Russian Shadow Over Europe

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

Russian Shadow Over Europe

THE year 1936 showed strong additional evidence of the growing , military and economic strength of the Soviet Union, of the country’s rapid conversion into a self-sufficient industrial nation supported by a powerful war machine under the firm control of a party dictatorship, states a writer in the “Christian Science Monitor,” Boston. The year has been marked by the adoption of a new Constitution, by the obliteration of surviving political opposition, by the steady rise of industrial production and by wider application of mechanised and collectivised agriculture. The new Constitution has been hailed as the first in history .which offers all citizens both economic and political democracy. The State undertakes to provide employment and security as well as freedom for all its people. These theoretical advantages are offset, however, by the unshaken Communist. party dictatorship, which enables a few party leaders to decide what every Soviet citizen shall do, say or even think. These leaders, controlling the State, can interpret the Constitution as they see fit. It is as true of the new Soviet Constitution as of any other that it matters more what the Constitution is made to do than what it says. During 1936 party leaders have been busily stabilising the political and economic system created in Soviet Russia since the revolution. The level of individual prosperity has risen gradually under this system of State ownership, with a monopolistic party in control of the country’s entire economy, as well as its educational system and cultural life. It is a moot point whether another system could not have done better, hut, at any rate, the country’s natural resources have been rapidly developed. Individual prosperity has been sacrificed to permit a major share of the national income to be devoted to armaments and the heavy industry and transport needed to support the war machine.

The Soviets feel that their military expenditures have been justified by disclosure of the German-Japanese agreement for a “common front against Communism.” Whether or not one accepts the Soviet Interpretation of this agreement's a military alliance, it certainly has repudiated Premier Koki

Hirota’s policy toward Russia, which aimed toward a Soviet-Japanese nonaggression treaty. The German-Japanese agreement hinders speedy settlement of disputed questions between the Soviets and Japan, and convinces the Soviets that they must accelerate preparations for defence from East and West. The Spanish civil war enabled the Soviets to pose as the champion of all “down-trodden masses” without doing anything to involve herself in a European war. However, Soviet attempts to exploit the Spanish conflict to her own advantage angered and irritated not only Fascist dictatorships, but also neutral European democracies intent upon keeping peace. The ruthless “purge” of thousands of former Communists offset abroad the favourable impression made by the new Constitution and by the removal of remaining restrictions against children of former aristocrats, merchants and small farmers (kulaks). Sixteen Communist leaders were executed in August, after confessing in open court a plot to assassinate Joseph Stalin and other leaders. These confessions served as the basis for a campaign to eliminate from all positions of consequence former Communists who had presumed at any time to oppose the present regime. This “purge,” with its series of trials, may have given the impression abroad that the Stalin faction was shaken. Resident observers do not share this, impression; Soviet peoples want no more revolutions; they are better off than at any time since 1928, when the Five-Year Plans began to impose heavy sacrifices upon them, and prefer life under the present regime than any practical alternative available to them. At the end of 1936 Soviet Russia throws a large shadow over Europe, i.ot because of “Communism,” but because this continental country Igis become a powerful military and industrial State under competent and incorruptible leaders. These leaders are ruthless and despotic, and as a result wield unhampered influence at home. It remains to be seen whether their fanatical notions of “world revolution” will continue to be tempered by circumstances, or whether Soviet peoples eventually will be propelled into a new sort of campaign for world conquest.