LASKI IN RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 34, 9 August 1934, Page 4

LASKI IN RUSSIA

DOUBTS ABOUT THE

SOVIETS

"FREE SPEECH" IN MOSCOW

Professor Harold J. Laski concluded his series of three lectures in Moscow on Juno 13, having made history in Moscow by the boldness with which ho spoke, says a Moscow correspondent of tho "Manchester Guardian." For the first time 'in sixteen years ii public speaker in tho Soviet capital made a spirited defence of a Socialist party , outside the hallowed ranks of the Communist International and won applause from an audience largely composed of Communists. Tho incidents of the lecture and discussion would bo commonplace in an English-speaking country,! but it undoubtedly was the first time .for years in Moscow when both sides of a political argument involving nonCommunists were aired with the greatest freedom. A well-known foreign woman writer, long resident in Russia, said afterwards: "It sounded as if free speech had suddenly come- to Russia." .Professor Laski's first two lectures on "Parliamentary Government before the War" and "The Development of the' Crisis," presented the historical facts with a Socialist interpretation with which the. Communists were usually in no disagreilnent, so their heavy firo was reserved] for the final lecture when, speaking 'on "The Outlookf or Parliamentary Democracy," he essayed tho role of prophet and quite aptly compared himself to the Prophet Daniel entering tho lions' don. ANOTHEK CHANCE. ' : WMJst careful'-not to be .put in a position, of defending the Secondlnteruatiohal, Professor Laski did staunchly assert tho right of tho British-Labour Party to make another attempt at governing befpro it could bo properly accused of being unworthy of the airport of tbo working masses. Tho Communist Party cannot succeed in Britain now, he warned his hearers, because the conditions for a revolution, as laid down by Lenin, do not yet exist.

The discussion was divided between Professor Pashukanis, president of tho Soviet Institute of Construction and Law, who attempted an analysis of Professor Laski's remarks in a sober vciiij and Mr. Boris Eeinstein, a former

revolutionary ciuigro who returned to Eussia in 1917 from tho United States, ,-md lias siiico become well known to English and American tourist groups from being frequently chosen to expound tv them tho Communist doctrine. Mr. Rcinstoiu started off: • bearing in mind that the rules of hospitality might demand that ho temper his remarks so that there should bo no breach of ordinary politeness, but his indignation soon carried him away and in 'impassioned terms ho denounced Professor Laski, along with other well-known figures of the . Labour Party, as betrayers of the working class. Professor Pashukanis dwelt largely upon the role of the minority of a revolutionary party in a "bourgeois" Parliament as exemplified in tho history of the Bolshevik fraction in the Imperial Duma. ' 'SMALL VOICE CRYING FIDDLESTICKS." In his closing summary Professor Laski employed his choicest vein of irony and sarcasm to hit back at Mr. Re-instein. None of it was lost on his audience, which greeted his gibes with laughter and applauded his most telling points. 110 assured his hearers that he had not expected gentle treatment when he came to Moscow, for ho understood that tho Communists were not inclined to handle their opponents in any manner but roughly. But ho felt tiiat this gave him tho privilege of employing the same tactics, which he proposed to do. What had distressed him more than anything else in Moscow since his arrival, ho said, was the dogmatic'certitudo of tho Communist mind. He wondered if tho eloquently positive Mr. Beinstein was never troubled by what an English poet had called tho "still small voice- crying fiddlesticks." Talking to tho average) Communist was liko discussing matters with, a member of tho Society of Jesus and in a free discussion one could get just as far. Replying to tho advice of Professor Pashukanis that he should employ his time in the Soviet Union to make a study of "Soviet democracy" as contrasted with "bourgeois democracy," Professor Laski expressed his interest in doing so, intimating that ho entertained some' doubts concerning the application on a wido scale in tho Soviet Union of so-called' "Soviet democracy," but was keeping an open mind. .^_^_^^_____»

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