“RUSSIA IN A NEW ROLE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21357, 10 June 1931, Page 10

“RUSSIA IN A NEW ROLE”

TO THE EDITOR.

gxR —Your correspondent “ Sparticus has surely a positive genius for irrelevancy, \ inaccuracy, and superficiality. Since his letter has still some slight bearing on the subject, which is the importance or a moral basis in social organisation, and since it is calculated to mislead the casual reader, I be*. your further permission to expose his errors of thought. Regarding Ins assertion that we can know nothing ot the conditions in Russia, I would reter him to the series of articles pub ished in your columns under the title Moscow Impressions.” Then numerous I 0)} 1 ?, which cannot be accused of “ Red bias frequently discuss the social theory the actual conditions developing in Russia since the revolution. Among these, the Manchester Guardian, Harper s Magazine, and Current History are prominent and influential. In particular, much attention has -been devoted to the “ Five Year Plan ” and its probable effects. In fact, it is absurd to suppose that such ignorance as is displayed by “ Sparticus ” is unavoidable. “ Sparticus proceeds to make general statements -expanded by much tautology—about the superficial differences between ourselves and the Russians. Let me inform him that science knows of only one species of man, with the same fundamental instincts and general nature, and with, in varying degrees, the same needs all over the world. Unable to deal specifically with my arguments, “Sparticus” finds great virtue in the repeated charge of generalising. . He should know that the faculty of generalisation is the highest function of the mind. The conclusions of science are generalisations from multiplicity to unity, from complexity to simplicity. “ Sparticus ” does not attempt to prove that my generalisations are untrue. Then he dives into' his bag of heterogeneous and distorted ideas, and tries to confound me with this generalisation, “ Freedom is pure negation.” As the understanding of freedom is analogous to the understanding of social morality, it is requisite that this generalisation should be analysed or broken _ down into its component parts. The idea of freedom arises from experience of the varying degrees of compulsion, restriction, and suppression. Freedom is thus merely an abstraction of the mind from the comparative absence of complusion under different conditions or circumstances. As complete compulsion or suppressibn would mean annihilation, or “ pure negation,” and would be unconditional, and therefore impossible, so complete freedom would also be unconditional, impossible, and “ pure negation.” Social morality consists of the attainment of the greatest possible degree of freedom by the abolition of restrictions and compulsions which are unnecessary to “ pure ” society, and serve only to maintain its class interests or impure nature. The achievement of this is the function of Socialism, and the stupendous development of productive power has made it entirely practicable. From the above considerations it follows that all the social and economic evils that afflict society to-day are preventable and owe their continuance to the immoral and unnecessary restrictions imposed by the class nature of society. With the removal of these restrictions, and only then, will the problems of_ war, poverty, unemployment, vice, and crime automatically disappear. In a pure form of society there would be no incentive to war and the need for charity, stressed in your recent vivid description of pitiful cases of distress in Dunedin, would cease to exist. It would be replaced by social duty and efficiency. “Sparticus” stigmatises my letter as propoganda. All expressions of opinion on matters of isocial or economic importance, including his own, may be so described. If an intense desire that truth shall prevail makes me a propagandist, s 0 be it. “ Sparticus ” has described me as a follower of the 1.W.W., and in the same breath as a sentimental Socialist. I am neither the one nor the other, but a logical thinker with the intellectual honesty that is the i crying need of the day.—l am, etc., A. B. Powell.

June' 7. [This correspondence is closed. — Ed. O.D.T.]