WHITHER RUSSIA?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22695, 6 April 1937, Page 8

WHITHER RUSSIA?

Under the Tsars, Russia was an enigma; under Stalin, it is becoming an enigma again. Foreign opinion of its development could, not long ago, be definite—whether liking or disliking, attracted or repelled; now many hardly know what to think, and news published to-day makes their difficulty greater. Is a process of purifying its administration going on, at the direction of a strong man with a sure creed and programme, or is his main anxiety, instead of being centred on his country's good, concerned frenziedly on maintaining the personal eminence to which he has climbed? He plans to be acclaimed, when the twentieth anniversary of the revolution comes round in November, " Lord Protector of Soviet Russia," or " Chief of the Peoples," or " Saviour of the Fatherland," or by some other title signalising popular supremacy; and at the same time he continues the violent policy of striking down those near him, for more trials and executions of old associates are in prospect at his bidding. Is he loved or hated, trusted or suspected, proudly complacent or cravenly afraid 1 ? No foreign observer can do more than shrewdly guess. One thing, however, is itself clear while it gives the future a further element of uncertainty: the Soviet Union that was lately all for international ideals is being educated in rabid nationalism under his hand. Lenin, were he able to put a question, might well ask if this is the Russia he designed. " The essential thing," lie characteristically said, "is for us to be, even when times are most trying, real internationalists in deed." And now " For the Fatherland !" is the official slogan. Pravda, once the organ of Lenin's policy, has forsaken the famous Marxian watchword for advocacy of national assertiveness and defence, and eminent Communists are themselves complaining. It is all very puzzling, and forecast is impossible. Meanwhile, interest fastens on the strange confusion in which the former Chief of the Ogpu is in peril of his life and politicians undergo criminal trial,.