The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The ECho. SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1926. LABOUR'S ROAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 204, 28 August 1926, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The ECho.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1926. LABOUR'S ROAD.

For the cauee that lacks astietanoe, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future, in the distance, And the good that we can do. ■

Some little time ago Trotsky, chagrined like all Bolsheviks by the failure of the British wage-earners to appreciate or to emulate the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, wrote a book entitled, "Where is Britain Going? , This brochure was in effect a warning addressed by Trotsky'to the people of Britain, and it consists in about equal proportions of laudation of Bolshevism, abuse of Socialism, and predictions of the downfall of private Capitalism. The British Empire is disintegrating; Capitalism is collapsing through its own inherent weakness and corruption; the-day must speedily come when Communism will supersede every other form of economic and social and political organisation throughout the whole of the United Kingdom and the western world.

The most general inference that can be drawn from Trotsky's book is that Britain is destined inevitably to follow the Bolshevik lead, and this within no long period of time. Naturally these ominous prophecies have failed to produce any. deep impression in Britain, a.nd the principal effect of Trotsky's attempt at propaganda has been to induce Mr. Norman Angell to issue a counterblast entitled, "Must Britain Travel the Moscow Road?" The importance and value of this book lie not so much in its arguments (though we find these convincing enough), but in the fact that the author is so well known for 1 hie strongly Socialistic sympathies and his vigorous condemnation of many of the best-established traditions and beliefs associated in the public mind with the ascendancy of Capitalism in politics and diplomacy, in peace and war.

As a matter of fact the author of the "Great Illusion," skilled controversialist and acute logician as he is, finds little difficulty in demolishing Trotsky's argu-

ments and reduces his loud-mouthed predictions to absurdity. In a country such as England, where ancient institutions and prescriptive rights exercise immense influence and authority, and wh,ere the people are impelled by profound racial instincts t"o distrust and detest extremes, there is no chance of that violent and cataflig&smic revolution which might con-

ceivably give the organisers of a Dictatorship of the Proletariat tne chance to. seize power by violence, and possibly to maintain it .by force for some appreciable time.

! Commenting on Mr. AngeD's criticism of Trotsky, the "Obser»er" points out that the prospeete of Bolshevism in Britain could hardly be worse than they are. The whole Labour vote is only • one-third of the national electoratef the I extremists stand for only a small fraction of Labour,; and the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Moderate Labourites combined, representing more than two-thirds of the whole community, exercise a -practical pofrer far more than proportionate to their great numbers. "There is no country in the world more secure against a violent revolution," writes'i|s. Garvin; and yet Trotsky not only prophesies success for Bolshevism there, but calmly ignores the complete failure of his own system in the only country where cirenmetances have ever combined to give it even, a chance of

temporary success. As the London "Observer" has pointed out, Trotsky implies that he speaks Sβ one who hae successfully applied the policy that he advocates. Certainly nothing but absolute success could justify the supreme self-confidence that he displays. But when we remember €hat "his arrogance, hie cocksureneee, and the ferocious contempt that he expresses for all who hesitate to promote, revolution and precipitate civil war," are after all only what the Americans term "a cheap bluff" jto divert attention from Bolshevism's disastrous failure, we can afford to emile at the Bolshevik leader's futile frenzies. Mr. Angell is careful to remark that Communism in Russia has given place to State Capitalism of a limited type, and lie warns the workers that the capitalist is, and nnistremain, the dominant factor in the economic system. Until the workers reject the teachings of Marx— and "the Marxist dogma is the corpse on the back of Labour"—the world is never likely to be safe or sane either for Democracy or the proletariat.