UNDER THE SOVIET

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 May 1925, Page 7

UNDER THE SOVIET

more 1,1 Out on Russia.. LABOUR DELEGATES’ REPORT. “WOULD NOT SUIT US.” (By Cl. O. Dixon.) At last the British Trade Union delegation has published its fill) report on Russia. And a very interesting document it is. both in its enthusiasm for certain Soviet institutions and its tacit admissions that there are certain other things in Russia which would not suit us.”

The report begins with an account of a review of Red cavalry, with which, as confirmed pacifists, the delegates were greatly impressed. ‘‘The mounted cavalry,” we learn, at the same time making a mental note to inquire into the condition of the cavalry that is not mounted, “gave us some wonVJeifful demonstrations of horsemanship and military movement, and the manipulation of’ artillery equipment was a new experience for the representatives of British labour. We were here witnessing the operations of the first disciplined, armed and trained force created and utilised for the defence of working-class institutions, an

important part of an army of wellequipped. able-bodied, well-trained soldiers kept in existence by the workers themselves, organised, controlled, and working under the orders of their officers appointed and recognised by working-class organisations.” ()ne wonders whether the die-hard pacifists in Britain, the peace-at-any-price fellows, conscientious objectors, and so on, will share the delegates’ enthusiasm. Apparently the same question has occurred to them. “We are not quite sure what those who are included in organisations in Great Britain known as pacifists would have to say regarding this demonstration,” the report adds doubtfully. “The army appears, however, to he an indispensable necessity so far as the Russian Republic is concerned.” This may be quite true. But a standing army of 563,000 seems a trifle excessive for a State which stands for international brotherhood and desperately needs every penny fop public services.

UNIONISTS AS SPIES. Dealing with work and wages, the report says that though the unions are no longer part of the Government of Russia —in the early days of the revolution each managed its own industry after the syndicalist plan—-they are still very important and influential. “The trades unions are entrusted with carrying out one of the safeguards against any undue surrender of the rights of the workers to rule,” says the report. “This safeguard is the setting of a worker to keep an eye from the inside on the way that any enterprise or establishment, public or private, is carried on. The object of this is not only to train the workers in technicalities, but also to check any use of the enterprise against the new ruling class. Thus a. trade union representative will in future be attached to every foreign mission, and another is assigned to every bank.” This I can corroborate from personal experience. Every foreign concessionaire in Moscow. I found, complained about the opening of letters, revelation of business secrets, and other signs of cnrefnllv organised espionage. The delegates ivere greatly impressed with the opportunities given to the worker to qualify for a more highly skilled trade or for public life. But they found that the strike may lie used “only as an extreme protest against abuses of the State Authority’ (which is putting it mildly, seeing that only the other dav half a dozen strikers were shot without trial), and it is. admitted that there is a great dea] of unemployment. “Unemployment began in the autumn of 1922, with the demobilisation of the overgrown officialdom of war communism. To these have been added the victims of the ‘axe’ in educational and other economies, these representing in 1922 70 per cent, of the total. As these unemployed were for the most part non-proletarian, their plight did not at first cause undue disquiet”— this T can quite believe —“and as in Vienna, these unfortunates seem by now to have been somehow absorbed. But tbeir numbers went to swell the registers .of the employment exchanges, from which, in the course of the following year, repeated efforts were made to get rid of them as unemployables. . . Only 5.4 per cent, of the workers in industrial employment before the war have been re-employed as yet. the remainder being unemployed or having returned to the land.” The delegates found that wages were less than three-quarters of what they were before the revolution, but claim that with other benefits the worker is better off —which is at least doubtful. WRETCHED HOUSING.

The report emphatically denies the existence of a reign of terror, and makes it plain that the imprisonment and efile of 90,(XX> “politicals’’ inspired no terror in these stout British hearts. (It was Swift, I think, who observed how easy it is to bear the misfortunes of others perfectly like a Christian.) And the delegates claim, probably with justice, that the conditions of work and housing are better than under the old regime. “The nearest description one con give is the outhouses one finds in the worst slum areas at home,’’ the delegates observed, touching on housing around the .Baku oilfields. “In these hovels hordes of people of various nationalities used to be housed under such conditions that would subject the owner of cattle in our country to pioseeution for cruelty if lie kept his animals in a similar state.” (A good advertisement, surely, for the soulless capitalist regime.) . . “When it is remembered that the output oi oil from this district can be counted in hundreds of millions, when we know that millionaires have been created m abundance from these oilfields, our indignation and disgust of the treatment of the workers is unlimited.” The delegates comment on the resistance of the peasants to any attempt to make them cleaner, and on thenfondness fo r bugs. A house which lacks these attractions is supposed to be unlucky. NO INDIVIDUAL .LIBERTY. With all their rejoicings, the delegates found some things that they were a little cold about. Discussing the fact that the system of Government in Russia is a dictatorship of the proletariat, and that “democracy,” as understood elsewhere, has no place in it, they state: “This amounts to a denial of the principle of individual, political liberty as hitherto understood. And in practice there is control, not only of the press and platform and political, machinery, but of the schools, universities, and army. “It is obvious that a political system based on the assumption of such authority by a minority can only justify itself bv results. Although Russian Communists themselves repudiate any suggestion that there has been a change in the fundamental; principles of their political creed, or anything moire than temporary tactical retire-