THE IDEAL AND REALITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21978, 13 June 1933, Page 6

THE IDEAL AND REALITY

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —There is a lot of sentimental talk about, the merits of Communism. Some Communists and those playing with Communism either deliberately or ignorantly take Soviet Russia as an example of the advantages of the system. As a matter of fact—-though all the active propaganda of Communism is financed and directed from Moscow—Bolshevism, which is in power in Russia, is a very different creed from Communism as generally visualised by its honest sympathisers.

The band of Bolshevists sent to Moscow by Germany in 1917 have been, barring deaths and quarrels, automratic despots, and tlieir original objective of working up a world revolution has never changed. While calling themselves Communists, and enlisting foreign Communists for work abroad, the Bolsevists have never given the Russian masses any part in government, nor is there anything like equality, rights of ownership, freedom of speech, or personal liberty, but there is a privileged class of the small number who are members of the Communist Party of Russia. Modern Communism is, to quote leading Communist writers, both an ideal and a method. Its ideal is utterly unattainable while human nature exists as it is, and those who have sympathised with that ideal should not overlook the method, namely, a dictatorship and complete destruction of all personal liberty. In New Zealand our Cummunist Party is only the agent for the Bolshevist power, which works, not for Communism, but for world revolution and domestic strife, “ Class against class ” is its published slogan. Yet prominent Communists in New Zealand are humbugs enough to compare this with the early Christian ideal! —We are, etc., June 7. N.Z. Welfare League.