The Hawera Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1925 “MADE IN RUSSIA.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 16 September 1925, Page 6

The Hawera Star.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1925 “MADE IN RUSSIA.”

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock - d Hawera, MAnaia Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. Mokoia, Whakamara, Obangaf. Meremere, Frsaer Road, an Ararat*.

“The banner of revolution has been planted over the Pacific Ocean.” With this declaration in the M.oscow Communist organ, Pravda, does Karl Radek, internationally notorious as a Bolshevik propagandist in foreign countries, reveal Russia’s hand in the recent disturbances in China. Events in China, according to this Soviet “statesman,” have stirred the warmest sympathies not only of the Russian, but nlso of the world proletariat. Then he continues:—

Nor do we make a secret of the fact that our sympathies in Russia go even further. These events make it clear that the Chinese proletariat is learning now to struggle with solidarity for its interests. This makes us hope that it will learn before long to struggle for the interests of the whole Chinese nation and that it will assume leadership in the Chinese struggle against world capital. When this lias happened we shall have ample reason to say that world imperialism is confronted in its last refuge by its mortal enemy.

Still more outspoken support for the cause of revolution is offered in an editorial appearing in the same enlightened journal, which remarks that any attempts at quelling the trouble in the East ordered by “British and Japanese imperialistic bandits” will only add fuel to the flame. Fortified by this belief, Pravda proceeds:—

Events that took place at Shanghai are, as it were, a iiresage of events that are going to take place in all China, in India, in Egypt, in Java, and elsewhere. In all these colonial or dependent countries the working class will succeed in impressing its stamp on the great- movement toward freedom. “The rising of the proletariat of all countries against the bourgeoisie, plus the rising of natives in the colonial and dependent countries”—such is the definition Comrade Lenin gave to the world revolution. Now this formula is being carried out more and more witli flesh and blood. Soon will come the time when Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai, and Canton will begin to exchange revolutionary greetings. And then these centres will send their greetings to the proletariat of Paris, London, New York, and Tokio. In China and in Egypt there have already been seizures- of factories by workmen. The revolutionary movement in India is growing stronger with every month. The lightnings of revolution in the East are penetrating the obscurity of the bourgeois reaction that hangs over the world. . . . All our thoughts and feelings are for and with the Chinese workmen.

All very heroic language, no doubt; but without, any great power of conviction, and wholly lacking a leavening of common sense. .Such vapourings of themselves would be unworthy of notice, and we quote them only to show: first, what is behind the unrest in China; and, secondly, what kind of twaddle is talked by the gods whom the noisy and not over-select band of British Communists worships. Small wonder that the British Labour Party, led by such men as Messrs. McDonald and Thomas, will have no truck with the Communists. These statesmen — Britishers and Imperialists —realise that the whole spirit and intentions of Communism are antagonistic to the traditions of the Labour movement. The leaders of jiolitical Labour in New Zealand are not to be compared in breadth of vision with their British, colleagues, which may explain why Messrs Holland and Co. are disposed to flirt with the doctrines of Communism. Possibly, “the banner of revolution”' having been “planted over the Pacific Ocean,” these gentlemen will now .put to sea in a noble war canoe to join with the Bolshies and the Chinamen in their massed attack on “world imperialism.” . . . Possibly, we say .... No, we cannot remember off-hand what honorarium the capitalist system in New Zealand allows to its members of Parliament; nor how many hundreds of thousands have died of starvation in Russia since the glorious revolution.