SQUALOR IN RUSSIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 9 November 1934, Page 7

SQUALOR IN RUSSIA.

OXFORD GRADUATE’S VISIT

,“I have returned disillusioned and cannot he a Marxian Communist after what I saw in Russia.” This is the finding of Mr John Brown, Oxford graduate, one of those whose expenses to Russia were paid by. Lord Nuffield, the motor magnate, as a challange to Communist propaganda in Britain. Mr Brown spent four months in Russia. “gate-crashing factories and workers’ dwellings.” Mr Brown says it was sickening to see visiting intellectuals shepherded to show places and lapping up anything the officials said. “I discovered a complete failure to maintain equality of wages.” he said. “Coalminers are paid more than doctors or professors. “The housing is vile, owing to the great influx to the cities. Even the higher paid workers’ standard of living is below that of a man on the dole in England. There are no smiling faces among the workers, who lack variety of food-stulfs. They subsist on melons, bread, fish, and tea. The unemployed starve unless they beg. “1 was amazed at the efficient tanks and machine-guns being manufactured at the Putiloff Works, where 20,000 men are employed.”