The MANAWATU DAILY Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1936. The Soviet’s Real Aim

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 188, 11 August 1936, Page 6

The MANAWATU DAILY Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1936. The Soviet’s Real Aim

One of the most significant features of the new Soviet Constitution, announced a few weeks ago, is the provision .Loi the adherence of other countries. The Constitution is an ‘ organic law for a World Socialist Union.” So this is the lodestar of Lie Soviet Union under Stalin as it was of the Soviet Union under Lenin. The avowal will come as somewhat of a surprise to those who had imagined that the U.S.S.K, had renounced world revolution and embraced a new nationalism. This feeling arose when Stalin superseded Trotsky us tlm real power in Moscow. Trotsky felt that the Soviet Union could not survive tilt it had created satellites on its borders. Iw iirst was to be industrial Germany. In the days when the e\Allies tried to “squeeze Germany till the pips squeaked, ' tliere was some justification for Moscow’s expectation that Germany would turn Bolshevist. It was not till the Germans passed through the horror, of the post-war adjustment into the (temporary) haven of the Weimar Constitution that the Soviets acjuiowledged their misjudgment. Then their eyes turned to the Last, where the Chinese Republic was in equal turmoil. Agents, political and military, were dispatched to China. A never-ending stream of money and propaganda began to now from Moscow. Eventually it all bore fruit. The Bolshevists captured the Chinese revolutionary party, but before the revolution came to its triumphant finale in the establishment of tne Government at Nanking, the Bolshevists themselves had been ousted. The ousting led to the eclipse of Trotsky. It was then that the Soviets ostensibly ceased to fish in troubled foreign waters. Stalin turned inward to the task of internal reconstruction. He launched the drive for regimenting the Russian people to the task of starving themselves into industrial (and military) greatness. In foreign affairs the diplomats disowned the activities of the Third International. Thus the Comintern, with its goal of a world revolution, appeared in the guise of an entity separate and distinct from the Soviet State. It just happened to have its headquarters in Moscow, according to the diplomats. To close observers, however, the difference between Stalin and Trotsky was merely one of emphasis. History will probably give the palm to Stalin as the superior tactician. Harried from East and West, the Soviet Union might have been invaded before now if Trotsky had been in the saddle. It was the collectivisation movement on the farms, coupled with a good crop, that probably saved Siberia from Japanese penetration in 1932. The skill of Soviet diplomacy in seeking friendships, in joining the League of Nations, and in insisting at Geneva lor peace to be one and indivisible—all this has probably saved Russia from invasion from the west. The Soviet Constitution thus recalls to the observer the fundamental tenet in the Marxian creed which he may have been in some danger of forgetting since Trotsky’s downfall.. This is the tenet of “an organic law for a world Socialist Union.” It is the kernel of this new pill. As for the pill itself, it is described as “the most democratic constitution in the world.” The inclusion of a bill of rights is, apparently, the warrant for the description. But words nowadays have different significations in different countries. The freedom of worship established in the Soviet Constitution, for instance, is merely freedom “to perform religious rites. ” It does not mean freedom to proselytise, despite the fact that there is the utmost freedom, under the State’s own direction, to cany on anti-religious propaganda. Also, there is freedom of speech, but if anyone should attack the Marxian ideolbgy, no constitution would save him from the tender mercies of the OGPU.