THE SOVIET AND THE WORLD

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 July 1931, Page 3

THE SOVIET AND THE WORLD

BOLSHEVIST OBJECTIVE

(Contributed by the. New Zealand Welfare League)

So much now appears in the press about 'the conditions, and policy of the rulers, in Russia that it is obvious that the relations of Soviet Russia with the outer world are resting on a complete misunderstanding of Bolshevism. Most political and many business men act as if they considered the Soviet power, while differing from other powers, to he in some degree comparable with them; that one can act towards it by way of treaties, trading arrangements and admission of its representatives, just in the same way one can with countries and governments. But the Soviet power is in absolute opposition to the conceptions of other civilised countries, in its fundamental conceptions of life, in its declared aims and in its methods.

THE SOVIET LEADERS These leaders have never sought to conceal the aims they pursue; they have published them and continue to publish them without ceasing. The programme adopted by the last world congress of the Communist International forecasts “the violent overthrow in the world of the entire traditional social order.” The statutes of the Communist International demand of all its members absolute submission to tlie orders and decisions of its directing beads. All the men in power in Russia are members of the Communist International and bound by its programme; indeed, it is they who formulated it and who preside over its execution. This consists in two essential tasks:

(1) To strengthen what the Bolshevists call “the base of the world revolution,” that is to say the territory of the USSR. (2) To sap the foundation upon which other countries repose in order to destroy and bring these countries into a universal republic of the Soviets, whose present territory, according to the Soviet constitution, forms only the nucleus.

Everything, so far as the Bolshevist power is concerned, is subordinated to these two objectives. It is only when one lias grasped this fundamental truth that one can understand the action and attitude of Bolshevism, which, without this explanation, would often be unintelligible. The control of Russia is in the hands of a minority consisting of less than one per cent, of the population who regards Russia and its people only as an instrument of world revolution. It’s home policy is entirely directed on this basis, while its foreign policy aims solely at tlie destruction of the socalled capitalist countries and tlie advent of Soviets throughout tlie world.