RUSSIA'S BREAK-UP

Evening Star, Issue 16662, 19 February 1918, Page 6

RUSSIA'S BREAK-UP

SOCIETY'S .FOUNDATIONS GRUMBLE ACUTE CLASS ANTAGONISM, BUI' UNIVERSAL" PEACE HUNGER, Mr Phillips Price, after an extended tour through the central provinces of Russia, has written interestingly on what, in nis opinion, aro the causes that have made anarchy. The terrible havoc caused bv the war in the natural economv of the 'country, he • fays is reducing the task of the democrat in the provinces to an impossibility. The relations between the social classes that make up the revolutionary democracy are becoming more and more strained. ' The peasants are dissatisfied with the urban proletariat because the latter have rot an eight-hour day and a rise in wages, and buy their bread at fixed rates, whereas they have to pay speculators' prices for al) manufactured commodities of life. The army, which, though consisting mainly of peasant youths, has nevertheless a 'dig. tinet psychology of its own, is discontented with the peasantry in the Tear for keepim back food supplies in the villages. The urban proletariat is suffering, from a continual shortage of food, caused by the breakdown of the transport. With the march of famine each social and economic class is forced to struggle harder for its own existence, and this to a great degrea weakens the common revolutionary effort. But on one 'point all sections of the democracy are'united,_and that is in the demand for a speedy peace as the only means of saving themselves from economic collapse and famine. STARVING PEASANTS. In addition to the increasing antagonism between various sections of the proletariat, there is now also another factor which still further hinders the constructive work of the revolutionary democracy. Under the stress of food shortage there is an inclination for each district to run its own local policy. Thus, I found that in the Upper Volga provinces, in Vladimir, Kostroma, Nijni-Novgorod, and Yaroslav the peasants are literally starving. Their Produce Committees are making frantic efforts to get corn sent up from the south before the Volga freezes, but the Produce Committees of Samara. Saratoff, and Kazan, which are controlled bv the peasants of those provinces] decline to part w.ith their reserves of corn. In earlv winter the Volga freezes, and then there is notbinsr left for five million peasantrv to do but face the winter on roots and herbs from the forest, or die of hunger. The Cossacks, also, are everywhere trying to create local communes'and federal republics, the ultimate aim of which is to preserve their lands from immigration from the west, and to prevent the local food supplies from beino; "exhausted bv the demands of the northern manufacturing towns. Even the councils and the democratic bodies are cominp under the influence of local politics through' the shper necessity of saving their own comrades before they attempt to help those in the next province. As a result of these disintegrating influences, the anarchical spirit has spread at an alarming mto among the masses. The food riots that have broken out in various northern towns were caused by starving workers, who broke into shops and looted baza.-rrs. Tn nearly every case'the local revolutionary councils and the democratic bodies have, taken the most stringent measures to deal with disorder and to quiet the. hungry people. Tn all the towns where famine is threatening I found the revolutionary militia, under the joint control of the councils and local municipal authorities, patrolling the bazaars to prevent pogroms and attacks upon the Jew shops by the dark forces of- the old regime. Agrarian disorders also are increasing, but the impression T have gathered since my journey is that in those provinces when* the revolutionary land organisations have drawn up plans for an enuitnble distribution of the'landlords' land there has been complete quiet. On the other hand, where this has not been done, where the landlords and the local Cadets have succeeded in preventing this work, agrarian disorders have broken out. In some districts, also, I found that looting of landlords' cranaries by mobs with pitchforks was due to the knowledge that stores of grain were being held up and were escaping requisition. THREE PRIME FACTORS. The anarchy which reigns in the provinces at the present moment is thus the direct result of three things: 1. The incapacity of the towns to supply the peasants with manufactures, leading the latter to hide their corn. This is due to the inability of the Government to control speculators and fix the prices of manufactures ; and this, in turn, is due to tho refusal of the bourgeois elements in the Government to agree to State regulation of industry. ' 2. The suspicion in the minds of tho peasantry that an intrigue is going on in PetrogTad behind their backs to rob them of the land for which they made the revolution. 3. The endless prolongation of the war for objects which—to state the plain fact —nobody understands or cares about, thus undermining confidence in the Government's foreign relations and creating the impression that a citizen had better get for himself what he can, while he can. MAXIMALIST GROWTH. During the latter end of the summer the Russian revolution to have reached its second stago. in which the class struggle became the most prominent feature, on the political horizon. But now the situation is complicated by the- split in the ranks of the democracy on tlw question of revolutionary tactics. As time goes on this split seems to become wider, and in the third stage of the revolution the question of revolutionary' tactics may temporarily obscure the class struggle. It appears that this stage is being entered upon now. The split in the revolutionary ranks is complete. The moderate Minimalists, who regard this as a bourgeois revolution, are now in alliance with the new democratic intellingentsia and cooperators. The Maximalist fanatics, who stiil dream of the social revolution throughout all Europe, have, according to my observations in the provinces, recently acquired an immense, if amorphous, following. The majority of their followers, however, have no idea of what the Maximalist means when he talks of " all power to the Councils." The soldier of the garrisons in the rear hears the Maximalist's promise of an immediate peace, and, of course, at once goes with him. The peasant, furious with the delay in the land reform, hears promises of immediate seizure of the landlords' land, and goes with him. The worker hears talk about State control over the banks, and goes with him. Anarchists and secret agents of tho Tsar's regime also flock to the Maximalist banner, and thus create a large and verv dangerous element widely diffused throughout all .the proletariat masses in the country. All the recent provincial elections have given, immense majorities to this wing of the revolutionary democracy. There is no sign of any military enthusiasm like that which inspired the French revolutionaries. There is, on the other hand, a great possibility of a Napoleon—a peace dictator, born out of the three years' sufferings of the people—who will put an end to the war. even at the co§€ of territorial losses to Russia, and at the price of the political liberties won by tha revolution. The war. and the desire to end it, is the one thing which links the confused social mass together in this third sta-ge of the revolution, and as'soon as there is peace it will break up into it« component parts and create new combinations and coalitions for the political struggle in the fourth stage.