substantially weaker than people believed; war demonstrated in spite of Russia’s great sacrifices that it was not prepared for war either technically or materially, either morally or politically, and that neither from the cultural, scientific or political point of view did Russia have enough comprehension for the problems of other Slavs. Right at the beginning of war it was made plain, how Russia understood the problem of the Jugoslavs, of the Czechoslovaks and of the Poles.

From the beginning President Masaryk refused to wager our whole campaign of liberation on the Russian card only, because at a time, when many among us believed in rapid Russian victory, he feared that Russia through the faults of its old regime would lose. When he came in May 1917 to Petrograd, where the liberal revolution was in power, he promptly wired to London that Russia was definitely lost for the Allies in the present war. That was not lack of love for Russia; it was knowledge of Russia which shows so clearly in his great book on Russia, where things that later came to pass were foretold.

It would be tiresome to tell, how the old Russian regime was even during the war unfavorable to us. But let me make it clear again: all this is not dislike of Russia, for we love it and we have best shown it through our soldiers. But old Russia did not understand us, and of course the bolsheviks did not understand us. The behavior of our army is a splendid example of our real feelings for Russia and of our entire policy toward Russia.

The course of the war smashed this whole conception and demonstrated that this view of Slav policy and Slav world was incorrect, politically immature and more or less impossible. But the war proved a great deal more. I had occasion to point out in other circumstances, in what light Slav nations showed themselves in this war. As to Russia, that has already been said; as to other Slav nations, it is necessary to admit that in comparison with western European states, England and France, the Slav nations were behind, because during the war in spite of their determination to play an important role—and they did play it—they were nevertheless in technical, material, cultural and administrative matters lagging considerably behind the Anglosaxon and French world. This condition is still to a large extent existent with reference to technical and economic matters, it is manifested in the administration and organization of the state. That is the way the western states look on the Slav states, Poland, Jugoslavia and even Czechoslovakia. We must take this judgment into account as an existing fact, to underestimate it would be a serious error. The Slav states in comparison with the Anglosaxons and the French do lack political experience, expertness in administration and organization, they lack training in various phases of politics and social life, they have not century-old traditions and thus are in this sense handicapped and will continue handicapped for a long time. In other words they have much to learn and prepare themselves for real political art which consists above all in knowing how to administer and organize, how to carry on modern economic life, create modern social institutions and modern political administration. East differs from the west in that it always indulges in big romantic planes; it imagines that politics means big gestures, to make history, to occupy the chair of minister or dictator and to issue orders, send out instructions, telegrams, commands, in general create great effect.