THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1921. MURMURINGS IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17723, 7 March 1921, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1921. MURMURINGS IN RUSSIA.

In estimating the significance of the somewhat startling news from Russia, published this morning, it is well to bear two things in mind. One is that the occupation of only Kronstadfeby the White troops is officially confirmed. The reports of revolts in Petrograd, Odessa, and Moscow bear varying evidences of authenticity and must be received with caution. If they were verified there would be no reason to doubt that a very serious revolt against the Bolshevik Government was spreading throughout Russia. If, on the other hand, disaffection is confined to Kronstadt it may be stamped out by the summary methods which Lenin and Trotzky have hitherto employed with irresistible effect. The second circumstance which will be weighed by those who wish to bring the Russian news' into correct focus, is the uniform failure of previous attempts to overthrow Soviet institutions. Civil war in Russia has now passed through many phases, the Social Revolutionary activities on the Volga, the efforts of Korniloff and Alexeiff in the Cossack country, the revolt of the Czecho-Slovaks followed by the creation of Koltchak's army in Siberia, the large-scale operations of Denikin and Wrangei, and Yudenich's raid on Petrograd. Side by side with these organised movements there has been an undercurrent of resistance to Bolshevik rule of which the outside world has heard little. It is characteristic

that the Bolsheviks should have sustained during the first six months of their regime 7000 casualties in the armed forces sent by them to the villages to extort corn from peasantry. Lenin himself has always regarded this simmering of popular unrest as far more serious than the political movements with which he has from time to time been threatened. If the Kronstadt revolt is a spontaneous outbreak of fires which have long been smouldering under the surface of Bolshevik administration, it may prove far more formidable than any of the demonstrations •which have depended on foreign encouragement and aid. The Soviet system will eventually | be overthrown. Of that there can be hardly any doubt. The revolui tion is permanent and irrevocable. Bolshevism is an accident depending upon the circumstance that no party in Russia save the Communists had leaders capable of controlling the disorganised machinery of Russian society. The native talent of the Bolshevik leaders, combined with the administrative experience they had gained during years of exile in foreign countries, gave them a natural ascendancy. As might be expected of a people who had lived under a despotism, political talent among Russians is small. Maxim Gorky is the only Russian by blood in the inner councils of the Bolsheviks, and on the other side no Russian has- shown real qualities of leadership. Distinguished soldiers have fought gallantly and skilfully and often to the point of triumph against the Red armies, but always they have failed before the heterogeneity of anti-Bolshevik aspirations- When Russia finds a man who can co-ordinate these the doom of the Bolsheviks will be sealed. The Bolsheviks themselves do not estimate their active supporters at more than one • million, many of whom are mere mercenaries hi military and civil employment; Ijbhe poptdation. of Soviet Rns-

sia is over 150,000,000. The 149,000,000 have tolerated the handful of Lenin's followers because they can visualise no alternative government. They have for the most part supported the Soviet in the civil war because foreign intervention hag stirred their patriotism, and because they feared that r% actionaries might dominate an antiBolshevik Government. Yet there is a limit to the acquiescence of the masses of Russia, and nearly all who have visited the country agree that this limit will soon be reached unless the Bolsheviks succeed in improving economic conditions.

Before Bolshevism can be considered to have established itself in Russia it' must accomplish two things. It must restore the natipnal will to work and it must convert the peasants, who form the great majority of the population, to the theory and practice of communism. So far all attempts to restore habits of industry have failed and national idleness has resulted in an insufficiency of food and every material commodity. Labour corps have been formed and employed on unskilled work under military discipline, but the results have not been encouraging. There have even been futile experiments in industrial conscription, but the proletariat continues to enjoy vits triumph by taking its ease. Communistic propaganda among the peasants has been ecraally unsuccessful. There exists in Russia the curious anomaly of a peasantry supporting a Communistic Government because that Government has permitted it to expropriate landlords and seize the land. In other words, the Bolsheviks have won the temporary support of the peasants by making of them a petty bourgeoisie. Lenin himself admits the inconsistency of this, but regards it as a first stage. He looks forward to what he calls the "proletarianisation" of the peasants, so that in the \ong run their interests will become more or less identical with those of workers in other industries. In the meantime, he considers the first task of his Government is to satisfy the economic needs of the peasants lest, in their discontent, they should overthrow Bolshevism. That is his motive for seeking trade with Western Europe, but if, as appears most probable, the basis of the present revolt is economic, he may already have lost his opportunity of postponing the disaster which will sooner or later overtake his Government.