Patea & Waverley Press MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1929 COMMUNISM AND DEMOCRACY.

Patea Mail, Volume L, 8 April 1929, Page 2

Patea & Waverley Press MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1929 COMMUNISM AND DEMOCRACY.

WHY' have Hie British Government, and later the British Trades Union Congress, broken off relations with the Communists of Moscow! Shortly put, it, is because the philosophy of the British people and the Bolsheviks arc r in ipermaneaVi conflict. Try as they will, and the British have tried with great tolerance, the two simply cannot agree. British people are grounded in confidence on the principle of democracy. It is the foundation on which the Trades Union structure has been built. Majority rule is the working basis of British institutions, from the Government of the country down to the simplest form of voluntary association. Here is the point of conflict: “The ebre bf Communist theory is the rejection of majority rule as implied in the democratic hypothesis. The real will of the mass, so the Communist asserts, is never known. What happens is a conflict of minorities with the mass remaining apathetic. The Communist is expressing what the proletariat would will if all the facts were in possession. This view of min- ‘ ority action is of great import- 1 ance in the political theory of Bolshevism. Left to the theory of democracy the people cannot free itself, and yet it wills its freedom. The Communist Party represents that will. It seeks the end —the social ownership of the means of production—and it cannot, therefore reject the means. Since constitutional methods cannot secure the end, it follows on the Communist view, that unconstitutional methods must he used.” Such is a statement of what. Communism stands for. It is indeed delightfully simple. Assume, with Rousseau, that the general wi 11 is always right; assume further that Communism expressed that general, thing the Communist docs is necessarily right. The creed of Communism becomes as fomforting and categorical as revealed religion. From this assumption of absolute will there arc certain consequences which follow that are entirely at variance with our settled ideas of the distinction between right and wrong. The sanction of Communist violence follows as a matter of course. “There is no purpose in seizing power if one is to-be hurled from it; and it is the clear outcome of history that only determined use of power can avert this. A revolutionary class, says Trotsky, which has conquered power with arms in its hands, is hound to and will suppress, rifle in hand all attempts to tear poAvor out, of its hands. . If it is said that the terrorism of the Communist, does not differ from the terrorism of the Tsai', the answer is that the principle for which Communists use terrorism is different.” Mr. Laski states the Communist position ns follows: “If, it might he said, the Communists use violence and are justified hy their purpose in so doing, any other party which has. similarly a groat purpose, Avonld he similarly justified. The Communist does not accept this view. ‘The Red Terror,’ Avriles Trotsky somewhat naively, ‘is a weapon utilised

ngainst a class doomed to destruction, which docs not; wish to perish.’ But it is obvious that if revolution is justified to the Communist merely because that is his logic of history, it will he justified also in any other people with a cause which they deduce from their logic of history; and no community can then hope either for security or order.” If it he said that Communist tyranny is conceived in the interest of all, the answer obviously is that the interest of all can only hedmown when all share in proclaiming it; and it is the purpose of the dictatorship exactly to prevent this by the suppression of views -and movements it dislikes.