BAN ON INTELLIGENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1930, Page 7

BAN ON INTELLIGENCE

WAYS OF THE SOVIET

RUSSIA’S .RED AUTOCRACY.' EDUCATION AS A HANDICAP. The Russian Communist Party is a great believer in advertising. For 11 years the principles of Marxism and Leninism have been advertised to the population of Russia, writes a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune from Moscow.

The Communist Party is still trying .to establish equality—equality of brains ;of living conditions, and of opportunity. • 'To-day it has achieved a membership of ; elightly more than 1,500,000 members in . Russia's population of 140,009,000. All Communists have jobs, and they constitute the new aristocracy of Russia. „ Wherever one goes in Russia one sees on the walls of houses, fences, in street cars, dining rooms, placards calling upon the population to “light tne kulaks (rich peasants), priests and nepmen (merchants)." These three groups the Communists are determined to exterminate, but other classes also surfer in -his conflict. Chiefly the intelligent class, the “intelligentsia." The educated Russian has always been a little different from the educated foreigner. He is not very capable, and faces life handicapped with a,desire tc idealise realities. He ?.s impractical and artistic. Americans would call him both “soft" and “mushy." In the universal struggle for existence the Russian intelligentsia has produced few heroes. The reason for this must be traced back to the Russian schools, .which have never really trained children to get out and fight for themselves. Initiative and capability are unknown ‘Qualities. . .. POWER OF THE CHEKA, Formerly the educated classes were persecuted for their “left", tendencies; The Tsarist regime kept them ip subjection and banished many to Siberia. To-day this same class is being oppressed by the Communist regime for their “right" tendencies. The Communists call this, class the spiritual children

of the. former Government, and do not trust them. The present Government, which is composed of former labourers and peasants, is .attempting to form a, new educated class, “Wo are not left in peace after all these terrible years,” the intelligentsia complained. ‘‘The cheka controls every step we take. Everything /we do is thought to hide some action against the Government. We are classed as enemies.” The majority of the educated people .who have survived the Communist massacres are really loyal Russians who do their work honestly. They are not Bolsheviks, but they are also not actively lighting against the Government. ' They shun polities, and for this reason thby are Continually under suspicion. If there are two candidates'for a position, duo of them an educated person and the other of proletarian origin, the latter gets the post. It is for this reason the Soviet Government functions so inefficiently. The Government and the population

vie with each other in hate for the intelligentsia. The ignorant population has the usual instinctive hatred for anyone with a slight equipment of brains, jmd the Government exploits this hatred >t every opportunity. EDUCATION A HANDICAP. • . Another interesting development is that under the Tsar’s regime the working classes had no possibility of receiving an education, and therefore they envied the intelligentsia. Many of these sympathised with the workers, and did everything they could to help them, even to becoming revolutionists themselves. To-day the situation is reversed. The educated man who wants to give his children an education must apply to former workers for this permission, and he is always refused. .. “To have an education is now a handicap,” explained an engineer. “The word ‘intelligent’ is a term of derision, and we seek to hide our schooling. If we are fortunate enough to have obtained a position we can never be sure at what moment some boy who has. just graduated from a technical high school will come and take pur position away from iis because his father was a worker or a peasant. In this way .some of the inost capable engineers and other trained specialists are losing their jobs. The Government seems determined to make us its enemies.

■ Try to imagine what would happen in an American factory if the present staff of engineers were made subordinate to youths flaunting a high schorl diploma, or what would happen in a hospital if jiew inmates were placed in charge. This is what is happening all over Russia.

- “There are so few doctors that this is the only free profession which we are allowed to follow and in which we are allowed to remain,” a surgeon informed ine. “They need us badly, for those students the schools are turning out are poorly equipped to practise. Besides, the Communist youths do not care to Study medicine. LOW SALARIES OF DOCTORS. “But this does not mean that we are not persecuted. We are not permitted to remain very long in one post. If we are discovered treating patients privately we arc sent to gaol. This often happens, because it is hard for us to racist the pleas of a suffering peasant who conies with a ham, a couple of fat geese, or a huge package of precious butter as payment for treatment. Our salaries are low; some institutions pay Xis 70 roubles ( £3 10s), others as much as 80 roubles ( £4 monthly), and this is tardy enough to keep us alive. “The attitude of the worker patients Is another trial. They come and roughly demand treatment. They all know exactly what is the .matter with them, ami what must be done for their cure. If bur diagnosis does not agree rith theirs, and our course of treatment is something else from what they <,xeeptod. tiny arise at the next meeting of the factory Soviet and demand our discharge, and so we are again transferred. Sometimes they even attack us. I have been badly beaten several times in my dispensary.”

The treatment accorded to engineers, the so-called “technical specialists,” is ©ven worse. The workers have no respect for engineers and technicians. In mines, factories and shops there are frequent fights, which end with the murder of the Engineer in' charge.