The New Russia

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 193, 17 August 1936, Page 5

The New Russia

movement to bight

DEMOCRACY'S TURN NEXT

STRIKING EEPOEMS

Speaking at the second of a series of W.E.A. lectures on curront history at the Trades Hall, Vivian street, this week, Dr. A. G. Butchers took as his subject ‘‘The New Russia.” Quoting Stalin as saying, ‘‘No revolution can be made with silk gloves,” he showed with what merciless ruthlessness the Bolshevik revolutionaries had annihilated whole classes of Eussian society, or “liquidated” them, as they euphemistically called tho process of extermination, until to-day they could with a considerable degree of truth claim to have organised All-Eussia as a classless society. \ Stalin was a man of steel. Steel was in fact said to be tho meaning of the name “Stalin,” which was assumed, his real name being Dzhugashvili, and his mother still living in Georgia. Lenin in his testament urged tho Communist Party to remove Stalin from his position as secretary-general of tho party. “Comrade Stalin is too rude,” he wrote; but Stalin was too clever for his opponents, both of the Eight and of the Left. For ho had to contend with opposition from both sides. The peasant revolt against the collectivisation of the farms was the first great internal crisis the revolution had to meet after tho end of the war of intervention; but the second was tho struggle of Trotsky and his associates to out Stalin and commit Eussia to a miliant world-revolutionary policy. Stalin tooft the long view. Ho saw that the territory under Soviet control was so vast in itself, so rich in natural resources, and so populous, that it take all the efforts of the Government to carry out its policy within its own borders, and that to enable this to be done, peace with the outside world was essential. Stalin consequently “liquidated” Trotsky and all his associates permanently as being themselves enemies of tho revolution. On the other hand, after subduing tho opposition from the Eight, it was significant that ho allowed the leaders of that section to return to tho party fold and gavo them prominent positions in tho Government and tho country, which they now hold.

Foreign Kelations.

Litvinov, who had succeeded in negotiating non-aggression pacts with every one of Eussia's neighbours except Japan, had been described by John Gunther as tho "cleverest foreign Minister alive.” It was interesting to know that Litivinov had married an English wife, a niece of Sidney Low. Russia’s offer of a non-aggression pact to Japan was still open. The FraneoSovict and Czecho-Soviet pacts were due to Eussia’s well-grounded fear of Hitler Germany. The. war of intervention and tho fear of Germany in tho west and Japan in tho cast had compelled Eussia to prepare for war on a scale unprecedented anywhere in the world. Tho present peaco strength of tho Eed Army was 1,300,000 men. Her air forco and mechanised units were being developed apace. Yet Litvinov was the only member of tho Disarmament Conference who had formulated on behalf of his Government a definite and effective scheme of mutual disarmament. Although uncompromising abuso had been hurled at the League of Nations in the early days of tho Republic, Soviet Eussia had since become one of its staunchest members with a permanent seat on the Council.

Dr. Butchers referred to tho tremendous natural resources of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, which he compared with the United States of America, and to the tremendous advances made in all branches of industry. The fact was that people could no longer blind their eyes to the success of tho Soviet experiment, which could not be gainsaid, whatever might be said of the means originally adopted in establishing it. Tho most striking thing about Eussia to-da.y was the wmy in which tho Government was everywhere scoking to effect a compromise between individual interests and collectivist principles.

A New Constitution, In the political field the movo towards the Eight was equally unexpected and striking. A special commission under Stalin's personal chairmanship had just completed the formulation of a new Constitution for Eussia providing most, if not all, of the forms of parliamentary and responsible government of which British peoples were so proud. The dictatorship of the proletariat having served its turn as a necessary evil, liko the initial wholesale "liquidation” of class enemies, was now to give placo to a President elected directly by secret ballot on the basis of adult suffrage. The loading of the votes in favour of industrial workers as against tho peasants was to be abolished. Clergymen and former officials of tho Tsarist regime, previously disfranchised, were now to be permitted to vote. Thero wero to be two Houses of Parliament, tho lower one consisting of COO members directly representing the whole electorate, the upper one consisting of 200 members representing the interests of the autonomous States comprising tho Union, similar to the United States and the Australian Senate.

Other liberal reforms provided for the redrafting of the criminal code and court procedure, giving citizens the right to defend themselves and establishing the British principle that no one was to be adjudged guilty until proved guilty. Tho Soviet Government had moreover begun a national campaign aiming at tho regularising of family life by restoring many restrictions which had been removed in the early years of the regime. Divorce was to be made more difficult and premiums were to be given to large famil-

Dr. Butchers quoted from an interview recently given by Stalin himself to an American journalist in which ho said unequivocally, “We want to give the people absolute liberty to vote for those they want to elect and to elect those they trust to ensure their interests, because direct elections for all representative bodies, right up to the supremo representative bodies, are a

better guarantee of the interests of the working population of our boundless country.”