SOVIET RUSSIA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 197, 21 July 1937, Page 4

SOVIET RUSSIA

COMMUNIS, PARTY ADDRESS. Speaking under the auspices of the Palmerston North section of the Communist Party, Mr F. Lee outlined, on Monday, to a fairly large audience in the Municipal Hall, his impressions of twelve months spent in Russia. Mr Lee said that in leaving the Soviet Union he felt that lie was leaving the greatest democracy in the world. The culture and the living standard was increasing every day, while in Fascist countries and even in Britain the individual democracy of the people was gradually being decreased. In the LSoviet Union the masses of the people were controlling affairs; the exploiters had been eliminated, _ as they would have to be in other countries. “1 am a Communist, I admit,” he declared, “but I am not biased in any way and I declare my allegiance to the greatest country in the world, Soviet Russia, with all enthusiasm.” The statement that slavery and starvation existed ill the Union as quoted by Mr F. Doidge was untrue; the people were happy and evidence was provided in the fact that in Russia the birth-rate was the highest in the world; over 3,000,000 children were born each year, indicating a definitely contented and domestically satisfied race. The speaker referred to the educational opportunities of the young people of Russia. “In this country,” he declared, “only the children of the wealthy can go to the university, but in the Soviet the university is open to all; the youth are encouraged to gain knowledge.” There was no unemployment in Russia, the speaker continued, and this could he accounted for in the fact that production was for use and not for profit. The farms were run on a collective basis, and' the farm hands worked no more than six hours a day in winter or ten hours a day in summer, while in industry the hours of work per day never exceeded seven hours. The speaker Outlined the encouragement given 'workers to learn trades and professions. | Referring to the communal systems, Mr Lee said that the Women were free of alt home drudgery; they had equal rights with the men; they could go to tlie factory with the sterner sex and receive the same wages as men received. Wives could go to work with their husbands, while their children were being well looked after in the communal nurseries. The mother and father, free from home drudgery, had their meals in the communal kitchens provided. The history taught was not the story of kings and queens or of wars, hut the very necessary stories of the class struggles of the heroes of other days; of the persistent fight to overcome capitalism. Mr Lee referred to the production plan of the Soviet, stating that the workers always had adequate representation on the committee which drafted the plan. After all there was room for only the Communist Party in Russia ; the capitalists had been discarded and there were only the two classes—workers and peasants, with little difference between the two. Everything was in the hands ol the. worker—even the Press, which was used for workers’ propaganda. Wages were paid on the piecework plan, and were based on the average work of the average man. Such a system had been opposed by the workers in New Zealand, and rightly so, he declared, because good money was made at piecework down would come the rate. That was one defect under capitalism, which was absent in the Soviet Union. There the people were well paid and well housed. They were encouraged to save money, but . they could never become capitalists. The speaker outlined the social services provided—insurance against illnesß, medical attention for children, and provision for old age. He described the system of collective or State farming, stating that the land belonged to the farmer for all time without cost. Farming had developed to a remarkable extent, and the scientific training of the men on the land was not neglected. The peasant of Czarist Russia had goile, and a happy, cultured agriculturalist had taken his place under the Soviet.