The Henson Journals

[194]

Tuesday, October 26th, 1920.

I read through before getting up, Mrs Philip Snowden's "Through Bolshevik Russia", an extremely interesting, informing, and, I must needs think, honest account of her impressions of Russia under the règime of Lenin and Trotsky. It goes without saying that her Socialist prejudices are not wholly disguised, but she has a good head and a generous heart. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that our attitude towards Russia has been an almost incomparable blend of cynicism and sheer folly. The popularity of the Russian Church in spite of the hostility of the Bolshevists is very apparent, and may suffice to ensure the ultimate downfall of their system. Yet the great efforts which they are evidently making to manipulate education in the interest of their materialistic theory of life cannot be without permanent effect of the worst kind on the town populations, where alone they can be maintained. The peasants, scattered in small communities over a vast area, cannot be brought speedily under any scheme of education: and they form the vast majority of the Russian people. Mrs Snowden's description of Lenin is not attractive: He possesses "the deadly certainty that he is right and everybody who differs from him is wrong, of the scholar and fanatic who would sacrifice his own head as readily as he would sacrifice yours in the believed interests of the thing he loves. Lenin is above all things the keen–brained, dogmatic professor in politics". As a Socialist Mrs Snowden has had plenty of opportunities of studying that type in this country.

[195]

I went across to Auckland Castle for lunch. Matters there were in considerable confusion, though some faint beginnings of order had been made. I motored back to Durham. The following reached me:

"The members of the Hereford Board of Finance, while congratulating you on your appointment to the important see of Durham, desire to express the regret which they share with the diocese at large at your departure from among them, and at the same time gratefully acknowledge the active and always stimulating interest which you have consistently taken in their work".

I sent a suitable acknowledgement to this corteous resolution, which I record here as possibly useful in apologetic presently!

I dined with the Bishop of Jarrow and Mrs Quirk – kindly people. Having no books in my room at the Castle, I borrowed from the Bishop of Jarrow the only readable volume I could find in his study – Lord Rosebery's "Napoleon, the last phase". The collapse of the Kaiser has added a new interest to the history of the despot, whom he sought to imitate. The chapter on "the deportation" is a very just estimate of the actual situation which confronted the British Government when Napoleon surrendered himself. "We may then consider it as admitted and established that Napoleon could never again be a free agent. It was hard for him, but he had been hard on the world. And in a sense it was the greates compliment that could be paid him". But we can afford to ignore the Kaiser at Amerongen.

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