RUSSIA TO-DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 209, 5 September 1938, Page 4

RUSSIA TO-DAY.

SOCIAL SECURITY.

AT SACRIFICE OF LIBERTY.

immense armed strength.

(By MARC T. GREENE.)

I Think of Stelin how you will, you have to admit that only" his policy* of compromise with "capitalism" saved the Soviet from economic collapse and conj sequent complete disintegration after the disastrous days of 1932, when deportation ot kulaks and the refusal of the peasant* to plant, as well a., their determination to let their crop, rot on the ground rather than be collectivised very nearly wrecked the whole agricultural experiment. - ■■■ J A very drastic reorganisation under ! the direction of 25,000 picked fom- ! muniete and Komsomols, and manv con|7*' on t t" th .e peasants along unheardj<. p end dKstmctly -capitalistic-' line* were the only measures that saved the ('lav. The result was that the following >ear saw the • harvesting of 8i».000,000 tons of -rain, the largest crop in Ruslen ire grain harvest was produced on I socialised estates. .And whereas in i 9n " - inLrVwb r well over half « »3«: i da?d are UP tO An «™an stanSaint- H *i?nificant of all, the tllJty, or at beet sullen indifference to S: is'YotTI of the Bo)shevik «s»«£ It is not to be wondered at when you find as discovered by foreign observers hat it .s no uncommon thing for famYlv incomes m the agricultural are*, to range from 3000 to"sm rouble, a tear At the present rate of foreign oxchan" his I. equivalent to from £300 to £50 sterling. The Soviet figures shopman no 'Stt 3iS.*rT-" High Prices and Low. JS« °< pro" It.'. F™ ,Ot "; a " d »«*™lopccl the average worker, and a euit of fan nand timeS that - °° iiand, rents are very low. Bread is reasonable and good and so are teg" vfei VS" m , ™* Point of Work-r ™ aVera 3 e low-paid industrial of indirect subsidies, such as substantial and inexpensive meals served at his phceo employment, free medical care at all times and to any extent, like7»Z rr. educa . tlon ' "ocial insurance funds that provide free holidays each year substantial state assistance to families of more than six, •Iμ'acne, rous *jck, disability and benfiflte. The average pay of city'ihduetriai workers is 280 roubles a S> n tJ£ favoured few may make foufc even in some cases, eight times tfcat. But the purchasing power of those amounts can by no means be computed >on the basU of ten rouble* to the poundL .sterling, because the Utter |n govto Russia is really worth, not ten roubles, but more than fifty. The: rate of exchange officially fixed is merely arbitrary. It has no economic significance. Aβ we have seen, a poor of shoes may cost 250 roubles and a »uit of clothes a thousand. OS thV other hand, an apartment for four or five people fairiy comfortable and with • number of modern amenities unknown in the old Russia even in the homes of the wealthy, costs no more than 50 roubles a month Increasing inequality of income is one of the anti-Stalin arguments and a good many people once deemed Bolsheviks of unquestioned standing have been, liquidated for too' violently expounding it. Their position hae been that it is not Marxism, and is not Socialism, to say nothing 6f Cottimunism, that it must create' a privileged class, and it is "bourgeois." Certainly within the past four or five year* Soviet Russia has begun to go in for all manner of Western pleasures in the way of dance halls, fashion shows, carnivals and "jazzed" diversions generally. There aleo has developed a surprising "bourgeois" insistence upon morality and the family virtues, all anathema to the Trotskyite. Thousands of churches have reopened and there is no longer any systematic persecution of priests or worshippers. Religion is far more free to-day than in supposedly Christian Germany. Yet hand in hand with "bourgeois" compromises have gone such things as an increase in the Budget for social insurance from a billion roubles in 1927 to six times that amount last year, and social insurance here is far broader in its scope than in any other country under the sun. Specifically, it provides against the financial results of sickness, any kind of disability, old age and death. It not only does that, but it provides an elaborate system of rest homes, sanitaria, "cultural ,, parks, housing subsidies, care of invalids, children's camps, students' aid, and much else that discloses » new and positive concept of •odal §ecur!ty. Sacrifice of Liberty. AH this even the most violent antiSoviet wltlfl must admit because it exists and is not within the range of argument, pro or con. But he is etill on middling firm ground when he ineiets that it )m« bperi gained through the almost complete sacrifice of individual rights and liberty. He points out, too, that although there has been granted Russians a constitution that apparently is the most democratic in the world today, the contradiction between its terms and what has been happening of late in "red" Russia, Is mo impossible of reconciliation that the constitution must be regarded as no more than a gesture, mainly in the direction of the "capitalistic world." Here the position of the critic is also strong. For the new constitution absolutely guarantees, and in specific detail, freedom of speech, of the Press, of assembly and of demonstration, these liberties to be assured the. people by the placing at their disposal of public buildings, printing-presses and supplies of paper. And no one may be subject to arrest except upon the decision of the Court m with the sanction of %he prosecutor. These and other things seem to promise a Utopia, .that wooM save deHghted Thomas More and astonished WiOJußi Itonia, ~ ~ ~ >