SOVIET RUSSIA

Southland Times, Issue 21480, 24 August 1931, Page 9

SOVIET RUSSIA

VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS.

ADDRESS TO THE ORPHANS’ CLUB. An extremely interesting address regarding the past and present history of Russia was given to the members of the Invercargill Orphans’ Club on Saturday evening by Mr L. H. Bowe, who formerly spent some years in that country. Various aspects of the life there were narrated by the visitor who said that, while the position of the working classes may have now become bettered in some respects, the workers were, in other directions, again, worse oil than they had been under the Tsarist regime. Certainly their lives to-day were along organized lines but they had lost their liberty to a great extent. Again, there was rife a system of police spying by'the O.G.P.U. which made one man distrustful of even his neighbour lest any casual word would lead to imprisonment and, quite possibly perhaps in some instances, to execution.

Mr Bowe,‘continuing, said that the older people did not approve of the Soviet regime but the younger, knowing none other, consequently were prone to regard it in a more favourable light than did their elders. The five-year plan could not be regarded as an entire success; in certain cases, as, for example, in respect to oil, the figures aimed at had, in the two and a-half years’ existence of the scheme, been already reached but that state of affairs was rare as far as other products were concerned.

There were two of the prison camps, one on Solovetsky Island and the other on Popoff Island close by. Conditions there were indescribably foul. The unfortunates had to do hard manual labour on very poor rations. Prisoners were divided into three kinds: First, the common class, such as thieves, murderers and such like; secondly, those classed as counter-revolu-tionaries, including ecclesiastics, ex-Im-perial Army officers and persons of the better strata in life and, thirdly, the political prisoners. Of the three, the political offender received the best treatment for he was generally a Communist prisoner who had lapsed in some way but who it was hoped to bring back to the fold.

The counter-revolutionary prisoners, on the other hand, hsd all the degrading work to carry out and they were subjected to continual cruelty. Women, too, were imprisoned on the islands and it was on no rare occasion that foul outrages were committed against them not only by the common prisoners but by even the guards. In some of the prisons, which the casual visitor was not allowed to penetrate, there

were known to be torture chambers. The general cruelty towards prisoners could be traced, in part, to the Mongol strain which was brought into Russia between the 13th and the 16th centuries during the Tartar domination of that country.

The increased productivity of Russia was also touched upon by Mr Bowe, who stressed the fact that it had been obtained at a very great cost —the loss of that priceless possession, the freedom and freewill of the people. Persecution among the clergy was rife during and after the revolution and between the years of 1918 and 1920 no fewer than 8,100 ecclesiastics and their lay assistants were slaughtered. To-day they were among the de-classed people. Notwithstanding the persecution of the religious classes and the devout peasants in the years mentioned, church-going, if anything, had increased rather than decreased.

Considerable time and money had been expended by the Soviet Government all over the world on propaganda, which if utilized in commercial and other pursuits in their own country would have made Russia what she is potentially now—one of the richest countries in the world. . The Government had made a social experiment of a magnitude such as the world had never yet seen, and it was early yet either to condemn or to praise it, but considerable modifications and improvements along the lines of spiritual and civic freedom would have to be made before it could be regarded as being successful. At the conclusion of Mr Bowe’s address, the president of the club (Mr J. D. Gilmore) said that the remarks of. the visitor had proved extremely interesting and a hearty vote of thanks to him was carried with acclamation.