RUSSIAN DISTORTIONS

Now that the Bolsheviks have committed the unpardonable sin of holding American ideas up to ridicule in a Moscow moving picture theatre it seems quite certain that their recognition by the United States will be indefinitely postponed. The clever satire of the American business man's conception of Red Russia as a waste of ruins, overrun by millions of razor-shy, bomb-throwing blackguards shows a sense of humor perhaps newly-born, as the Times correspondent insinuates, but in any case in an extremely healthy condition.

It is inevitable that American ideas of Russia should be distorted and highly colored by sensational stories. Even in peace times, the huge expanse, with its innumerable villages and comparatively few large towns, remained an unsolved mystery to most of the few people who troubled to visit it. And when the war out most of the communications, and only the picturesque accounts of the war reporters were forth-coming, the generally lurid impression was not modified. One was taught in school that Russia was composed of a very large number of peasants who slept on the stove and consumed a uniquely potent stimulant called vodka, guaranteed to baffle the coldest weather and the Czar, a glorious individual, at whose slightest whim the whole aggregation of peasants would gladly cast itself upon the bayonets of an enemy.

Russia's own literature did little to disped the haze of unreality which hung about the nation. The great novelists painted with minor tones of same colors in which the war correspondents revel; only recently, has anything resmbling a true photograph been discoverable,--queerly enough in the literature of the Revolution.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing was the first reaction of the world toward the Russian revolution. Nations which had been themselves born by revolution--which had been taught of and had thoroughly believed in the despotism and injustice of the Empire--did not hesitate to condemn the Revolutionists. After all, an empire was a perfectly orthodox and respectable form of government,, whether it was well-administrated or not. And this Red thing was new--sufficient condemnation alone. Fortunately, most nations have calmed their early fears, and as the Russian experiment has become more explicable. Europe has grown more tolerant. America, of course, is still irreconcilable. One can only hope that this latest Russian frivolity will not ruin permanently the Russian chances for American amiability.