THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1927 BOLSHEVIST ANXIETIES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 214, 24 August 1927, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1927 BOLSHEVIST ANXIETIES

JJ ECENT cable messages have been □rawing special attention to the widespread talk of war that is going on in Soviet Russia. The latest to hand at time of writing quoted the utterances of the Acting-War Commissar, also the chief of the notorious Secret Police or Cheka, who laid stress on Great Britoin as the chief enemy to be feared, and emphasised the necessity for making preparations to meet her expected movements. This sort of scare talk has. as matter of fact, been a prominent item in the domestic propaganda work of the Soviet leaders for months now, indeed, ever since the Areas expulsion and the severance of diplomatic relations between the two Governments. At the same time we are having news also of anything but friendly among the leaders themselves. Beyond this, again, >n outward and visible sign of nervousness in Moscow official quarters is -o he found in the frequent “conferences of urgency” that are being held. AH these, we are told by the Riga correspondent of the “Times,” are the outcome of disquietment, not so much on account of failures in Bolshevist activities abroad—though they have had a serious influence—as of anxiety with regard to the situation at home.

The agitation due to the severance of diplomatic relations with Great Britain and the persistent rumours of coming wars which Bolshevist leaders are assiduously, almost frantically, spreading are having a very detrimental influence on the economic life of the Union .if Socialist Soviet Republics, which covers most of the old Russian Empire. The only plausible reason for the circulating of these unfounded war-scares is that the Bolshevists hope to rally the masses, in the fane of a supposed national danger from without, and so concentrate the general discontent against their foreign “foes,” in the centre of whom is always Grent Britain. The breach with Great Britain, which Rykofl. nominal head of the Soviet Govern nient, publicly proclaimed was merely the prelude to war, certainly made a great impression throughout tho

U.S.S.R., and the hoarding of necessaries of life which ensued gave a fresh impulse to the upward tendency of prices. The stability of the Soviet currency was shaken even in the Border States, but this was partially restored by artificial measures. Beyond this, there are very grave doubts as to the results of the grain harvests, and this probably accounts for the assurance given, according in the message above quoted, that the Soviet, besides being prepared for war, would ‘‘adequately provide the citizens with , all necessaries.” Furthermore, the people as a whole, or at any rate in the industrial centres, are realising that the promised revival of trade and improvement in national finance have not been realised, and that this is largely due to the fact that their Government has made a mess of things in connection with its foreign policy. These and all other questions m which Soviet commercial and indus trial specialists are so busily con ferring are, however, dominated now. more than ever before, by political considerations, being influenced especially by intrigues among Communist leaders. Mere membership of the Community Party no longer makes a man eligible to hold a responsible position, as it did in former years. An atmosphere of mutual suspicion has resulted from the aspirations of Stalin to wear the mantle of Lenin and dictate his wi!l to the party. He could not lead or drive his old colleagues as Lenin could, but he managed to force them out of the high positions they held in the administration and the party and to fill the vacant posts with hi< friends and supporters. Hence the violent opposition offered by Trotsky and others among Stalin’s old political comrades. In conclusion the correspondent says that the defiant ‘‘Reply to Chamberlain,” the war scares, the “unmasking” of British trade unionists, and even the opei resumption of “Red terror” are mere “diversions’’ arranged lest the minds of Soviet citizens should dwell unduly on the failures of Soviet diplomacy abroad and the chaos nt home. They have been resorted to by the Stalinists in order tn fill the interval while they are collecting thei’ thoughts and seeding to discover some sort of new policy to offer the country, ft would, he adds, be rash to say that the “Opposition group” of Trotsky and Zinovieff has any strong following. But there is a sort of general revulsion against the nH leaders of both groups, who have all declaimed so much and achieved i n little; thus the whole mass of the party may be said to be in Intent opposition to the central organs, waiting for something to “turn up.”