UNDER SOVIET RULE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1930, Page 14

UNDER SOVIET RULE

RUSSIA—THE OLD AND NEW ’ WHEN EAST MEETS WEST. DESPOTIC RULE CONTINUES. Stating that the Russian people were of mingled. Occidental and Oriental races, Mr. J. A. Brailsford, 8.A., tutor for the W.E.A., speaking at New Plymouth last evening, dealt with conditions in the the great northern . nation under the old Czarist rule and the new Soviet regime. Dr. Nansen, the explorer, he said, had predicted a great future for the people who lived under the shadow of the Urals. The world had been impressed by the literature of Tolstoy, Turgenicv and Dostoievsky, and the music of the great Russian composers. No one denied, said. Mr. Brailsford, that Russia was still under the despotic rule of the Communist party, whose members numbered about 1,500,000 in a population of more" than 150,000,000. The world had been assured in the early days of the movement that the dictatorship was to continue only for' ten years, but running a despotism was like riding a tiger—-it was not easy to get off. The Communists executed their political opponents without compunction, just as the Czarist Government had done. Despite the essentially democratic character of the Soviet system, the elections were run as the Communists wished, their critics having no freedom to organise or to publish anything from their point of view. The factory soviets gave a . basis for selfgovernment in industry, but industrial unions were' being suppressed. _ A recent American visitor to Russia had stated that nullification of the powers of labour unions had gone further there than in the most conservative of capitalist countries. The reason for this was that the Soviet, in carrying out its great five years' plan for increasing industrial production/ thought it necessary ' to tighten labour discipline and managers were given more power. FARMERS AND COMMUNISM. Farmers had their liberty restricted more than the factory workers. Despite the failure of previous efforts to bring them under" a Communist organisation, the Government, in its five-years plan, was forcing them to pool their farms and allow large areas to be cultivated as one enterprise, with the most up-to-date equipment. Large numbers of the peasants were welcoming this plan, and the change had proceeded a good deal more rapidly than the Government had planned. But it was admitted that there had been much cruelty. Farmers who had resisted this new collective control of their holdings had been executed in large numbers. The farmers, besides having the disability of comparatively weak organisation, were largely deprived of voting power. The vote of one factory worker counted as much as that of five farmers. The Soviet regime had . been unable to raise Russia out of her poverty, said the speaker, but allowance had to be made for the dislocation due to the Great War, the civil wars, the war of intervention, the blockade—still continued to some extent—and the disastrous droughts of nine years ago. In spite of all the repression iftid poverty, visitors to Russia seemed to agree that the people felt they were enjoying a great boon in being liberated from the Czarist despotism. The popular enthusiasm might be accounted for to some extent by the self-denial of tho Communist leaders, who would work for a labourer’s wage even when holding the highest positions and when their subordinates who did not belong to the party might bo earning a good deal more. The intense campaign against corruption —which was a capital offence for a Communist—seemed to have been remarkably effective, despite statements ol anti-Soviet critics. There might be noted also the remarkable measure of f r; ' " '-’-ich the Soviet Government allowed to the federated republics, which were encouraged to keep their own culture and ’language,' whereas under the Czars they had been subjected to. cruel repression. HOSTILITY TO RELIGION. Dealing with the persecution of the chur.ches°in Russia, Mr. Brailsford said that this arose only partly from hostility to religion itself. The campaign was largely one against superstition and ignorance, which interfered with their plans for promoting hygiene and-better farming methods. Partly also the Church was opposed as the upholder of the old ’regime. The fact remained that a very severe repression was being carried out. According to Mr. Donald Grant, late general secretary of the. Student Christian Movement in New Zealand, who had been in Russia recently, preaching was forbidden, and every effort was made to prevent the young people from being taught religion. However, personal religion was not interfered with otherwise, and the churches continued to hold services. Mr. Grant had declared, like Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, that sympathisers with the church people in Russia would- only make matters worse for them if they engaged in a campaign of preaching against the Soviet Government. “The only way to defend Christianity is to practice it,” Mr. Grant had stated. Although the Communist Party professed -Uheism, several notable people who had visited Russia contended that the movement was itself essentially religious. SOVIET EDUCATION. Soviet Russia’s greatest achievement had been in the realm of education, said the lecturer. About 90 per cent, of the children now had schooling—against only 47 per cent, before the revolution. The methods of education were, in the opinion of Professor Dewey (a leading philosopher) an example for the world. The teaching was associated with real lite. The children were encouraged to do “socially useful work” in a'" portion of their time, were taken to see factories and villages, and were escorted around museums, which had instruction.- 1 1 staffs. After visiting one of the orphanages conducted in what had been a Grand Duke’s palace, Professor Dewey had written; “I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy and intelligently occupied children." His enthusiastic praise of this Institution, he had said, “will testify to the depth of the impression I received of the intrinsic capacity of

the Russian people, of the release the revolution has effected, of the intelligence and sympathetic art with which the new conditions are being taken advantage of educationally by some of the wisest and most devoted men and women it has ever been my fortune to meet.” In referring to the Soviet’s campaign for hygiene, Mr. Brailsford mentioned that the infantile mortality had been reduced from 25 per cent, before the revolution (the highest in Europe) to 12 per cent.