RUSSIA WITHIN

Southland Times, Issue 19172, 16 February 1924, Page 5

RUSSIA WITHIN

WOMANHOOD DEGRADED SO-CALLED EMANCIPATION PROVES A CURSE. SACREDNESS OF MARRIAGE ATTACKED. (Sun Cable.) LONDON, February 14. (Received February 15, at 7.5 p.m.) An Englishman, writing to the Daily Mail, continues his story of his experiences and investigations in Russia. The author states that Codmupism, claiming to emancipate women from the slavery of marriage and the drug cf religion, has proved a curse. Women have suffered great degradation and are passionately eager for revenge. Although there are fewer prostitutes in the streets, morality generally has been lowered and the growth of venereal disease is appalling, especially among boys and girls from 12 to 16 years of age. M. Lunarchsky, an idealist, engrossed in organising the Red schools, is constantly bursting into tears owing to the number of diseased children brought to the hospital. The Soviet, the writer says, has legalised abortion and goes on to discuss various sccial results at some length. The marriage tie is unmeaning, divorces being secured more easily than dog licenses in England. Educated women tragically struggle to keep alive and remain respectable. They wear fragments of old clothes and eat refuse. Despair has driven many mad and to suicide. Others have become addicted to drug taking to relieve their sufferings. Women of good birth and breeding are constantly appealing to foreigners to marry them without obligations of any sort to enable them to secure passports to leave Russia. THE MARRIAGE LAW. MATTER OF REGISTRATION.

MOSCOW, February 14. The Pravda publishes a detailed report of the Pan-Russian Congress of the Chiefs of the Provincial Women’s Sections, which several hundred women delegates attended. A large number protested against the compulsory registration of marriages, declaring that legalised marriage under the Soviet was unnecessary and undesirable as it was an old ecclesiastical marriage. They said compulsory registration tended to inspire the masses with the idea that there were legal and illegal relations between men and women, whereas there should be no difference between these two forms of conjugal partnership. Finally, registration of marriages was useless in the Communist state as it resulted in restraining and stultifying natural sexual inclinations. Women, who were the majority of speakers, openly favoured free love and full toleration of polygamy. After a prolonged discussion, the Congress decided to recommend registration as the time was not yet ripe for more communal forms of conjugal relations. TROUBLES INCREASING. DISCONTENT GENERAL. LONDON, February 13. The Riga correspondent of the Times says the Soviet rulers appear genuinely alarmed at the growing internal dissensions. The triumvrate has made a desperate resolve to stake everything on an heroic attempt to break down opposition, but their public utterances show the leaders have lost nerve. It would be a mistake, however, to expect the immediate collapse of the Soviet regime. Discontent is general and miner risings innumerable, but the Government still has its organisation, while the opposition, though its numbers are overwhelming, lacks organisation, the only point of adhesion being the common hatred of Bolshevism. Moscow is like a guarded powder magazine which a spark may explode but the vast territories in which sporadic revolts have been chronic since 1917, are also lacking in communications, thus rendering rapid development of local insurrections unlikely. LENIN’S DEATH. MOURNING STAMPS ISSUED. (The Times). LONDON, February 13. Russia has issued mourping stamps bearing Lenin's photograph and is compelling their use for two months.