COMMUNISM DISSEMBLES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 38, 13 August 1921, Page 4

COMMUNISM DISSEMBLES

M. Krassin, who maybe regarded as Bolshevism's chief trade commissioner, has spoken in very frank terms of. the Soviet Government's difficulties, among which are the Russian peasantry. At the Beginning of the revolution the Communists, who are the mainspring of Bolshevism, Were able, to cooperate with the peasants. The Communists and the peasants had a common enemy, the big landowner, and a common aim to dispossess him, which they did. But where the Communists dispossessed the land-owning class with a view ; to establishing communistic ownership of the land and the products thereof, the peasants joined in $he act of dispossession for the purpose of substituting possession on their own account. 'To the Communists possession was a sin; to the peasant^ it was a sin only when vested in somebody else. This vital , distinction . soon developed into a wide difference. As M. says, the peasants are not, and never have been, Communists. The long struggle to make them produce communaV property, instead of their own property, has resulted, for the time being, in the defeat of the Communists; because the major part of the property produced by the peasants is food, and food is the one thing that the rest of Russia cannot do without. The peasants, with their allies hunger and famine, have forced upon the Communists a recognition of property in produce of the land if not in the land itself. Apparently the Communists did not surrender till the eleventh hour; in fact, judging by the famine reports from Eussia, they may have delayed even after the eleventh hour. Many will starve while the crops are growing on the holdings of the stubborn peasants. And in the interim even the Communist power may fall to pieces,

In coming to .terms with the peasantry —that is, in bending communistic principles to suit the peasants' property claims —Lenin affirms that his Communist policy is not reversed but merely deferred. How will the peasants be eommunised? Krassin replies that "to make them, appreciate Communißm better it will only ba necessary, to

supply them^ with machinery and materials.'' This. seems to mean ■ that the State will, out of its own capital, assume a paternal attitude to the peasant proprietors ; will help them to cultivate; will encourage them to lean on the State; possibly will lend to them; and will create in them such a condition of dependence that they will be gradually weaned both of possession and of the possessory spirit. The proprietary peasants will be killed with kindness." Is it an instinctive dread of something similar that provokes in certain members of the New Zealand Farmers' Union a persistent protest against appeals for Govern- . ment aid 1 The. new Communist policy of ministering to' property rights, until such time as Communism .shall be in 'a position to destroy them, applies not 'only to peasant rights but to the whole field of capitalism •in Russia and abroad. The Communists will make- •" deals " with 1 capitalism, and will become themselves capitalistic, until they are strong enough to swallow their own peasantry and to destroy foreign capitalisms by promoted revolutions: Doubtless the revolution will yet blaze out through Europe—for myself I am convinced that it is not possible to forecast when oi- in what shape. Lenin, now persuaded that revolutionary / progress abroad will be slow, has 'therefore changed his tactics, and on account of the international situation^ as well as the economic collapse of the' country, has decided to come to terms with th« opposition at home, the peasantry, equally as with the opposition abroad, the capitalists, in place of attempting to crush them. - ' The above words of Krassin are simply an advocacy of suspending violence, and of replacing it with a policy of slow poison on the one hand and deferred revolution on the other. The principle (or lack of it) is clear, but how is it to be carried put? Foreign capitalism will no doubt be willing to take Russian raw. material at favourable delivery-points in return for foreign, manufactures; . but "will these foreign capitalists (invest their, money in immovable assets in Russia without guarantees—will they trust their property to, Communist custodianship that frankly casts itself in the role of Mother Wolf ? Even' a slight consideration of the subject suggests that foreign capitalists, before investing in Russia, will need some guarantee, and the only effective guarantee would seem to be a general restoration in Russia - of property rights, the maintenance oiwhich would then be the business of all Russian property-owners, and , not merely, the business of a few foreign capitalists. M. Krassin's argument that foreign investors will not insist upon restoration of property rights, because' the Communist Government will still be able to 1 confiscate such rights by refusal; of transport facilities, evades the point. As a Russian propertied class would-be the most effective brake upon Communist confiscation, the possibility of such, confiscation is, from the capitalist standpoint, an argument for and not against the restoration of property rights. So naive is M. Krassin, however, that it is worth while to reproduce him :' WJat use could be 1 made of private property in factories, mines, or forests if we do not permit the use of rqads, raiK | ways, electricity, and our labour? The capitalist who is "allured by Russia's riches must understand that he can only work in Russia by contract with the Government of the Soviets. We shall remain lords of our.earth; we shall never grant v monopolies, '■ and even concessions shall revert to us when sufficiently remunerative profit shall have accrued to the recipient. There is an old sayingl concerning the futility of setting the snare in the sight of the bird. The capitalists who seek an outlet in (Russia may prove to be an e?|E:eption to .the rule, but whether their innocence or their philanthropy is of the quality suggested by M. Krassin is much to be doubted. .