For my part I always tried to follow that policy which would best bring about the most useful result with the least damage.  After the War the working masses in Europe had the greatest illusions about Russian communism and the Bolshevik organization.  Every military expedition against Russia signified giving the people the conviction that it was desired not to fight an enemy but to suffocate in blood an attempt at a communist organization.  I have always thought that the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the dictatorship of ignorance and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, and that hunger and death would follow violence.  There are for the peoples great errors which must be carried out in the very effort to benefit civilization.  Our propaganda would have served nothing without the reality of ruin.  Only the death by hunger of millions of men in communist Russia will convince the working masses in Europe and America that the experiment of Russia is not to be followed; rather is it to be avoided at any cost.  To exterminate the communist attempt by an unjust war, even if it were possible, would have meant ruin for Western civilization.

On repeated occasions I have counselled Rumania and Poland not to make any attempt against Russia and to limit themselves to defence.  Every unjust aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would have found the Entente disposed to further sacrifice to save two free nations, but any provocation on their part could not create secure solidarity.

When I assumed the direction of the Government in June, 1919, an Italian military expedition was under orders for Georgia.  The English troops, who were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy had, with the consent of the Allies, and partly by her own desire, prepared a big military expedition.  A considerable number of divisions were ready, as also were the ships to commence the transport.  Georgia is a country of extraordinary natural resources, and it was thought that she would be able to furnish Italy with a great number of raw materials which she lacked.  What surprised me was that not only men of the Government, but intelligent financiers and men of very advanced ideas, were convinced supporters of this expedition.

However, confronted by much opposition, I immediately renounced this undertaking, and renounced it in a definite form, limiting myself to encouraging every commercial enterprise.

Certainly the Allies could not suggest anything unfriendly to Italy; but the effect of the expedition was to put Italy directly at variance with the government of Moscow, to launch her upon an adventure of which it was impossible to tell the consequences.

In fact, not long afterwards Georgia fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks, who sent there an army of 125,000 men, and since then she has not been able to liberate herself.  If Italy had made that expedition she would have been engaged in a frightful military adventure, with most difficult and costly transport in a theatre of war of insuperable difficulty.  To what end?