TRADE WITH RUSSIA.

Evening Star, Issue 21131, 17 June 1932, Page 10

TRADE WITH RUSSIA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It is now some months since I first raised the question of doing "business with llussia, and I now see by recent pronouncements of business interests that what I said then was not far short of the mark: that “there were business men in New Zealand, and I had proof in my possession that there were, in favour of doing business with the Soviet Union, but up till then they were not bold enough to come out and declare themselves openly.” But I had hardly expected Mr \V. Machin (president of the New Zealand Associated Chambers of Commerce) to be one of the first to agree to this, and I also notice he has a doubt that we may by so doing import something else—“undesirable propaganda and propagandists,” etc. Before going any further, 1 think it would be wise if we calmly analyse this contention and see what it amounts to. What is it Russia has done to bring the rest of the world down on her actions? The remarks of men like Mr Machin would lead most people who have no knowledge of Russian conditions “now” to suppose something very terrible had been done there, and something we here and the rest of the world should beware of lest worse befall. Mr Machin says; “We may not like its system; it is a system which is based upon robbery and unmentionable cruelty, and is the fine flower of the doctrine that the end justifies the means; but it will be an entirely new doctrine in the world that dislike i.f the habits and policy of a people should form a ground for doing no business with them.” Let me answer these questions I have raised, and then we can best judge of the value of such denunciations by adverse critics. Russia has decided to abandon a system of producing her' national needs by a system of private ownership and control for private profit in favour of one of common ownership and control by all in the interests of all for use only. This means, firstly, that prime necessities will be attended to first before luxuries are produced. It also means that what is prduced is distributed as equitably as possible according to the people’s needs; the children come first, the women second,, and the sterner sex last. It also means that those who work and produce the goods get priority over those, if any, who live by doing little or no service, as their motto is: “ Those who will not work, neither shall they eat.” Up to the present this is operated under a proletarian (workers ) dictatorship, but this dictatorship is in the interests of the workers, and as the necessity for it becomes less and less as a result of education and counter-revolu-tionary tactics disappear, then a system will evolve, wherein all classes will be abolished, which they hope to bo able to achieve by 1937. Now, I ask, compare such a'system with ours here or anywhere else. Russia, as a result » f the Allies’ blockade up to 1921, was unable to perfect her rolling stock and transport system sufficiently to enable coeds to be shipped quickly, and this to-day has not yet been overcome.

Other countries do not suffer from this disadvantage. We have the goods and the transport system, but because of a faulty mechanism to exchange the goods by giving to the people sufficient purchasing power to enable them to purchase what they have produced and consume same we have depression and misery. This is caused because all our prime essentials are held privately, and not allowed to be used by those who need them unless they can pay for them. The land, from which everything we need must first bo got, is lying idle, when by applying our wasted labour army under proper technical supervisioil we_ could provide our needs. The land is privately owned, and here is thq. crux of the problem. Russia has abolished private ownership in the land and other essentials, and in the near future will abolish it in all else also. So this'is the robbery and cruelty Mr Machin alludes to. Because the Russian people have restored to all what should be everyone’s birthright, they are classed as a robber nation, and designated cruel because the kulaks, rich farmers and landowners, are given notice to quit, and can only now share by coming in and working instead of, as in the past, shirking. This is the head and front of the proletarian dictatorship. I await a reply - from those • who think this would bo . against the interests of the majority of the people in New Zealand. The objective of the New Zealand Labour Party is the socialisation, of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. When this.is. consummated an end will also be made to exploitation in New Zealand, and the worker will then get the full fruits of his labour. So Mr Machin does not need to get perturbed that Russian propaganda will be necessary. All Russia can do for us is this; She is showing us the actual example in practice (not perfect by any means as yet, but no human effort so far is perfect), but Socialism there has now passed from a theory to a condition, and it is here that the supreme value of the Russian venture to all workers throughout the world lies. This is what the owners and exploiters to-day fear, because it affects the surplus values that they appropriate to-day, which are only, as Marx has laid down, “so much unpaid labour power,” and are based on robbery, the thing Mr Machin sees and deplores in the Russians, but fails to discern here and now. The Russians are only restoring what the workers in Russia have all these years been deprived of.—l am, etc., P. Neilson. June 16.