TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Southland Times, Issue 19388, 31 October 1924, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

“Everybody in Russia to-day is worse off than before the war.” Such is the verdict on the Revolution given to the Independent Labour Party Summer School by Mr Michael Farbman, whom we have found to be among the most reliable of British writers on Russia under the Soviet Government, says the Glasgow Herald. It is a complete condemnation, for it places Russia in a class entirely apart from all the other countries which were seriously affected by the upheavals of the last 10 years. In Russia alone no one has gained; the utmost that can be said is that there are degrees of adversity. And the reason is that only in Russia has the social system been plucked up by the roots. For the first time a serious effort was made by believers in the catastrophic theory of history to bring about a clean break between the traditional, or, as they term it, the capitalist, system and the social organisation of their dreams. It failed, as it was bound to fail—for it took no account either of the deeper instincts of human nature or of the elaborate mechanism by which the thousand and one wants of mankind to-day are supplied—and it has led to a wretchedness and confusion unparalleled even in Poland, the greater part of whose surface was devastated by the passing of armies. Apologists for the Bolsheviks for long were able to argue that the Revolution had at least improved the lot of the peasants by transferring to them the big estates. Even of this Mr Farbman appears doubtful. The peasants certainly obtained an increase in their holdings, but uneconomic workings, due to scarcity of materials and implements, requisitioning and recurrent bad seasons, have so impoverished them that they are now probably worse off relatively than the worker in the towns.