The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1937. INSCRUTABLE RUSSIA.

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 16

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1937. INSCRUTABLE RUSSIA.

Russia is changing, if we can believe

the cable messages from that country. But what the changes amount to or can be expected to amount to, in practice as distinct from propaganda, only a devout adorer who had never been there could be expected with any confidence to say. Even such must he puzzled fairly frequently by the news that’comes from Moscow. The Communist Party, it was reported this week, is to he fundamental! v. reorganised. Party officials in future must be elected by a majority vote, which is to he taken by a secret ballot instead of, ba the old way, by a show of hands, at the risk of figuring in the next treason trial if the hand shows any tendency to independence. Soviet newspapers interpret the change as meaning that “ the masses will now be directly in control of the election of the country’s ruling group.” Some Communists in New Zealand have been under the illusion that high places in Russia always were so controlled—that that was the peculiar glory of the Soviet system. It will surprise them to be contradicted by Moscow. Officially it is announced from Russia that its Godless League is declining. From five million members it has shrunk, in a short three years, to less than two million. Russia is less antireligious—so Moscow implies—than it used to he. Differences of opinion among admirers of the Soviet as to whether Russia ever was anti-religious can be ignored for the moment. Certain clauses in the new Constitution which promised, but may not provide, a more liberal political system were taken as assurances that if the Soviet Government had ever made its hand heavy against religion it was to do so no more. That was a misinterpretation of the much-acclaimed Constitution, if we can trust those in the best position to know. The new charter states that “ freedom to perform religious rites and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognised for all citizens.” But those whose profession requires them to perform religious rites have been subject to such harsh discrimination, of taxation and otherwise, as to make life for them almost unendurable in Russia. When they die no permit is '--•■ipd for the appointment of successors. All but a fraction of the previous church buildings have been closed or put to other uses. There is still no freedom for religious propaganda—only for its opposite. All school teachers, according to the Rev. F. J. Milos, of the Russian Missionary Society, are prohibited from attending any place of worship whatever. And it is a criminal offence publicly to teach religion to children under eighteen years of age. Yet the churches of Moscow were crowded last Christmas Eve. The latest report which we have seen on conditions in Russia, based on actual observation, is that of Mr Norman Makin, an ex-Speaker of the Commonwealth House of Representatives and president of the Federal Executive of the Australian Labour Party. It appears in the latest number of the new ‘ Australian National Review.’ On this subject of religion Mr Makin sought for ’information, first of all. from the Russian Embassy in London. He -was told: “We do not encourage religion; we discourage it, but we do not interfere with it.” His observations on the spot left only an attenuated meaning for “ non-interference.” The strongest impression made on Mr Makin’s mind was that of the poverty of the Soviet Union—much more obtrusive than poverty in Poland, which was previously a part of Russia. Improvements have been made, for the working class, as compared with prerevolution times; but the boasted pensions law—pensions are supposed to be granted at the age of 55, but only the incapacitated got them then—is pronounced to be much inferior to the Australian provision. The now people’s square in Leningrad is to be admired, but does not compare with British public parks and gardens. Women have been emancipated—“ so that they

participate in industry,” explains an official booklet. “ Nowhere in the whole of my travels have I seen women engaged on'the class of work that they are doing in Russia ” —as navvies and builders’ labourers, for example. Class distinction still exists. As to the system of government, “it is certainly neither Socialism nor Communism that is being applied in Russia. The ‘ Russian Plan ’ is a huge experiment by individuals who have secured the control of government and who do not necessarily receive the endorsement of the electorate, but assert their discipline with stern measures upon all within its borders.”