RUSSIA OF TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21029, 13 November 1931, Page 13

RUSSIA OF TO-DAY.

DILUTED COMMUNISM.

INEQUALITIES RETURNING. CAPITALISTIC "INNOVATIONS." " Russia is riot so red as has hern painted, ' says Mr. J. N. Darling in the New York Herald Tribune. " Slowly but surely, step by step, the organisa.iion of the Russian Government has edged away from the Communistic, doctrines with which the experiment was begun. One gets tho impression that this desertion of the principles of Communism was not entirely voluntary, but forced, when the paper dreams of the social theorists proved to be impractical in operation. " As their experiment has progressed they have become increasingly awaro of tho necessity for professional coaches, teamwork and regulations, and have gradually adopted many of the old standard rules, so that, except, in name, you can hardly tell it from the old game so familiar to all organised society. A graduated scale of wages, paid in cash, differentiates the skilled and unskilled labour, the executives and the engineers, the bosses and the bossed. The paths of the diligent and the resourceful are beginning to diverge widely from tho path of the dullard and the slothful. Even the most casual observation in any part of Russia will disclose how very far they have left behind their original ideals of a free-for-all dead level of humanity based on t.he rights of the proletariat. A New Ruling Class. " The members of the old ruling class are dead, but a new ruling class has taken its place. That the new ruling class has been but recently recruited from the proletariat does not appear to have altered the habits or prerogatives of the proverbial ruling class in any marked degree. They rule with an iron hand and make use of most of the practices of the old autocracy with a cruel and unrelenting severity that allows few marks of distinction from their predecessors. " "While denying in their creed the existence of money and property rights, they plaster the walls of their banks with . posters urging the public to buy U.S.S.R. 10 per cent. Government bonds, pointing out the virtues of saving their money for that purpose. Unless the Government later plans to repudiate these bonds, they are certainly growing a new crop of capitalists. .What are they going to do about the matter when the industrious and the frugal have acquired enough Government bonds to live on the interest without work is a. little difficult to answer, according to the strict interpretation of Communism. Same Army System. " The Red army is another conspicuous example of Russian equipment where the red paint has worn off. The private was tho bone and sinew of tho army. He did all. the fighting, therefore it was for him to say how it. should be done through a committee of his own. But the old army is back at its old tricks. There are just as many shoulder straps and insignia of command, decoiations and swanky uniforms as in any army, and the privates still look as though they had slept in their uniforms and shuttle along to barked commands from hard-boiled top- sergeants as if there had never been a revolution. If the private is running the army he does not "To a stranger within the Russian gates it is difficult to reconcile one's preconceived ideas of communism with the first, second and third-class railroad carriages. Tho first-class accommodations are occupied by the favoured few who wrangle with the train porters for special privileges in what looks to me like a very familiar habit in capitalistic countries. " And from that, down to the hard cars.' with plain wooden benches, crowded with heterogeneous humanity, there seems to be the same tendency of the human animal to seek advantages for himself over his. neighbour. Human Nature Unchanged.

" The great mass of the population seams to be performing under communism just as the human family has always performed, whether under the rule of monarchy, democracy, Mussolini, or what you will. And when the rest of the world comes finally to the point of adjusting its relations to Russia it will have to deal with the same old human frailties, the same old human selfishness and the same relative distribution of intelligence. Thero is very little that is new here except on the surface. " If there is any threat to the rest of the world in the Russian experiment it is neither in the colour of its flag nor in its communism, but in the fact that it is the biggest industrial trust that has ever been organised in the world, with more natural resources in its treasury than any corporation that has ever okisted.

Taken In its worst aspect, the threat to the world is one of competition from inexperienced management and inefficient but cheap labour. At its best it means setting a new place at the world family table and pulling up a chair for a rich new neighbour who has just moved in."