CONDITIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21315, 7 November 1934, Page 17

CONDITIONS IN SOVIET RUSSIA

TO TUB EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir,—l do not think your correspondent, Mr J. Harle, need worry any more about the statements made by ■our former Russian missionary on her very one-sided views about Russia. She arrived in New Zealand 15 years too late. We may state that this lady was approached in a very tactful manner after one of her recent addresses. She was asked to receive on behalf of the friends of the Soviet Union a magazine in which reports of various Australian citizens who have just come back from Russia. One was Alderman Shakespeare and another, a woman, Dr. Pritchard. In this magazine was also the latest Russian budget, showing a surplus of considerably more than £100,000,000. x , This lady visitor distinctly stated that she was not interested in Russian reports. She was then asked if that was not a very narrow way of approaching the. truth about her late fatherland, especially as she had been away from it so long. She then stated: "The statements I make about Russia are only those sent to me from my missionary society in London." (We can imagine" how cooked they must be.) Can any of those who were responsible for this lady's tour explain why she, being a former Russian university teacher and scholar, did not approach the universities of New Zealand, especially when she was asked by various educationalists in New Zealand to do so.—Yours, etc. PROPAGANDA COMMITTEE, Friends of Soviet Union. November 6, 1934. TO TIIE EDITOR OF TfIB TRESS. Sir, —Surely J. N. Harle has forgotten the discussion which he started. His last letter never mentions food supplies and distribution. Instead, he enters up a whole 1 ir;L of works that have been built, and machinery manufactured. This would be to the point, if they were made of ginger bread, which could be eaten. Some of the plants manufactured cannot be of much benefit to the country considering the Soviet arrested and tried so many engineers .because of the continual failures of the machinery. He next attacks me for not mentioning place names, and the names of those who send us the information. He knows very well why these arc omitted. The Soviet would deal effectively with these people if it knew who they were.

The following is a sample of the courts of law in some parts of Russia. A person is arrested, tried, and sentenced without his appearance in court. All he gets is a curt notice; he is then tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a ferm of imprisonment. However, to keep to the point, J. N. Harle supported irty contention that the famine was acute when he informed us that 15,000,000 free mealswere given to children, and many more billion supplied at a very cheap rate. May I add a few more examples of the famine conditions supplied by an eye-witness. "The collective farm near P is a camp of forced labour, where the bosses are Red Army soldiers. They guard the farm with loaded rifles. More than enough grain to supply the needs of these people was harvested, but the Red soldiers requisitioned the bulk of it. I saw the bodies of peasants who had died of starvation —died of starvation on a farm that yearly produces hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat. Sixty-six bodies I saw in five days." Most of the statistics supplied by J. N. Harle are taken from official records, but they carry no weight unless they are complete. May I add a few more to balance the account a little? When a man sees only the credit side of his account he is apt to think he is very well off, but the debit side is the bug-bear, so let us look at a few items on that side. During the | first three months of 1934 there were 39 railway disasters, 927 people being killed and 1463 seriously injured. Fiftyone engines and 427 coaches were destroyed; 63.927 folk were caught travelling without tickets; 17.031 children were abandoned in trains. What a paradise! New Zealand will do me for the present.—Yours, etc.. P.S. November 6, 1934.