SIMPLE MARXISTS.

Patea Mail, Volume XLIV, 1 December 1920, Page 1

SIMPLE MARXISTS.

WELLt? ’ DESCRIPTION OF THE SOVIET.

London, November 2 k

Writing in the Sun day Express, Mr H. G. Wo Is relates how the Russian Communists secured thi dictatorship and the circumstances inaKir.g .-ncli a coup possible. Ho scathingly criticises the Bolsheviks’ practice of Marxian theories. w When I was a boy of fourteen,” he says, ”1 was a somplete Marxist, I’d been cut off abruptly from education, and caught in a detestable shop. Being broken into life meant dreary toil.”

Despite those criticisms Mr. Wells bitterly attacks the nation.'- supposedly her- allies for not assisting Russia at the critical moment, and says: When the Germans had made a strong thrust the British Admiralty, either through cowardice or Royalist intrigues, failed to give cffectm! help.

He goes on to chastise the rwent attacks on Bolshevik Russia. Denikin, Kolchak, Wrungel, and their tike, stand for no guiding principle. They arc essentially brigands, ha say?. The Communists succeeded, because, when Germany prevailed, they were the only coherent party. The rest were apathetic, or chaotic, but the Communists believed in their cause, and prepared to act, though numerically small. Even to-day they number not one per cent of the population, their or-

ganised ['arty numbering not more than 000,000, and their active members amounting to probably .150,01)0, but, nevertheless, durian- those ( err) 1 >lc days, they gave a common idea of action. They had common formulae and mutml confidience, and thus were able to .seize and retain control, and to smash the 'Empire. “The restoration of order by the Bolsheviks, ’’ said Mr Wells, “was clumsy and bloody, but effective. .It was not silly and aimless butchery, like Denikin's bloodshed. At present, 1 believe, the Government is establi died securely, and the streets are as safe as any in Europe.’’ Mr. Wells ridicules the 'idea that Bolshevism is a Jewish conspiracy, or any sort of conspiracy. Its ideas, aims and methods arc open. “Its leaders,” he says, “are simple-minded Marxists, who have often not read Marx, but adopt the prophet’s cause, believing that he was a sympathiser with the worker. “The conspiracy mania is here,also, and it is difficult to persuade the Marxist that the capitalists in their totality arc no more than a scrambling disorder of mean-spirited, short-sighted men. “The Bolshevik Government in some directions is amazingly incompetent, and profoundly ignorant but essentially is honest. The leaders all asked when the English is starting, but behind their minds dawns .the chill suspicion that they-have not captured the ship of tSatc, but boarded a derelict.” Mr. Wells concludes with a warning to the West not to interfere. Anyone destroying the present order in Moscow destroys what is left of order in # Russia. The brigand monarchist governments all leave a trail of blood, flourish horribly, and then break up and vanish.