BUILD OR BURN?

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 48, 25 August 1921, Page 6

BUILD OR BURN?

The disinfectant value of fire is the subject of the following Russian message, which comes by way of Finland-

The Soviet Gonvmisea-ry at Astrakhan, has informed the Moscow Government that Astrakhan is so full of filth that it is> useless to try to fight cholera. He recommends that the inhabitants stiould evacuate the town and proceed to Siberia, and that the town should be destroyed by fire. " .

It is, perhaps, barely conceivable that a city, of the size of Astrakhan may be beyond hygienic repair; but, whatever the state of Astrakhan, the summary method of the Soviet Commissary bears a suspiciously close resemblance to the Soviet general outlook. When the Marxian Communist clique secured power in Kussia, it had no hesitation in condemning various classes and institutions and systems to the stake. The capitalist system was to be destroyed completely; rebuilding could come later—by some process not devised—but first of all the existing machinery must be broken and scrapped. How the destroying method has worked' in Kussia, and how much rebuilding it has given birth to, is sufficiently indicated by the country's paralysis, famine, and plague. Now that the policy of destruciton has produced its necessary results, including pestilence, the Soviet Commissary's recommendation, true to type, is to carry out more burning. The story illustrates the essential difference between people who seek to rebuild within the existing framework ■ of-society^ and those who wish to burn first and build afterwards. Society, even in' Russia, had not reached the incurable condition that the Commissary imputes to Astrakhan. And the social wreckers have merely multiplied misery. ■' *