THE OUTER WORLD AND THE SOVIETS 265
tressed Germans in various parts of Russia impossible by
systematically persecuting the recipients. To-day, when even
these slender possibilities of rendering help have ceased to
exist, the German people is faced by the weighty question:
What is to be done in future for the German famine: victims
in Russia?
It must be pointed out here that for a number of years
the German attitude afforded the Soviet Union not only
political and economic advantages, but also direct or indirect
moral support. Numbers of German scientists and journalists
endeavoured to make the public of Europe appreciate the
"interesting" and even "extraordinary" experiments of the
Soviets. From the time when the first German journalists
settled in Moscow dates the method of describing this or that
aspect of Soviet Russian life, such as industrial experiments,
technical developments, social service, etc., without making
any adequate attempt to describe the other side of the picture
in Soviet Russia—above all, the actual conditions under which
the majority of the population live. Only here and there,
and to some extent only superficially, has anything been said
about this side of Soviet Russian life.
It should be noted, however, that there were also German
correspondents in Moscow, even in the period just following
the Treaty of Rapallo, who paid some attention to the negative
aspects of the regime.
The second State which provides a good illustration of the
attitude of the European Powers towards the Soviet Union and
the (Question of rendering relief to the victims of famine is France.
It was also the feeling of insecurity which induced France
to seek close political, military and economic co-operation with
the Soviet Union. This development was accelerated by the
growing fear of the present Germany and of its alleged ajgpres-
siveness. The change at the Quai d'Orsay is the more remark-
able because until recently the Moscow propagandists used to
represent France as the type of the contemptible botogeois