SQUALOR IN RUSSIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18547, 6 November 1934, Page 7

SQUALOR IN RUSSIA

OXFORD GRADUATE’S VISIT

RETURNS DISILLUSIONED

LONDON, Oct. 27

“I have returned disillusioned and cannot be a Marxian Communist after what I saw in Russia.” This is the finding of Air. John Brown, Oxford graduate, one of those whose expenses to Russia were paid by Lord Nuffield, the motor magnate, as a challenge to Communist propaganda in Britain. Air. Brown spent four months in Russia, “gate-crashing factories and workers’ dwellings.” Air. Brown says it was sickening to see visiting intellectuals shepherded to show places and lapping up anything the officials said. “I discovered a complete failure to maintain equality of wages,,’ ’ lie said. 11 Coalminers aro paid more than doctors or professors. “The housing is vile, owing to the great jiifiux to the cities. Even the higher paid workers’ standard of living is below that of a man on the dole in England. There arc no smiling faces among the workers, who lack variety of foodstuffs. They subsist on melons, bread, fish and tea. The unemployed starve unless they beg. “I was amazed at the efficient tanks and machine-guns being manufactured at the Butiloff Works, where 20,000 men are employed.”