GRAVE UNREST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17452, 29 December 1930, Page 10

GRAVE UNREST

UNDER SOVIET REGIME ITS DOOM “INEVITABLE” PREDICTION 1 BY AN EX-OFFICIAL PARIS, Nov. 17. “The Soviet regime may last six mouths—or even tor six years—hut it is doomed.” This was the expression of M. Doubrovsky, one of the foremost Russian experts on commerce, in an interview. After having served tlm Soviet Government since, the revolution, he lias, pow definitely cut adrift from it owing to his conviction that by serving the Soviet Government lie can no longer serve his country. As to the break up of the Soviet regime, M. Doubrovsky is convinced that this is inevitable. To begin with, he knows there is a serious discontent in the Red Army. The peasants and workers throughout the country are also complaining that all their labor serves only to place the bulk of the nation’e wealth in the hands of Stalin and his creatures. A further cause of unrest is that tlqi country has now very few doctors, lawyers, or skilled engineers. Exiles and tlm slaughter-house of the Lubranska. prison, the Cheka- heiidqnarters, have accounted for most of them. “In Russia now,” said M. Doubrovsky, “you have the spectacle of a people completely tired out and disappointed. As to the future, he could not forecast anything very clearly. There was no'man at present in view, lie believed, hut one would be found who would probably lead' Russia along the path of a reasonable kind of social evolution once more into the. path of prosperity, for a country of 150,G00,000 of hard-working people cannot die. Asked to tell frankly why lie had resigned his post as Commissary-General of the Soviet Government for foreign trade exhibitions, his reply was: “Because there can be no trade at all under present conditions,” It would appear that it is the regime of Stalin which has caused those who had first cherished hopes in the future of Russia to abandon them. Lenin, in 1923, realised that the Communist ideal could not he, applied in practice, and lie began to modify it by admitting private ownership of property, and private enterprise in trade. CRUSHING TAXATION Stalin, said M. Doubrovsky, instead of continuing, on tlm path which Lenin had begun to trace, simply turned back, with the result that trade, was stifled. “At this period of tlio regime set up by tlio Soviet Government only manual labor counts for anything. Intellectual labor is regarded simply as a form of idling, and to engage in private trade is even worse. A tradesman is held fo be a natural enemy of the working class, because lie makes a profit. He is deprived of all the rights of an ordinary citizen, for ho cannot vote. “A tradesman who has made say, 10,000 roubles profit in a yean is required to pay at first 6000 roubles to the State. A few mouths later he may bo told that lie must pay 7000 or GCOO roubles in taxation. That, the former Soviet expert explains, is due-of the reasons why it is impossible for the Soviet Government at present to organise any kind of trade either at home or abroad. • . . __ “Everyone in Russia is working. He must- work or lie cannot eat. But threequarters of the products of the labor of Russia’s 150,000,000 people are absorbed by the State, to be spent in the appointment of officials and in propaganda abroad. The peasant who produces, say 100 roubles by a- certain piece of work, receives therefor only 25 roubles, the vest going into the cotiers of Stalin, who may use it as he pleases.

JUSTICE A FARCE Justice is a pure farce in the Soviet paradise, declared M. Doubi'ojvsky. There are few judges who have had any law training, and those who are lawyers do not dare to use their knowledge. Often a fair decision would result in an accusation that the judge .had favorer! the bourgeoisie. The first principle ol Soviet “justice” is that the worker must win any case in' which his opponent is a tradesman, landlord, or employer. , 1 Here M. Doubrovsky pointed out the cunning of the present rulers of Husaig. The anti-Communist movement is crippled to a large extent by the fact that even those who wish to overthrow their tyrants are afraid to trust- each other. For some time the Russian people have been bpoypd up by the hope that the famous “-Five-Year Plate would inaugurate an era of prosperity. M. Doubrovsky. who is well qualified to judge, is convinced that it will do nothing of the kmd, hut- that on the other hand it will waste more and more money. Tim trouble is that it litis been organised by amateurs, he says. Those atifa leiirs may, if they like, ask the advice or expert -engineers, architects, or manufacturers, hut tho latter, though fully qualified To counsel them, dare not no .-h. for unfavorable criticism would probably end in their being shot.