RUSSIAN WAYS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2516, 20 December 1927, Page 2

RUSSIAN WAYS.

OPINIONS SUPPRESSED. METHOD WITH TOURISTS. Speculation, says the Riga correspondent of the Times, continues amongst Communists in Moscow on the impression they gave to the unofficial delegation of American trade unionists which recently visited Soviet Russia. Discussion centres in a long interview the visitors had with the “Dictator” Stalin. The Americans submitted to Stalin twelve questions, the most awkward of which, perhaps, was why only one party was allowed to exist in the U.S.S.R., and. how, notwithstanding that, Communists could know that the masses sympathised with Communism. Stalin replied that the people expressed their confidence in the Communist ten years ago, and that the masses supported the Communist party during the civi! war and now elected communists to Soviet and trade union offices. Stalin was asked whether differences of opinion existed among the workmen and peasants and whether ioyal to Soviet citizens enjoyed opportunities to organise or express opinions such as they would enjoy if the Communist party did not have a “monopoly of legality.” He admitted the existence of differences, but declared that the workmen and peasants agreed with the Communist party in all essential matters; therefore, any reason to legalise other parties did not exist. The delegation asked whether any local non-Com-munist group might be allowed openly to advocate for instance, the abolition of foreign trade. Stalin replied that loyal citizens must necessari’y support this monopoly, as only nepmen (private traders) and counterrevolutionaries could desire its abolition. Stalin burked the question of what differences of opinion existed between himself and Trotsky by referring his questioners to the speeches of Bukharin and Rykoff. When the Americans requested a copy of “the platform of the 83”— the programme which Trotsky and the opposition presented to the Central Committee of the Communist party, and which nearly resulted in his expulsion—Stalin flatly refused to supply them with one.