BAN ON BRAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 22

BAN ON BRAINS

RED ARISTOCRACY

RUSSIA'S "INTELLIGENTS"

EDUCATION A HANDICAP

The Russian Communist Party is a great -believer- in advertising. For eleven years the* principles of Marxism and Leninism have been advertised to the population of Russia, writes a special correspondent of the "Chicago Tribune" from Moscow.

The Communist Party is still trying to establish equality;—equality of brains, of living conditions, and of opportunity. Torday it has achieved a membership of slightly mores than 1,500,000 members ia Russia's population of 140,000,000. All Communists have jobs, and they constitute the new aristocracy of Bussia.

Wherever One goes in Russia one sees on the walls of houses, fences, in street cars, dining rooms, placards calling upon the population to "light the kulaks (rich peasants), priests, and nepmen (merchants)." These three groups the Communists are determined to exterminate, but other classes also suffer in this conflict. Chiefly the intelligent class the "intelligentsia."

The educated Russian has always been a little different from the educated foreigner. He is not very capable, and faces life handicapped with a desire to idealise realities. He is impractical and artistic. Americans would call him. both "soft" and "mushy."

In tho universal struggle for existence the Russian intelligentsia has produced few heroes:

The reason for this must bo traced back to the Eussian schools, which have never really trained children to get out and fight for themselves. Initiative and capability are unknown qualities.

Formerly the educated classes were persecuted for the "left" tendencies. The Tsarist regime kept them in subjection and banished many to Siberia. To-day this same class is being oppressed by the Communist regime for their "right tendencies. The Communists call this class tho spiritual children of the former Government, and does not trust them. The present Government, which is composed of former labourers and peasants, is attempting to form a new educated class. CLASSED AS ENEMIES. ""We aro not left in peace after all theso terible years," tho intelligentsia complained. "The cheka controls every step we take. Everything wo do is thought to hide some action against the Government. We aro classed as enemies." „

The majority of the educated people who have survived., the Communist massacres are really loyal Russians who do their work honestly. They are not Bolsheviks, but they are also not actively fighting against the Government. They shun politics, and for this reason they are continually under suspicion., If there are two candidates

for a position, one of them an edu-

cated person and the other of proletarian origin, the latter gets the post, It is for this reason the Soviet Government functions so inefficiently.

The Government and the population vie with each other in hate for the intelligentsia. The ignorant population has the usual instinctive hatred for any ono with a slight equipment of brains, and the Government exploits this hatred at every opportunity. EDUCATION A HANDICAP.

Another interesting development is that under the Tsar's regime the work-

ing classes had no possibility of receiving an education* and therefore tho-y

envied the intelligentsia. Many of these sympathised with the workers, and did everything they could to help the-m, even to becoming revolutionists themselves. To-day the situation is reversed. The educated man who wants to give his children an education must apply to former workers for this permission, and he is always refused.

"To have an education is now a handicap," explained an engineer. "Tho word 'intelligent' is a term of derision, and'we seek to- hide our schooling. If we are fortunate enough to have obtained a position wo can never bo sure at what moment some boy who has just graduated from a " technical high school will come and take our position away from us because his father was a worker or a peasant. In this way some of the most capable engineers and other trained specialists are losing their jobs.xTho Government seems I determined to make us its enemies.

Try to imagine what would happen in an American factory if the present staff of engineers were made subordinate to youths flaunting a high school diploma, or what would happen in a hospital if new internees were placed in charge. This is what is happening all over Eussia. .'

"There are so few doctors that this is the only free profession, which we are allowed to "follow and in which we are allowed to remain," a surgeon informed me. "They need us bady, for

those students the schools, are turning out are poorly equipped to practise. Besides, the Communist youths do not care to study medicine.

"But this does not mean that we are not persecuted. Wo are not permitted to remain very long in one post. If we are discovered treating patients privately we are sent to gaol. This often happens, because it is hard for us to resist the pleas of a suffering peasant who,comes with a ham, a couplo of fat geese, or a huge package of precious butter as payment for treatment. Our salaries are low; some institutions pay us 70 roubles (S3 10s), others as much as eighty roubles (£4) monthly, and this is barely, enough to ke&p us alive. THE WORKER PATIENTS. "The attitude of the worker patients is another trial. They come and roughly demand treatment. They all know exactly what is the.matter with them, and what must be dono for their cure. If our diagnosis does Jiot agree with theirs, and our course of treatment is something else from what they expected, they arise at the next meeting of the factory Soviet and demand our discharge, and SO we are again transferred. Sometimes they even attack us. I.have been badly beaten several times jh my dispensary."

The treatment accorded to enginers, tho co-called "technical specialists," is even worse. The workers have no respect for engineers and technicians. In mines, factories, and shops -there are frequent fights, which end with the murder of the engineer in charge.