REVEALING RUSSIA

Southland Times, Issue 22038, 10 June 1933, Page 11

REVEALING RUSSIA

The Boshevik Blunderers Ellery Walter, an American journalist, went to Russia with a hearty sympathy for Communist doctrines, as a man who was prepared to find that the Bolsheviks were making a success of their Five Year Plan. He travelled extensively in the country and had opportunities for seeing a great deal, because he went over the ground where the Five Year Plan was being advanced. His impressions, sent to the New York Tribune, have been collected and published under the title, “Russia’s Decisive Year.” They refer to the years 193132. He travelled 15,000 miles in White Russia, Siberia, the Urals, the Ukraine, Georgia and the Crimea during the third year of the Plan, and he went without an interpreter. Being an American he mixed a lot with American engineers and he made full use of a letter from Senator Borah, the champion of Soviet, recognition in the United States, a letter which obtained for him permission to visit many, of the. great industrial undertakings in Russia; but the results of his mission were different from what he expected, and he came out of the country with the conviction that the first Five Year Plan was a failure, and among the causes of this failure he includes fear, lack of skill, lack of funds, lack of co-operation with foreign “technitions, and subtle sabotage, resulting from the antagonism of the masses, particularly among the peasants who represent eighty-five per cent, of the population. This book consists of a series of short descriptive articles, punctuated with comment, covering the various phases of Russia s activities, and they carry conviction. Walter sets down what he saw and always in moderate language. It is easy to see that he looked for evidence of success, and was prepared to make excuses for failure; but the picture he has drawn reveals an amazing series of blunders which in most other countries would result in downfall of the government. Grandiose schemes undertaken with insufficient technical equipment and insufficient technical skill, with faulty direction and interference resulting from suspicion and ignorance, have involved the country in heavy losses which are not always apparent because the effects are not set out in terms of money, but which impose on the masses living conditions that would be intolerable to people in other lands. Prices were high (they still are). The first meal he had in a Russian diningroom was costly. Butter cost the equivalent of 3/6, the soup, 6/3, meat 14/6, an orange 4/2, an apple 2/1, a compote 14/6, making a total of 45/-!. There were no vegetables. He sent his suit, to be pressed; that cost over a pound, and he found that it cost one shilling to have a handkerchief washed! A bath cost him 6/3. In addition, he discovered that long hours were worked in many industries, and that all about him there was evidence of poverty and starvation. In these things the heavy cost of the government’s blundering was revealed. He had many illusions dispelled. The famous Turk-Sib Railway he found to be a very poor affair, and here, as elsewhere, was evidence of incompetence and waste. Atone of the big steel undertakings he saw where concrete blocks had been installed for foundations for a big industrial building, and then had been dug up because some senior official had decided to put the building elsewhere. These blocks, weighing up to seven tons, were moved to the new site, where it was proposed to dig holes to accommodate them. This could be done because labour was poorly paid, but the poor payment meant suffering for the workers. On all sides the Russian idea was to secure the “biggest. The government’s aim seemed to be to push through projects that were larger than any of their kind in the.world, and everywhere among the Russians he found that these magnificent schemes were used as the bases of propaganda to impress the natives with the grandeur of Russia. Among the officials and people the driving force was the fear of war, of an attack on Russia of the “capitalist” countries. To maintain the drive of the Five Year Plan, the Soviet exported everything it could, selling at less than cost because it needed revenue, and under this policy the masses as well as the industries suffered. He found that the best of the collectivist farms, the only one that could be called a success, was operated by a syndicate of Russians who had been in America, and who charged a heavy premium on all who wished to join them. They regarded the improvements on the farm as their personal assets, and so were operating as a farming syndicate on capitalist lines. Life in Russia did not attract him, and it was clear that Communism was a rank failure. He went as a Communist sympathizer and found himself happy to leave: I had had three tremendous disillusionments —first, when I learned that one could not send the truth out of the Soviet Union, or tell the truth about the outside world in Russia. The second was when I found out that the peasants had been tricked by the government and were unhappy. The third was when I met Russia’s leaders and learned that they were not altruists, but individuals interested in their own comforts and in a class snobbery equal to that, of Romanov Russia. Professing an indifference to wealth, they strive ruthlessly for power. And he might have added in his sum-

mary, ruthlessness on all sides. The Shaw tour is dealt with briefly and effectively, showing that Shaw had no chance to reach the truth in Russia—he was carefully conducted. This book should be read. It is a convincing work, and it will open the eyes of many people who do not realize that the Bolshevik tyranny is a costly blunder for Russia, and that its rulers could not survive if the country had a democratic system of government—they would be pulled down by the weight of their own incompetence. “Russia’s Decisive Year,” by Ellery Walter (Messrs Angus and Robertson . Ltd., Sydney).