CHAPTER VI
THE INTERNATIONAL AT LUCERNE (JULY, 1919)
It was not the full International, but the special Council appointed by it which met at Lucerne in July of 1919. This time my position was that of a representative of the Press, and not a delegate. I had an honorary commission from a London daily newspaper to report the proceedings of the Conference. I am afraid my report was not too sympathetic. Everybody felt the same thing in some degree. Far too much time was wasted on petty national squabbles. The old fight on responsibility for the war was taken up with renewed lustiness. French and Germans yelled at one another, like children in a street squabble, with the old vituperativeness. Meantime the crime of Paris had been committed, and the world was shrieking from its gaping and undoctored wounds. A problem presented itself to me: How to make a genuine International out of men so filled with national hates and envies that they were at one another’s throats for the slightest word! Of course, I am sure they said a great deal more than they meant. They always do at Socialist conferences. Nobody could stay for five minutes in any Socialist Party I know, if he believed that all the abuse and violence of language used by members against one another were intended to be taken at their face value. But it seemed pitiful that the old vice of talking and saying nothing should have possessed the International at such a tragic time in the world’s history. Apart from the awfulness of the Peace, the persecution of the Jews and the Hungarian counter-revolution should have absorbed the attention of any body of enlightened Socialists sitting in conference.
Lucerne is not a good place for a congress. It is too beautiful. The delegates wanted to be out amongst the mountains or to be dipping their hands into the lake as they rowed lazily on its still surface. The most inveterate lover of eloquence could not get up any enthusiasm for such indoor sport when he saw the bright sun on the dancing waves and mopped his moist brow on his cool handkerchief.
I arrived at the Conference late on account of special difficulties about my passport. On the way I had a curious experience. It happened at Berne. I had broken my journey there and taken the evening train. Into the carriage stepped a dark-haired girl who evidently knew me, as she called me by my name, and asked if I would mind her smoking “one little cigarette,” a very mild one. When she had lit it she settled herself in a corner; and then began a conversation which I speedily discovered was designed to elicit information. She appeared particularly interested in Mr. J. R. Macdonald. I evaded all her questions about Mr. Macdonald, but to silence her on the subject said she should have an introduction to Mr. Macdonald the next day at the Conference. Her story of herself was interesting. She had married an Englishman and divorced him. She had one delicate little son. She had married again, a Hungarian, a Socialist who had accepted a position in the Hungarian Social-Democratic Government. She was going to join him soon. She had been in England, the guest of Miss Hobhouse. She was extradited from England as a pacifist. I recalled some story about Miss Hobhouse having entertained unawares a foreign Government agent. Was this the woman? I introduced her next day to Mr. Macdonald, having previously cautioned him. He was quite convinced she was pursuing her avocation. But what was that? Was she a spy?
Some of our delegates were rather apt to imagine everybody was a spy. One of them was taken to see a certain Austrian diplomat, and all the time the taxi was rattling there he was looking out of the little window at the back, quite, quite certain that the cab was being followed by he didn’t know whom—but somebody!
The personnel of the International gathering in Lucerne was very largely the same as at Berne. Bernstein was there looking very much better in health than in Berne. He is generally regarded as the patriarch of German Socialism. He was one of the victims of Bismarck’s anti-Socialist legislation, and lived in exile in Switzerland and England for some years. He is known for his personal kindness and toleration. His revisionist proclivities would place him beyond the pale with Lenin and Trotsky. Although a man of immovable faith he was not fond of blinding himself with illusions. He expected less of mankind than Eisner or Keir Hardie. His adversaries described him variously, some as an Anglomaniac, others a Frankophile, the pan-Germans as a “damned Jew.” His friends knew him to be a true Internationalist, a good European. He published a book of reminiscences in 1917, in which he expressed all his really tender love for England. This contains fascinating pictures of famous English men and women he had known. The years in England were the happiest years of his life. This book, published in Germany in 1917, had a considerable success there. (Remember, the war was still raging.) An English edition of it has only just (1921) been produced!
After Versailles, many of his friends thought that he, and only he, would be the right person to represent the new Germany at the Court of St. James. How little they knew the mentality of Downing Street! The reactionary Foreign Office officials of Berlin knew a great deal better than that. They sent a patrician from the Hansa. German Socialists were good enough to help break Imperial Germany, but British junkerdom would scarcely find them tolerable as ambassadors. Even a Socialist Government would be well advised to send a reactionary to London. The wheels would go round more smoothly. When, a few months later, Edouard Bernstein wanted to come to London to attend a conference, in spite of his pro-English record he was refused a visum. Public opinion abroad is steadfastly of the opinion that England does not know her enemies. It is manifest she does not know her friends. I have watched carefully and have come to the conclusion that those aliens who never failed in their friendship for England during the war are having a worse fate at the hands of our Foreign Office than those who hate her most. I know of at least three cases of almost outrageous German pro-Britons who have received treatment from the British Government which ought to make them contemptuous of this country till the end of their days. But it will not. I know them too well to believe that it will make the slightest difference.
I was interested to see Dr. Smeral and Dr. Nemec at Lucerne. They had impressed me at Berne. They were the two Czecho-Slovak delegates. They used to be called “the Inseparables.” Now they are the bitterest enemies. Smeral is the leader of the Czech Communists; Nemec the leader of the Majority Socialists. Smeral is an enormously fat man with clear eyes, and is usually as silent as a statue of Buddha. He did not speak at either of the conferences. Nemec on the other hand startled the Conference at Berne with a fighting speech of the first order, though nobody knew what it was all about! Czecho-Slovakia was one of the very few winners in the war, and yet he spoke full of hatred, passion, aggressiveness. He is a sprightly little man, with a red nose and a perpetual twinkle in his eye. Part of the Conference laughed good-humouredly at the tirade; others, not understanding, were bored to tears. Finally Dr. Nemec was stopped by the chairman, and he receded from the platform firing shots as he went, at the chairman, at the Conference, at the Allies, protesting, protesting, protesting!
