WHAT IS THE REAL RUSSIA?

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1926, Page 17

WHAT IS THE REAL RUSSIA?

VAST INCHOATE EMPIRE. \ CONIXICTING VTEWS. \ ■ i TT4S IT A XEW RELIGIOX7 j » (By E.L-C.W.) c < LOXDOX, February 3. What is that vast inchoate empire j 3 which sprawls across the Eurasian map? ( What can we believe of Russia? We nave travelled a long way from that , ecstatic moment of the revolution when | ( Russia, intoxicated with freedom, could!, do nothing but talk about it. _ That ! , indeed is the trouble with Russia. Tt j . is always ready to talk, seldom, if ever, i • given to quick action. What high hopes j ■ we held of the new regime we. of course, J . know. A country which regarded the tenets of Tolstoy and the calm philosophy of a Kropotkin as their gospels j would surely bring out of this great i upheaval something good. That good is now far to find. Still there are those who think that some good will come out of the Bolshevik regime, which has been in the saddle for a considerable period as revolutionary epochs go. It is hard to obtain for one's own mind clear cut ideas about Russia. Some new things will come out of it and only by understanding, even sympathy, can one see what Russia stands for, so that we may be able, if necessary, to help the good or stem the bad originating in it. Two books of thrilling interest give us studies of Russia at close quarters. Both of them were written by women who went to Russia prepared to find in a revolution, which threw down, the system of the Czars, a good thing. One is "My Disillusionment in Russia, 1 ' by Emma Goldman (C. W. Daniel Co.), the other is "The Underworld of State," by Mrs. Stan Harding (Allen and Unwin, Ltd.). Both these writers throw a lurid j light on the state of Russia as it was | under the extreme Marxism of Lenin. The Truth as She Saw It. j Emma Goldman's book has its special j importance, which Rebecca West, in a j foreword, puts thus: "In this book Emma j Goldman is telling the truth as she saw it. And that her sight was accurate enough is very likely, since for one thing she is a Russian and speaks Russian as her native language. This equipment," Miss West says sarcastically, "has been felt to be in the worst possible taste by other investigators of the Russian problem, who lacked it." Miss West goes on to say: "For our own sakes we must understand Bolshevist Russia: and we must not shrink if our understanding leads us to the same conclusion as the Conservative party regarding the lack of material for admiration and imitation in the Bolshevist Government. To reject a conclusion simply because it is held by the Conservative party is to be snobbish as the suburban mistress who gives up wearins a hat or dress because her servant has one like it. And the attitude of uncritical admiration towards Russia •which is entailed by this rejection is in a fair way to rot the Socialist movement, and give over our unhappy country to- the Conservatives for a generation. It renders those who adopt it intellectually- impotent 'because it : is abandonment to sentimentality."' Emma Goldman's book is practically a diary of her lengthy -stay in Russia, and it is worth recording that she has made a second visit to Russia since then and returned to England "with no im : portant alteration of her views. -It is perhaps best to give briefly her accusations against Soviet rule in her own words. "Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and. oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare tbe future become its corner stone. Witness the tra_ic condition of PlUssis. The methods of State centralisation have paralysed individual initiative and effort: the tyranny of the dictatorship has cowed the people into slavish submission, and all but extinguished the fires of liberty; organised terrorism has depraved and brutalised the masses and stifled every idealistic aspiration: institutionalised murder has cheapened human life, and all sense of the dignity of man and the value of life has been eliminated; coercion at every step has made effort bitter, labour a punishment, has turned the whole of existence into a scheme of mutual deceit, and has revived the lowest and most brutal instincts of man. A sorry heritage to begin a new life of freedom and brotherhood.'' Imprisoned as a -Spy. Mrs. Stan. Harding gives us a much more personal record. She had heavy grievances—this is too weak a word, but must serve —against the Bolshevik Government. She is, however, magnanimous enough to say now, the Russian Government having given lier £3000 compensation, she has no longer any debit against them. Briefly. Mrs. Stan. Harding, under the auspices of the Soviet Government, went to Russia to write her impressions of conditions there. A few days after her arrival she was thrown* into prison a3 a spy on the accusation made by an alleged journalist, an American woman named Mrs Harrison. Mrs. Harding was forthwith eon- '■ demned to death or rather the death penalty was hung over her head for i many "months of solitary imprisonment in the two worst prisons in Russia, the Lubianka and the Boutirka the while she was constantly threatened with death unless she would confess that she was a spy, and in return for being given her life would become a spy for the Russian Government. This she steadfastly refused to do, through all the horrors she describes in her pages. She went on hunger strike on several occasions, and in fact secured the change from the Lubianka to the other prison which she had heard was less horrible. But to the unbiased reader the second was no great change from the horrors of the first. It is almosc incredible that in the twentieth century such things could be done. Here is Mrs". Harding's description of the food in the Lubianka: — "Between one ar two o'clock the famous herring soup was brought. This consisted of hot water, flavoured with herring. The herrings were taken out for the soldiers, only the fins and eyes being left in for the prisoners. But after a few weeks' stay in the Lubianka the prisoner was hungry enough to•eat it greedily. In some places the food was, even worse." A Terrible Indictment. Apart from this record of the incredible happenings in the Bolshevik prisons, Mrs. Stan. Harding's book is a terrible indictment of the Bolshevik rule and its encouragement of the terrible secret police, which had been the worst blot on the Czarist regime. Of the Tche Ka she says: "The chiefs of the old Czarist police were more accurate, they didn't arrest the wrong people *• the same extent. Much of

