NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19626, 3 May 1927, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE SOCIAL ORDER. " When all is said, Communism is out to rule, not to rescue; its great watchword is power, not help. For it poverty, hunger, unemployment are not an unbearable pain and shame, but a welcome reserve of dark forces, a fermenting heap of fury and loathing," says M. Karel Capek, the famous Czech dramatist, in the Fortnightly Review. " I cannot be a Communist because the moral of Communism is not a moral of help. Because it preaches the removing of the social order, but not the doing away with the social disorder which spells misery. Because if he wants to help the poor at all he does so conditionally: First he says we must rule and then—perhaps—your turn will come. Unfortunately, not even this conditional salvation is a written guarantee. . . . But it is impossible to postpone the poverty problem until the coming of some new order;, if any assistance at all is to be given it must be initiated this very day. Our society today did not collapse when it carried out some measure of protection against unemployment, old age, and sickness; I do not say it is enough, but it is of importance to the poor, and to myself, that at least so much was possible to-day without waiting excitedly for the glorious moment when the red flag will stream in the winds of revolution. To believe that the poverty problem is the task for this present order, and not for some order to come, is the negation oi: Communism. To believe that a piece of bread and a fire in the grate to-day is more important than a revolution in 20 years is evidence of a very non-Communistic temperament." COMMUNISM'S INHUMANITY. The most curious and inhuman thing about Communism, says M. Capek, is its strange gloom; the worse the better. Everything is the fault of the bourgeoisie. The lato Czech Communist poet Wolker said in one of his ballads: "Deepest in thy heart, oh man of poverty, I see hatred." It is a terrible word and entirely incorrect. At the bottom of the hearts of those who live in poverty is rather a wonderful and splendid mirth. The so-called proletarian is naturally inclined to take life in a cheerful and childlike way. Communistic pessimism and gloomy hatred are artificially pumped into him, and through unclean pipes, too. Inhospitable and inhuman is the climate of Communism. Love does not exist. " There is no doubt that in our valley of tears there is much unspeakable misery, ample measure of suffering. <■ mparatively little well-being, and a modicum of mirth," he adds. "As for me, I do not think I am in the habit of depicting life in an especially rosy light; but whenever I stumble across the inhuman negation and tragedy of Communism, I want to shout in indignant protest that this is not true, that the whole picture looks quite different. . . • There is far more stupidity than real wickedness in the world, and there is too much sympathy and trust, kindness and goodwill to despair of the world of man. . . . But if we could in one way or another collect all the good that is, after all, in each one of us sinful human creatures, I believe that on it could be built a world that would surely be far kinder than the present one.*® THE DESTINY OF FASCISM. 4 " I do not see that the alloy of generosity and courage in Fascism is likely to save Italy from some very evil consequences of its rule," says Mr. H. G. Wells, in an article in the Sunday Express. " The deadliest thing about Fascism is its systematic and ingenious and complete destruction of all criticism and critical opposition. Fascism is holding up the whole apparatus of thought and education in Italy, killing or driving out of the country every capable thinker, clearing out the last nests of independent expressions in the universities. Meanwhile its militant gestures alarm and estrange every foreign power with which it is in contact. . . . Italy is now the

sick land of Europe, a fever patient, flushed with a hectic resemblance to health, and still capable of convulsive but not of sustained violence. She declines. She has fallen out of the general circle of European development; she is no longer a factor in progressive civilisation. In the attempts to consolidate European affairs that will be going on in the next decade, Italy will be watched rather than consulted. She has murdered or exiled all her Europeans. Many things may happen ultimately to this sick and sweated Italy, so deeply injured and weakened by its own misguided youth. Her present flushed cheeks and bright eyes and high temperature will presently cease to deceive even herself. She may blunder into a disastrous war or she may develop sufficient social misery to produce a chaotic social revolution. Or one of these things may follow the other. And either war or revolution may spread its effects wide and far. In that way Italy becomes a danger to all humanity. But as a conscious participant she ceases to be great and significant iia the world drama. She is now, for other countries, merely Mussolini. She may presently be his distracted relict."

THE PEASANTS AND THE SOVIET.

The overthrow of the Soviet regime in Russia was predicted, in an interview in New York recently, by M. Alexander Kerensky, whose Government was swept aside by the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. "The Soviet Government is now facing its greatest crisis," he said. "In spite of its attempt to create" an impression of constructive industrial effort, economic forces are at work in the peasant and working classes that will overthrow this absurd system from below. The Government has used up the vast accumulated wealth of Russia. It has exhausted at least £500.000.000 of Russian capital and there is nothing to take its place. Kussia needs capital and machinery, but there is no way, under the present system, to get it. The apparent prosperity is false. There are 2.000.000 out of work and 16.000,000 peasants, unable to make a living by agriculture in a country that once produced I.QOO ; QG0?OOO bushels of wheat in a single year, are flocking to the cities. The Russian Government is attempting to stimulate private enterprise, although it is contrary to the Soviet system. Industry is not as efficient as "in 1913, though remarkable advances have been made in other countries. Workers are beginning to realise this. They are writing and talking about it. There are all the inequalities of pay and labour that prevailed under the capitalistic system. The individual is told he is free and equal to anyone else, but he knows he is not. The peasant has his land, but uiither capital nor machinery to work it. He is ab!e to go to the opera and other places not frequented by workers in other countries. What value is that to him ? Psychologically attractive, the idea is fundamentally absurd. Industry is in need of replacement of machinery, but it cannot be got, for there is no capital to buy it. The present deceptive peace is the calm before the storm. Evolution, or revolution, will come from below, as it always has come.''