LENIN’S RETREAT

Southland Times, Issue 19257, 22 June 1921, Page 4

LENIN’S RETREAT

Of all the men in the Soviet organisation in Russia, Lenin is best able to direct the retreat from the unqualified communism of the Bolshevik revolution to constitutionalism that is now being foreshadowed by the proposal to call together the Constituent Assembly. The fact that the demand for the assembly came first from those nations with whom the Soviets desire to trade is .of small importance. In this matter the vital factor is that Lenin is ready to urge the Bolsheviks to grant the demand. He realises that a revival of trade with outside nations will be impossible unless the peasants are brought into the scheme, unless they become active participants in the trading which the Soviets will control. All along the peasants have held aloof from the Soviets. They have not fought the Bolsheviks so long as they could sell their products and get good money in return, but efforts to enforce the right of the Bolshevik government to seize food supplies have resulted in armed conflicts and, worse than all else, the destruction or secretion of required necessaries. The Russian moujik has done a lot to break the heart of Bolshevism by his admixture of passive and active resistance. This development was noticed over two years ago. Mr Ransome, who has had opportunities of seeing the Bolshevist system at work wrote some time ago that Lenin

not only recognises the need of bringing big capitalists into Russia from America, from England and from Germany, but also that he needs to make his peace with the little capitalists at home—the little capitalists with the worn-out spades who at the present moment form the bulk of that Russia which is still able, somehow or other, to produce. The evolution of the revolution is taking its natural course towards the organisation of the peasants, with the industries of the towns consciously working for the needs of the peasants.

Lenin is ready to move back to constitutionalism to save the country, but his worst foes when he has taken up his new position will be within the ranks of his followers—the extremists —and those people who are now scattered through Central Europe waiting for the opportunity to return to Russia and restore a new “good” tsar. There are two distinct parties outside of Russia: the “good” tsarists, and the parliamentary group which though hating the Reds has only slightly less hatred for the Whites. These two parties are not likely to combine against the Bolshevists and if they do the junction will be of a very temporary nature, but if the Bolshevists listen to the advice of the shrewdist and most disinterested leader, Lenin, they will build a strong state, too strong to be shaken by any of the outside forces, on constitutional government and a recognition of the demands of the individual to sufficient scope to live life without having to bear the shackles of cast iron communistic decrees.