Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1921. LENIN'S CLIMB-DOWN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15542, 10 June 1921, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1921. LENIN'S CLIMB-DOWN.

Lenin’s speech at the Communist Congress of March 15 was the momentous event in the history of the Russian revolution, declares Air Michael Farbman, author of “Russia and the Struggle for l’eace,” and a correspondent of several English and American papers who lias paid four visits into Russia since the revolution of April, 1917. Lenin declared that the. Communist party accepted the view that the basic policy of the Soviet Governunierit— the compulsory requisitioning of grain from the' peasants—is grossly mistaken and must instantly lie abandoned because the peasants refuse Lo suffer it any longer. This, Air Farbman declares, is the most remarkable and undoubtedly the most courageous of ell Lenin’s pronouncements —a fervent confession of mistakes committed and an unhesitating renunciation of the most ardently cherished qjf Communist beliefs. Lenin’s chief argument is that the social revolution in Russia, a. backward country

with an overwhelming peasant majority, could succeed only under two conditions: Either supported l>y simultaneous revolutions in a, number of highly-developed eountiAes, or enjoying a full accord between the proletarian minority and the peasant majority. None of these conditions is at hand. The world revolution is indefinitely postponed, and the peasants refuse lo sacrifice themselves for the proletarian revolution. “It is impossible to deceive a class of the population,” said Lenin; “It is dangerous lo go on deceiving. otiescJ.f. It is time frankly to admit that the peasants manifestly refuse longer' to accept'the proletarian dictatorship.'’ According to Lenin, there is lid choice forjthe Communists bill to revise their relations with the overwhelming, majority of the population, and he is confident that, despite the tremendous antagonism am! bitterness between the' peasants and the proletariat, there is a chance of an agreement, because the pea: siuits would be afraid that by overthrowing the Workers’ Republic, they bring back the landowners, and thus ultimately lose their own revolutionary gains. But to secure a compromise with the pea-j snnts—on Which alone the fate of the revolution depends—the Soviet Government must instantly make the utmost concessions. First of all, the requisitioning of food must stop, and the peasants must regain the right to free disposal of their produce, after paving a Moderate fixed tax in kind. • This is t o be widely proclaimed without a moment’s delay, because the sowing of the fields depends upon this decision. “The right to the free disposal of their surplus is the most' necessary incentive for the peasants,” is Lenin’s new dictum, and lie invites the party to acknowledge its grave blunders in attempting to deprive the producers of this most elemental of the peasants’ instincts.” But this is not all. Free trade in grain' is impossible without free cooperative organisation, and Lenin, in his anxiety to come to terms with the peasants, does not hesitate to renounce as the grossest mistake the former Com-, munist policy towards the co-operative movement, lie proposes, and the Congress accepts, the revocation of the decision of the previous Congress which destroyed tli© independent co-operative organisation. Lenin's climb-down was admittedly due to the fear of a peasant uprising to overthrow the Soviet. There were many signs that the peasants were preparing to combat the town population who for four years had been raiding the villages, confiscating and requisitioning grain, fodder, and live stock, mobilising the peasants’ carts and horses, and compelling them in a thousand ways to serve the towns and the State. Lenin emphasised the fact that- if they failed to satisfy the peasants the revolution was lost. He said: “To preserve the power of the proletariat with the .peasants’ against us, and with the world-revolu-tion slowing down, is a sheer impossibility. Simply for economic reasons we will have to give it up. This must, he clearly understood by everybody, and fearlessly expressed.” It was not merely to save tli© proletarian dictatorship, but to save something more vital and elemental, that this revocation of views became necessary. To have continued the policy of confiscation of all production would have meant killing agriculture. “Of what use,” the farmers asked, “to produce more since the only result of yourlgreater efforts is a greater demand for tli© State?” Incentive is the foundal tion of economic progress. Agriculture iti bondage was always a decaying industry. Russian agriculture is decaying.. Even the most optimistic statistics admit that the productivity of the land has decreased 30 per cent; yield per des-

sialine as a result of bad seeds, lack of manure, agricultural implements and horses, and bad and negligent cultivation 20 per cent. This is famine already, vet ■ the process of debar has by no'‘means reached its maximum. The responsibility of the Eolsheviki for the catastrophe to Russian agriculture is. indeed, tremendous. The more dangerous and threatening the agricultural position, the more

harsh became the exactions of the Soviet. The failure of crops, the diminution of entile, led to increased requisitions and schemes to make tlie peasants till the land by compulsion. Tin* dictator Ossie,sky, aiming at the socialisation of agriculture, declared that the State could not permit the peasants to continue sabbotnging their duty of tilling, and would forthwith prescribe the area to be sown and compel those peasants who possessed surplus seed grain to share it with the peasants who bad not. According to This ingenious plan, a- million Russian villages would be brought, to Socialism in a few years by sheer force. This theory of transforming Russian agriculture into one huge State farm with forced labor .was adopted by tin* Russian Congress of Soviets at its session of last December, which drew up decrees for the compulsory sowing of fields and for seed funds. Suddenly, three months later, Lenin sounds the retreat. Ho appears before the Communist Congress, urging the parly in-

stanflv to renounce, all methods of com

nulsion and requisition, and arguing I hut Ibis was necessary in order to make the sowing of land possible. The TbiKhovik delusion that they could begin I be

building of a. Communist State'on ihe basis of a State monopoly of food strophes lias utterly failed. The belief in Communism by rations lias vanished dofinitely, and the. workers demand restorations of the light to look after their/supplies themselves. Lenin lias capitulated before tin; peasants. Ills declaration for free trade eame as a thunderbolt to ( Congress, blit the .situation was too.graver to permit protest against Hie suddenness’of the proposed change. Lenin’s resolution was carried almost without. discussion. and on the same day was passed as a. decree by the Central Executjro Committee of tlie Soviets. Along -oifftb. the concession of free trade, freedom of co-operation has been re-established,-arid a decree has been issued declaring the land practically in the private ownership’ of the peasants. R is an immense object lesson' which cannot fail to have effect- far beyond the confines of Russia. There are those amongst us even in New Zealand who clamor for the Socialisation of every industry* and who would place the people owning farm properties under bondage to the State. Well the experience of Russia, proves emphatically that it cannot be done —Lenin, tho archapostle of Communism, declares it can’t be done. Perhaps those empty-headed people who have inveighed acainst the press because it told them' their ideas were impracticable will believe Lenin.