Forgery?

When Secretary of State Hughes declined overtures for recognition from the Soviet Government (TIME, Dec. 31), he published as justification an appeal for armed organization by the Third Internationale to the Workers' Party of America. Thereupon certain Senators charged that there was no connection between the Third Internationale and the Soviet Government, and the bearded leader of the Senate Republicans promised to undertake an investigation. Thereupon other whiskered gentry in far off Russia took up the hue with shouts of "forgery." Thus was the battle of the beavers begun.

Secretary of State Hughes in refusing to recognize the R. S. F. S. R. (Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republics) did so on the grounds that the Russian Government was seeking the overthrow of our Government. As an evidence of this he published instructions issued by Zinoview on behalf of the Third Internationale and then to couple the Third Internationale and the Soviet Government he published extracts of an editorial from Izvestia (Information) organ of the Russian Government.

The Russian Charges: Tchicherin, Soviet Foreign Minister, declared the Hughes documents to be unmitigated forgeries. Steklov, author of the editorial, claimed that his words had been misrepresented by the choice of unfair passages and by the addition of matter not in the original, "a conscious forgery."

The State Department had a copy of Izvestia and issued a complete translation of the entire article. Another copy of the same issue (Nov. 27, 1922) was found in the New York Public Library and translated by The New York Times. On account of the impossibility of literally translating a Slavic language, the translations varied in wording. Their substance was unmistakably identical and vindicated the State Department of the charge of deliberate falsification or forgery. The continued repetition of such phrases as these referring to the Soviet Republic and the Third Internationale indicate the tenor of the questioned editorial: "Organic connection," "organic and spiritual bond," "closest tie," "spiritually and materially bound," "will give each other the maximum help," "mutual solidarity," "intellectual, moral and material tie."

The Domestic Objections: A number of Senators, notably Senator Borah of Idaho, asserted that the editorial in question was not conclusive evidence. They pointed out that the Third Internationale is a body with membership from over 50 nations, although its seat is in Moscow, and that even if it be chiefly supported by the Communist Party, that Party is not the Russian Government. Mr. Borah went on to point out that neither Lenin nor Trotsky attended the meeting of the Third Internationale held immediately after the Izvestia, editorial was published.

In contrast with this contention is the attitude of John Spargo as reflected in a published letter. Mr. Spargo's words should doubtless be weighed in the light of his antecedents: He was born in Cornwall, and early became a Socialist. He came to the U. S. in 1901 and rose to a place on the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party. In 1917, he resigned from that Party as a protest against its anti-War policy. He is known as a strong opponent of Bolshevism, and now raises bees and flowers at his home, "Nestledown," in Vermont. He said: "No one who has carefully observed the tortuous course of the Soviet regime in Russia, with respect to both its foreign policies and domestic affairs, can entertain any sensible doubt that Secretary Hughes is entirely correct in his contention that the Soviet Government, the Russian Communist (Bolshevist) Party and the Communist (or Third) Internationale are in reality three phases of one movement. The interlocking directorates of the three, together with the spiritual identity manifested by an unbroken and unfaltering unison of avowal and of practice, conclusively prove that the interrelationship is not casual or accidental or unimportant. Nothing could well be further removed from political realism than the theory that relations can be had with the Soviet Government wholly without regard to the Bolshevist Party or the Third Internationale."