The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1924. RUSSIA’S ATTITUDE TO OTHER COUNTRIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 July 1924, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1924. RUSSIA’S ATTITUDE TO OTHER COUNTRIES.

Delivered eiery evening by & o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, N^rrnanby. Okaiawa, Eltham, Hangatcki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeuo Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Pateti, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohang&t, Meresaera. Fraser Road, and

Recent cable news indicates that there is considerable activity on the part of the Russian triumvirate —Zinoviev, Stalin and Kamenev —to enter into agreemnts with the nations of the Far East. For many months after the Bolsheviks usurped power efforts were made to induce the workers in other countries and people with Socialist tendencies to unite and overthrow their systems of government. Lenin and Trotsky were held up before audiences by Socialist advocates, as the greatest men of the age, and Lenin’s call to the masses in Western countries was to rise in “heavy revolution” and sweep away everything which opposed the socalled ideals of the Bolsheviks. As with most new-fangled schemes, large numbers of people took an interest in the fiery speeches and denunciations of the existing order of things, and those who dared to express an opinion differing from the Socialists were bitterly attacked. People were asked to swallow without the slightest demur such statements as “Lenin is the greatest statesman in the world”’; “Russia is the ideal popular State”; “the cable messages from Russia are coloured and the country is in a far different state from what it is painted by your newspapers”; and so on. For a time the Bolshevik propaganda and its advocates seemed to make headway, even .in New Zealand, but as time passed and people found that the “greatest statesman” had to relax his economic methods very considerably, that photographs of the desolation of parts of Russia were bringing irrefutable evidence of the disaster due to Bolshevism, that world-wide appeals were being made for help against the awful famine, and that so far from being the harbingc-r of peace and prosperity the Russian Bolsheviks were maintaining a huge army (probably the largest in Europe), a great many of the disciples of Bolshevism reconsidered their attitude and came to the conclusion that the Russian methods were not those for Western nations to follow. Kautzky, regarded as one of the greatest Socialists in Europe, was one .of the first to denounce the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Bolshevist methods of government. M. Herriot, the new Premier of France, who is President of the Radical and Socialist Radical Party in France, said recently: “I do not confuse the Russian people or even the Russian Government with the Moscow International, whose political literature is as vulgar as it is childish, and which produces very little impression on me. In my endeavour to re-establish relations with the Soviet Republic, I shall not allow myself to be manoeuvred by a handful of excited people, and I shall not fail to remember that the small French investor has important interests in Russia.” Many others after investigating the position in Russia have changed their opinions. We find Mrs Snowden, a keen Socialist, writes: “Indeed, I think it could be argued with success that in a country like ours, where the head of the State is a constitutional Monarch, who stands outside party and political controversies, and acts only on the advice of his Ministers, who in effect are chosen by the people, there is a greater safeguard of democratic ideals than in a country where the temporary head of the State is the creation of party politics. There is certainly greater security for purity in the national administration.” Mrs Snowden has a far better knowledge of Russia and Bolshevism than those Socialists in New Zealand who acclaimed Lenin as the “greatest statesman” in the world. It is still argued by some Socialists that Bolshevism and its leaders in Russia, though they may have made mistakes in the early stages, have something to offer to the world. Here is that something as stated by Stalin in an address at Sverdlov University in April last: “To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and establish that of the prole-

tariat in one country does not mean to guarantee the complete victory of Socialism. The principal task of Socialism —the organisation of production on Socialist lines —remains to be. accomplished. Can the goal be achieved, can this be attained by the complete victory of Socialism in one country, without simultaneous efforts made by the proletariats of some of the other leading countries? No, it is impossible! For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient —the history of our own revolution speaks for that. For the final victory of Socialism, for the organisation of Socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially of such an essentially agricultural country as Russia, are not enough Therefore, the development and support of revolution in other countries is the real problem confronting the successful revolution. Therefore, the revolution in the country Avhere it has conquered must not regard itself as a self-sufficing entity, but as a stimulating agent, as a means for hastening the conquest of the proletariat in other countries. Lenin expressed this idea in two words, in saying that the aim of the successful revolution consists in giving effect to the maximum achievable in the one country for the development, support, and awakening of revolution in all countries.” Can one think that the efforts being made by the Bolsheviks to reach, understandings with the countries of Asia have no sinister intent? The attempts to wreck the Western nations have failed, and naturally the Bolsheviks will try the East, where great resources and powers are to be found, which, harnessed to the revolutionary tide, would be terrible. Stalin’s opinion is that Bolshevism in Russia has failed because there have not been similar revolutions in other countries, and the one hope and main object of the present rules of Russia is to stir up Communist revolutions in other countries. And in New Zealand there are people ready to do the stirring. It is the duty of all lovers of democracy and freedom to resist steadfastly every move in that direction.