RUSSIAN EXPERIMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 262, 3 October 1936, Page 2

RUSSIAN EXPERIMENT

ADDRESS TO LUNCH CLUB. BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION. “The Russian Experiment” was the subject of an address given at the weekly gathering, yesterday, of the Palmerston North Lunch Club by Mr M. H. Oram. The speaker made a general survey of the position and did not give _ any personal comments. He touched on the situation leading up to the Revolution and then discussed the current position, showing that the collective system of Russia was issuing a challenge to the capitalistic system of other countries. The chair was taken by Mr H. I. Christensen. Russia before the Revolution had seen a betrayal of trust by those in temporal power and jjlso by the Church, said Mr Oram. Millions of people had lived practically as barbarians, without any cultural amenities ; yet in a small compass of persons was collected all the culture and the wealth of the great country. That position had been supported by the Church. Thus great bitterness had been directed towards the Church. Thus when the Bolshevik regime came youth had become atheistic. Of the older people, it could be said they had allowed shrines to fall into disuse and had pulled down the churches. The peasant had simply “allowed matters to slide.” An examintion of the policy of the Bolshevik leaders showed that they had treated the Church with great severity. They had allowed worship, but had so restricted it as to make it practically useless. Religious instruction to any youth under 18 had been forbidden, among ouiier things. The Church had been controlled in a formal and mechanistic way and had regarded its function only in the light of method and not of meaning When the peasants had seen the Church stripped, patriachs put in gaol, jewels and holy ornaments seized, and the saints’ bones dug up, they had come to the belief that the Church was not inviolable after all. They had thought that nothing would be lost by not attending and had found that they did not have to give money to it. Never before had an attack of such severity been launched against the Church as that of the Soviet leaders. Ikons and other such features had been replaced with materialistic things; weddings under the State were better than those of the Church; burials were better, and choirs developed by the State were an improvement on the Church choirs. The result of the battle was not yet determined, and religion would undoubtedly lose were it not for the fact that it was closely allied with the home. To-day there was evidence that home life was coming back in Russia. In the new constitution it was shown that the fight was still proceeding. The whole basis of the Russian experiment was the abolition of private property, proceeded the speaker. The Russian placed the blame 'or all ills (crime, hate, racial feuds, etc.,) on the institution of acquisitiveness. The Hebrew prophets had very definite views on tbe non-acqui-sition of private property, and the early Christians had said practically the same thing, in different language, as had Karl Marx. The Russians said that material goods should be used for the good of all mankind and they had said that no good could come from a system recognising private property. Lenin had said private property could not be abolished altogether, but that it would be recognised only as a temporary expedient. Yet the Russian methods, shown in taxes, regulation of profits, control of rents, the forbidding of credits and the contraction of the supply of raw materials, penalties for infringement of industrial laws, had made it preferable for persons to be entirely under the State rather than have private property. Under such a terrific onslaught private property had wilted. Which system would succeed —the collective system or the individual system of America and other countries? Every worker in Russian factories was keen to show that the Russian system was the best. Russia staked her success on her engineering plan, and it was claimed that the collective system eliminated waste which was a great loss to capitalistic industry. The peasants had numoered 150,000,000 and the ruling proletarians 3,000,000 at the time of the Revolution, proceeded the speaker. Finding they were no longer under control the peasantry had “gone slow” with their production after the Revolution, and as a result the Soviet had faced the greatest crisis in Russia’s' history. To meet that had been evolved collective farming. To persuade the peasants to undertake that had been a tremendous task, but the Soviet had succeeded. Again, the youth of Russia was atheistic, but was compactly organised, strictlv disciplined, and boisterously articulate with its own organisations and own Press. The speaker concluded his address by reading portions of the new Russian Constitution (yet to be adopted), and 6aid at the end of his quotation that elections in Russia were held on a democratic basis and every ballot was secret. Thus it could be seen that the trend of events was very interesting and was pregnant with possibilities for other parts of the world. On the motion of the chairman a vote of thanks was passed to the speaker. Mr H. F. Gibbons (Palmerston North) was welcomed as a visitor.