The Dominion TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1926. RUSSIAN SUBSIDIES IN BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 216, 8 June 1926, Page 6

The Dominion TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1926. RUSSIAN SUBSIDIES IN BRITAIN

Assuming that it is well informed, the London Daily Mail has rendered a very important public service by its’ dlsclosl of latest development of Soviet tactics in Great Britain. If the facts are as stated, the British Government should be able to throw additional light on the matter. A full public disclosure probably would be the best means of countering the activities of Communist .conspirators and ending a state of affairs that is humiliating to Britain The only question really open concerns the lines on. which the agents of the Soviet are endeavouring to turn the British mining strike to account from their standpoint. That they are intent on making the most of this opportunity is sufficiently indicated in the fact that the secretary of the British Miners’ Federation has publicly acknowledged the receipt of £400,000 from Russia Nothing is more certain than that the Soviet Government would have, found means of preventing the transmission of these funds, had it not suited its purpose that money should flow from Russia into Britain. In the details supplied by the Daily Mail there appears to be nothing that is not in complete harmony with the declared aims and methods of the Soviet and its propagandist branch, the. Third International. Methods of provocative conspiracy in. foreign countries, and particularly in Britain, have been openly proclaimed by prominent Bolshevists. For instance, in the course of a speech to the Congress . of the Third International, in 1924, M. Zinovieff, in analysing what he called “the tactics of a single front,” said in part:— We must adopt catchwords easily understood by the masses. That of “a Labour Government” is the most alluring and popular formula for enlisting the masses in favour of a dictatorship of the proletariat. We must make the most of opportunities offered by such "Labour" Governments as, for instance, MacDonalds. . . . 4 The worker, peasant, and railwayman will first do their revolutionnry “bit,” and only afterwards realise that this actually, is the dictatorship of the proletariat. ’ Methods of Soviet propaganda are still more, clearly indicated in the ninth of the twenty-one conditions of affiliation of the Third International. This after insisting on the necessity of developing systematic and persistent Communist activity within the trade unions, works committees, co-operative societies, and other mass organisations of workmen, proceeds: — Within these organisations, It Is necessary to organise cells, which by continuous and- persistent work must win the unions, etc., to the cause of Communism. The cells are bound to expose everywhere in their daily work the treason of the social patriots and the vacillation of the Centre. The Communist cells must be completely subordinated to the party as a whole. Getting away from Communist jargon, this means that little groups of mischief-makers, acting insidiously but in concert, are to undermine the authority of duly appointed leaders. .It is a plan which looks to trade unions and other organisations being dominated ultimately by their weakest and most gullible elements, acting under Communist direction. . , < • , It puts no strain on credence to believe that the men who devised these methods and tactics are now spending money like water in an attempt to make catspaws of the British miners. From their own point of view, the Russian revolutionaries are getting some results for their expenditure. In merely prolonging the mining strike in Great Britain, and thus bringing inevitable depression on many other British industries, the agents of the Soviet and Third International are opening up a far more favourable field for their nefarious activities than they could hope to obtain in any other way. A full disclosure of the facts of the Soviet campaign in Britain • may be as salutary in its effect as was the publication of the notorious Zinovieff letter in October, 1924. Even if they still doubt, that the Bolshevists are merely making use of them in the hope of stirring up disorder and revolution in Britain, the British miners have every reason to look with suspicion on the help and assurances of sympathy they are receiving from Russia, Germany and other countries. Coal from these countries is pouring into markets that would otherwise have been supplied from Britain. The urgent necessity of doing what is possible to recover these markets before it is too late is one of the weightiest arguments for the speedy settlement of the British mining dispute, of which there happily seems now to be some prospect. " ■