Russian Experiment Is Magnificent

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 234, 3 October 1936, Page 2

Russian Experiment Is Magnificent

COMMUNISM MODIFIED BY DEMO-

CEATIC FORMS

"Eussia lias swung so far from communism towards democracy that every election to-day is on a democratic basis. Every citizen has tho right to vote, and every ballot is secret. There are tremendous developments in liussia; it is a magnificent experiment, whose potentialities for the world wo often fail to realise," declared Mr. M. H. Oram in an address to the Palmerston North Citizens’ Lunch Club yesterday on "The Eussian Experiment." Mr Oram presented "an academic survey expressing no personal opinion ono way or the other."

Eussia before the revolution had experienced a betrayal of trust by two institutions —by the temporal power of the state and by the church. Millions of tho people were living in barbarism, with no culture and no amenities, while a privileged few lived in luxury. The order that preserved this injustice was supported by the Church, so that the successful engineers of the Eevolution displayed some of their most acuto bitterness towards the Church. Tho youth of the country became frankly - atheistic; tho ordinary people took charge of the shrines and made of them social buildings, while tho attitude of the peasants was one of stolid negation. Tho downfall of the Church could not however bo attributed rvholly to Bolshevik philosophy’. What tho Bolshevists did do was so to restrict tho scope of the Church that it could exert no cultural or social influence. Tho Orthodox Church failed because it was exclusively formal and mechanistic, and when the peasant saw the institution ridiculed and punished, ho lost respect for it. Ho stayed away—and found he saved money. Tho Bolshevists sought to rob the Church of any conceivable s'>- : "l or cultural function in the lifo of the country’. Whenever tho Church had pervaded the life of the people, it wrns replaced by some utilitarian influence. Never before had religion met such a co-ordinated and scientific attack, planned by social experiments. The battle between religion, and religion and the home, had been a clear issue in the Eevolution. That battle was still in progress, and it appeared that religion would havo been ousted but for its alliance with the home. The institution of the home was again establishing its power in Eussia, and through it religion might yet become influential again in tho country. Some provision for religion was made in the new constitution proposed for the Soviet Eepublics. The abolition of private property was inherent in the Eussian experiment. The Communist attributed to private property every ill and vice which humanity had experienced. Attacks on private property were not new r ; tho prophets, Moses among them, had spoken in no uncertain terms of private property. The early churchmen condemned it in terms similar to those of Karl Marx. The Hebrews and the churchmen however felt themselves to be obeying a divine injunction, escaping the material world. The Soviets however frankly recognised a value in things material, and so proceeded to abolish private property’. Lenin, modifying the Marxist principles, had held that a collective society could be launched, if not developed, without expressing itself in world revolution. The Russian leaders decided to tolerate private property’ for a period, but so hedged it around that those engaged in private enterprise soon chose to fall in with the national experiment. Various penal measures were applied to compel citizens to resign their property. Under the terrific onslaught, private property wilted. Which system was to succeed? The collective system of Soviet Eussia, or the individualised system typified iu America? Trotsky had admitted that that system would ultimately succeed which offered the highest plane of living to its citizens. Such was the struggle now in progress; the Russians were striving to justify their system before the world, looking to integiation and cordination to prove their economic system superior. The Soviet had faced a great crisis when the peasants slowed up production, deliberately. The crisis was faced with wonderful resolution, and boldly tho Soviet leaders embarked on collective farming. They succeeded, absolutely'. To-day tho socialist economy covered 95.81 per cent of the whole economic activity’ of the country. The peasants had been won over. Eussia was a country for youth to-day; the young peoplo were compactly organised, and boisterously organised, and boisterously articulate, with its own schools, its own libraries, its own press and publishing houses, etc. Youth was a vital force, and entirely devoted to the future of the collective state. Mr. Oram read a number of articles from the new constitution, illustrating the development of the Soviet experiment.

Mr 11. I. Christensen presided and thanked the speaker. Mr 11. I’. Gibbons (P. N.) was welcomed as a visitor.