the present-day police work is very inaccurate. But'the Tche Ka does things which the old Ochrana For instance, last spring it carried out a house search in every single house in Petrograd within five days. The personnel of the Tche Ka is numerically superior to the Ochrana Service. Above all, the Tche Ka shoots much more freely. No proof is needed, suspicion is enough. The terror is far greater, so that people who would have scorned to save themselves by betraying others in the old days do so now. One must trust no one, now that treachery is a civic duty. "It seems to mc that this is the real 'atrocity' of r War-Communism' — this miasma of. .lying and cowardice which emanates from the politcal police." To turn a searchlight on this "Underworld of State," the futility and cruelty of secret police, Mrs. Stan. Harding wrote her book. Mr. Bertrand Russell states in his foreword: —"These are the two large issues which are raised by Mrs. Stan. Harding's case. First: Do we wish to pay public money to men skilled in secrecy and intrigue for the purpose" of producing . reasons—good or bad—why we should hate and fear foreign nations. I Secondly: Are we prepared to acquiesce ' j silently in. any wrong done by our nation or our own party* and only to protest against wrongs done by our opponents?" The Revolution Inevitable. Another book "Russia." by Nicholas Makeev and Valentine CHara (Ernest Bennl, is by two authors who, too, suffered imprisonment — Mr. Makeev under the Czar and Mr. CHara under I the Bolsheviks —and from it an unbiased view may be got. They regard the revolution as being inevitable, yet it was less prepared and organised than is generally supposed. It was not the result of a clever conspiracy of some conspirators. It was the ripe fruit falling by its own weight. They believe- that the peasants are waking up to the economic ! short-comings, of the Soviet Government, I and that their dissatisfaction is growing daily. Opinion among the town workers is very much the same. They conclude that " a new Russia has been | born from the war and the revolution. | She has seen the worst. There is n">w j every reason to believe that she desires I a sound democratic regime, that a. federative system of government will a.'is".*, J and that the present nominal federation will become a reality. It is hardly credj ible that the various peoples of Russia j will surrender what they have alrei \y j acquired, even nominally." Revival of Religious Feeling. These two authors are o" the opinion that there is a distinct revival of religious feeling in Russia. In view of the extreme hostility of the Soviet Government to religion, this point assumes a special importance, the more so since Mr. J. M. Keynes, the brilliant economist, who has lately married a Russian artist, in "A Short View of Russia" (Hogarth Press i, declares that Leninism itself is a religion. He says that the effect of the social changes made by the Soviet rule has been to make "a real change in the predominant attitude towards money, and will probably make a far greater change When a new generation has grown up which has known nothing else. People in Russia, if only because of their poverty, are very greedy for money—at leass as greedy as elsewhere. But moneymaking and money accumulating cannot enter into -the . life-calculations of a rational man who- adepts the Soviet rule in the way__in-.w_ic_t.they enter into oars. ' A society. is even true, is a" tremendous innovation." "Leninism_," he says, "i 3 absolutely defiant.y nor-supernatural, and its emotion?.! and ethical essence centres about the indivi-JiisPs. and the community's attitude tawards the- love of money." ' What then should be our attitude towards Russia ? Mr. Keynes, who is pre-eminently a man. of calm, clear, cold judgment, deserves quotation again. He says:—"l think that it is partly reasonable to be afraid cf Russia, like the gentlemen who write to the 'Times.' But if Russia is going to be a force in the outside world, it will not be tie result of Mr. Zinovieff's money. Russia will never matter seriously to the rest of us, unless it be as a moral force. So, now the deeds are done -and there is-no going back. I should like to give Russia her chance; to help and not to hinder. For how much rather, even after allowing for everything, if. I were a Russian, would I contribute my quota of activity to Soviet Russia than to Czarist Russia*! I could not subscribe to the new official faith any more than to the old. I should detest the actions of the new tyrants not less than those of the old. But I should feel that my eyes were turned towards, and no longer away, from, the possibilities of things; that out of the cruelty and stupidity of old Russia nothing could ever emerge, and that beneath the cruelty and stupidity of new Russia some speck of the ideal may; lie hid."