YOUNG RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 48, 20 November 1928, Page 8

YOUNG RUSSIA

FRUIT OF SOVIET TEACHING The news of Young Russia’s revolt against the Soviets is not surprising, •md its grave possibilities are being So ly discussed in Moscow (states Di’. Edouard Luboff, the leading authority on Soviet Russia, in the Daily Mail”). The much eulogised ‘‘Children of the Revolution” have now reached adolescence, and life under the Soviets seems to them tame and uninteresting. All the revolutionary ideas inculcated into them for the last ten years by their Bolshevik teachers are at last bearing fruit, though of a kind different from those expected. Having been taught that Revolution—-“the bloody light against authority"—is the alpha and omega of life, the youngsters^ are bitterly disappointed to find that “active Revolution” is the last thing expected of them. This is how one of them sums up his ideas on the subject in a recent issue of the “Komsomolskaya Pravda”: Rev. olutionary romance is dead. The epoch of audacious and brave fighting is over. Life is dull to-day; it demands not bravery but endeavour.” No wonder, then, that the restless spirits are turning towards a Revolution of their own making, thus proving once again that history repeats itself. After all the “real” Bolsheviks of today are the very youngsters who at the beginning of the present century were members of secret school societies. They revolted against the school authorities, they tore down the portraits of the Tsar, and boycotted the teachers. They formed “atheist circles” and generally “prepared the Revolutiolary cadres that overthrew the Romanoffs and established the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the former Russian Empire.” This being so, their fear of the present “revolt” is easily understood. They are afraid lest the spirit which makes the youngsters tear down the portraits of Lenin be carried into the universities and into the Red Army. Efforts, therefore, are to be made “to direct the revolutionary enthusiasm into other channels.” Intensive sport, increased opportunities for “anti-religi-ous fun,” and more mock battles are prescribed as a cure for youthful restlessness.

But I doubt very much whether this ruse will succeed. The youngsters who have turned their attention to “reforms” and -who demand so seriously that “political education” should be abolished cannot be side-tracked by sport and buffooning. And some of the ablest Bolsheviks have realised this and are saying quite openly that changes will have to be introduced. They admit that revolutionary teaching cannot provide the country with diligent and serious-minded scientists, engineers, doctors, and teachers; of whom there is an urgent need. And they advocate that an end be put to the rearing and educating of politicians; there are too many of them already.