It was explained afterwards that the whole performance was due to mere force of habit. Having been for ten or twenty years one of the most virulent leaders of the Czech Opposition in the Austrian Parliament, Dr. Nemec mistook the Berne Conference for the Vienna Parliament!
Dr. Smeral is supposed to be one of the strongest and clearest intellects in continental Socialism. Without being reticent he is not exactly talkative. He was in Moscow shortly before I went there, and came back with the exactly opposite opinion. I do not know what he saw there, what he was told, or what was the point of view from which he examined things. I am sure his opinion was honestly formed. I hope he believes that mine was the same. Lenin has thought fit to change! Smeral may do so also.
After his return to Prague the split in the Socialist Movement, which has happened in almost every country, took place. Smeral’s followers took violent possession of the Socialist headquarters, printing-press, etc., and ejected Nemec and his group. For weeks no attempt was made by the Czech Government to restore law and order. Finally the Communist minority had to give way. Smeral’s part in all these petty adventures is not clear; but he is certainly the silent and menacing figure on the horizon of Czecho-Slovakia’s political future.
His demonstration of how it was possible to grow rich by spending money amused me. He came to Switzerland from Prague, stayed several weeks in a good hotel, returned to Prague, and had more crowns in his pocket on his return than when he left! What is the answer to the riddle? A fallen exchange.
I was having tea in the hotel one day when an extraordinary figure of a man appeared at the door. He had a curly black beard and long wavy hair! He wore a big red tie and a dirty flannel shirt. In his hand was a black slouch hat, and on his feet a pair of sandals. He was carrying a packet of pamphlets written by himself and asked me to accept one. He also invited me to come to a meeting at the Volkshaus to be held that evening. I promised I would do my best, and he appeared satisfied and shambled out of the room a little abashed by something. Nobody knew who he was, but later in the evening the rumour was afloat that an eccentric American millionaire Socialist was trying to get up a Bolshevik agitation, and was canvassing the delegates for support. I heard afterwards that his meeting was a failure.
A character I met of a different sort, and anything but a Socialist, was a Russian diplomat of the ancien régime. He was at one time Russia’s Chargé d’Affaires at Berne. The sight of him swinging his cane along the Lucerne boulevard reminded me of his interesting career. He had the reputation of being the most intelligent diplomat in Switzerland; of his private character the most merciless stories were openly told. It was taken for granted that even before the Revolution he had been in the pay of the Austrians, but as an excellent Russian patriot he took the Austrian money and gave them Tartar news! He was elegant, amiable, and amazingly frank. Contrary to many of his colleagues, he did not pretend in the least to have any liking for democracy. He was a thorough reactionary, not only in feeling but in ideas. He did not merely abuse the Bolsheviks. He studied and analysed them. He was extremely cynical but clear thinking. He had marvellous powers of conversation, and could describe things with a fullness of language that made them stand out in the imagination of the listener. Under the spell of his voice the old Russia stood clear as the new.
During the Peace Conference he pretended to be Clemenceau’s chosen instrument against Bolshevism. Many people in Berne who were waiting to be admitted to the holy precincts of the city of Peace paid him large sums of money to procure them a French visum. Some of them are said to have succeeded in getting one. Others gave up their money, their hopes and their Peace Conference!
In those days his funds ran low. With the assistance of his beautiful wife he established a gambling salon at his flat, where a number of young diplomats, and very many of the aristocratic refugees from the Central Empires, were thoroughly plucked. Berne being rather a dull place, and the waiting for visa rather tedious, this establishment became an invaluable social convenience.
Continuing to live at the very height of extravagant luxury he could not avoid his financial collapse. His costly furniture was sold, and one day his orders—Russian, Austrian, Italian, German, English—some of which were of solid gold, were passed on a beautiful plate round the cafés of Berne for sale.
Whatever the truth about his character, it was a fact that most of the diplomats of Berne on both sides would have nothing to do with him. During his last few months in Switzerland he divorced his wife, on which occasion it was revealed that his wedding a dozen years before was attended by the cream of the Russian aristocracy and that he owned vast estates in Russia. He is rumoured to have left Berne for South America in the company of the beautiful blonde manicurist of the Belle Vue Hotel! Sic transit gloria mundi.
Miss Catherine Marshall appeared at the Lucerne Conference. She is one of the ablest of the feminists of Great Britain. For some years she had been very ill, the victim of overwork and overstrain. It was feared she might not return to public life. Her appearance in Lucerne gave everybody pleasure. She was lately returned from Germany, whither she had gone in defiance of prohibitions, and had a strange, sad story to tell. Reckless of her own delicate health she had lived as the people live, and showed marks in herself of the poverty of that living. The restlessness of her mind and body were evidence of continued ill-health, and I strongly pressed her to go home and take a quiet time in the country somewhere. The most pitiful thing in creation is the nervous woman unable to rest. The deliberate waste of great powers by their ill-regulated use robs the gift of them of half its worth. Together we walked in the woods and on the hill slopes of Lucerne, and I talked to her, with the cruel candour of a friend, of the need for “going slow” if she wished to do more good work for the cause of women.
At the end of four days I returned to Berne to prepare for a longer journey than I had hitherto taken. I would make an effort to go to Vienna.