LIBERALISM AND LABOUR

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10082, 21 September 1918, Page 8

LIBERALISM AND LABOUR

TO the Editor "N.Z. Times."

Sir,—Your endeavour to construe my advocacy of Internationalism into approval of the. terroristic tactics which, you aver, are being pursued by the Bolsheviks is certainly ingenious, but scarcely ingenuous. Let mc categorically state at the outset, that if it be true that' the Russian devolution has resolved itself into an orgy of blood, that the Hoi-, sheviks have instituted a reign of terror, then I lor one emphatically repudiatellolshevism.

The Bolshevists are "murdering everybody who ventures to reject their doctrines." So says the "Times." But another side is presented to us in au article in the London "Call," which says, inter alia: "Preconceived notions of the appearance, of a great city during a revolution, together with the lurid tales of English press correspondents, increased one's astonishment on entering Petrograd. Tho town presented a strikingly normal appearance. At tho station tried guards are at tho entrances and exits. Outside there is little on tho surface to indicate that the greatest social conflict in the world's history is being fought out here. In the thoroughfares droshkies and the trains are running. In tho Ncvsky Prospect crowds of people aro promenading. Prosperous looking bourgeois are taking their families for a walk, apparently not afraid of being robbed and murdered. .... ." Ihia is a somewhat different picture to that painted by "Tho Times." The fact of the matter is that amid tho conflicting ajiil contradictory reports, no one can say with any degree of certitude just what is taking' place in Russia. It would be too much to ask "The Times" to suspend judgment until the effluxion of time shall have placed the events now being enacted in their true perspective. As a reply to tho chargo that the Bolsheviks are pro-German in their sympathies I would adduce the following extract from an article contributed by Mr Ramsay MacDonakl to tho Glasgow "Forward":—"The new German offensive is on everybody's lips as I write, and it obscures the other" offensive. Which is fraught with prdbably much greater pnd more lasting consequences—l mean that in Russia. Once more 1 believe we arc not only backing the wrong horse, 1-ut wo arc doing it in the wrong way. if tho "Murmansk expedition is meant dimply tc> take, possession of certain White Sea open ports which could bo seized by tho Germans and turned into submarine-

bases, much could be, said for it. Tho Kussian objection, seeing that tor tha momenj; Russia is unable to obtain reutrality cither against Germany or tha Allies, would then be formal. But there is much more than that in our Kussian activities. We havo now. joined ! n a movement hostile to the existing Russian Government. In consequence the Gov eminent may bo overthrown, and i\a shall have committed ourselves to support some now Government. Thus wo ally ourselves with tho German militarists rather than with the. Russian Socialists. ...... Meanwhile we seek to

obscure tho disastrous effects of oar policy towards Russia by accusing lh>j present Government there of being German tools. The forged letters which appeared in the French press, showing that Lenin, "Trotsky, and others wcrt in German pay, were only part of the p'.ot. Let me say categorically that to think of the Bolsheviks as German in sympathy or policy is to mistake the most elementary facts of Russian politics. ;I Save just been reading what is the best statement, of , the Bolshevik position I have como across. It is a book by -Trotsky, published in America, entitled 'The Bolshev'iki and the World's Peace.': Hatred of Austria and opposition; to Germany are written' on nearly every page of it This is one extract:—'The ' Hohenzol'lerns, behind the backs of Czarisni, can ■make a show of being the bulwark of culture, against barbarism, and can succeed in fuolin<r their own people if'r.ot the rest of Europe.' There is as I'ttle pro-Germanism there as there is in Mr Pemberton Billing." I assert, sir, that the cry of Bolshevism is only being raised for political purposes. This bogey was raised during the Wellington North and the Grey Iyelections in order to discredit and bring about tho defeat, of the Labour candidate, and is being exploited now for a similar purpose. -It is characteristic of Liberalism and Toryism that, unable tc meet Labour in fair intellectual contest, they have to fall back upon their inexhaustible armoury of vituperation, calumny, and abuse.—l am, etc., J. BOWDEM. 131, Thorndon quay.

[Recent American publications thxaif quiie a different lisht to the above on the conduct of the Bolshevism. It is indisputable that, as we averted, the Bolsheviks suppressed the Tvloeted Co'-istiiivat .Issembly, that they betrayed their country at Brest-Litovsk, that Lenin and Lis gang declared e.irlv for a risin-,' of all the proletariats oT the. world. These facts ire not upset by the oratory o> that erratic genius Kaiusay 'Mael'!o".a!il. We repeat this is the only pri.i;! -.1 brand of Intei'iia'Jotialism at present in tlie fields-Ed. ">".Z.T. -, 1