CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19960, 31 May 1928, Page 11

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

GRAVE CRISIS PACED. FEAR OF ECONOMIC CHAOS. SOVIET BLAMES BRITAIN. STIRRING UP HATRED. FAILURE OF COMMUNISM. Br Telegraph—Fress Association—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Recsived May 30. 8.5 p.m.) LONDON. May 29. A series of articles on the conditions in Russia is being published in the Daily Express. The writer is a special correspondent who has just made a tour of that country. In the first article he says:— Red Russia is faced with the gravest crisis since th 6 revolution. This may come to a head in a few months if the harvest is bad, or it may be postponed if the harvest is good, but the end must be the same. Communism will either have to acknowledge defeat or change its policy in a sensational manner. An outstanding feature is the shortage of money which has practically forced the officers and me.' of the Red Army, and also the civil servants, to take part of their p:vy in loan stocks. The Soviet is struggling hard to support, the rouble and trying to force from businessmen and small holders higher payments, although they now pay 62 per cent, of the taxes. Lenin had to acknowledge the partial failure of Marxian theory and permitted and encouraged private trading. Stalin, however, changed all this. Within the year ended October 31, 1927, 103,000 private businesses wore closed, but of the 11,000 private shops in Moscow, 4000 have been closed in the last six months. The peasants are dissatisfied. They claim that they cannot obtain goods at the rural co-operative shops in exchange for their wheat. The Government has gone to the length of having barricades erected between the villages and the markets in order to prevent the peasants from selling their wheat to speculators. It has caused to be imprisoned thousands of peasants and has confiscated their lands. It has even had some of the peasants executed. Britain Represented as an Enemy. The rupture of relations with Britain hit Russia very hard and the Soviet is using the economic situation to stir up the most bitter hatred against Britain, which is representd as a villain trying to ruin Russia. In the second article of the series the writer examines the wheat problem. He says that in spite oi three good harvests in succession Russia is only just able to carry on and is not extending cultivation. The writer says he visited the Ukraine to find out the cause of this and discovered that a severe conflict is proceeding between the State and the peasants. The latter are forced to sell their wheal to Che former at 2s 6d per pood (361b. avoirdupois). The cultivators say this is not enough to enable them to buy requisites at the rural co-operative stores. Seme time ago these stores were practically empty and the Soviet forced city shopkeepers to send goods to the country. As a result the shops at Leningrad are now short of supplies and are only open for a few hours in the middle of the day. Thep they are besieged by people in queues like those which were formed at the food shops in Britain during the war. Hebrews Reduced to Beggary, The correspondent says the Soviet has managed to reduce the prices charged at the rural stores to the extent of 6 per cent. It has now launched a great industrial campaign in an attempt further to reduce the costs of production. It has decided to spend £150,000,000 a year on the modernising of the mines, oil wells and factories under American, British and German experts, but it will take from three to five years to complete this gigantic scheme. The first impression of the correspondent was that Kharkoff was the most prosper-ous-looking city he had seen in Russia, with its good buildings and roads and its well-dressed men and women. Later he found that side by side with this prosperous element all the Jews and Jewesses in the city were literally armies of beggars. Kharkoff and Keiff have the largest Jewish populations in Russia. The revolution freed them. When Lenin permitted partial private enterprise, as the cleverest business people they rsaped their reward. All went well until Stalin came into power. He is at the same timo an antiSemitic and an anti-private enterprise dictator. Before long .all the Jewish shops w 11 be cloned, as has already happened in the north. Worse may follow. It is only 23 years since the terrible antiSemitic pogrom at Kieff was carried out.