CHANGES IN EUROPE

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1934, Page 6

CHANGES IN EUROPE

NEW ZEALANDERS’ TOUR GERMANY AND RUSSIA VISITED. VIEWS OF PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS. Three New Zealanders who have just returned to England after an extensive European tour, secured first-hand information about some of the urgent political and sociological problems .which are troubling Germany and Russia. They are Mr. J. M. Bertram, of Auckland (New Zealand Rhodes scholar), Mr. lan Milner of Oamaru (New Zealand Rhodes scholar) and Mr. Charles Brasch, of Dunedin (8.A., Oxon.); all are old boys of Waitaki High School. In letters received by the last mail, says the Christchurch Press, they describe some of the impressions of an unusually interesting tour which included Denmark, Finland, Russia and Germany, all of which were visited during August and September. They write that in the third week of August they arrived at Leningrad, and had their first experience of the new Russian sociology. Leningrad has now a population of 3,000,000, and presents an interesting picture of the efforts of the new regime to impose a new social order on the old. At the railway station the visitors were startled to see an imposing fleet of eight-cylinder Lincolns and V 8 Fords side by side with hopelessly superannuated trams. The same incongruous juxtaposition was seen in the slum dwellings and the new communal apartment blocks, in the squalor and poverty and the impressive new hotels and public buildings. New immaculate highways like the Nevski Prospect now converted into the “Prospect of the 25th October” contrasted strangely with the old cobbled streets. TREATMENT OF TOURISTS. Tourists are catered for on luxurious lines, for their hotel accommodation, though at cheap rates, was all that could be desired. The party took up an independent itinerary in the evenings and personally investigated factory, school and housing conditions. They admit that the ordinary tourist lines are windowdressed and officially guided to give favourable impressions. Although plenty of poverty and depression was observable in Leningrad, they were very favourably impressed by the organisation of the factory workers’ accommodation and social life. The eradication of slums by liberally designed housing developments was a noticeable feature in both Leningrad and Moscow. . All the new factories of any size have a corresponding workers’ commune. These consist of huge apartment buildings of from 10 to 15 stories divided into three-room flats, each provided with both conveniences and sun-porch. Each building has a specially large communal kitchen for the factory workers. Each factory has as well as the residential accommodation a clinic and hospital, a theatre, cinema, school affording both technical and general courses, co-operative store, social clubhouse and sports grounds. } At the factory school the children receive free two meals a day. In the commune a marked feature is the elimination of domestic toil, as so many women are full-time factory workers. The New Zealand students, during a five weeks’ tour of Russia by way of Leningrad, Moscow, and through the Ukraine to Kharkov and Kief and return to Warsaw met with nothing but courtesy. They found that the girl tramconductors were both efficient and highly courteous. They were astounded at the State provision of theatres as a cultural agency in the life of the people of Russia. There are 562 national stage theatres with 30,000 actors and stage workers. There are also 25,000 dramatic students and the great Moscow National Theatre Festival, which they attended for a week, gave them the impression of vast creative energy. The majestic mise-en-scene of ‘Prince Igor” and “The Intervention” (Revolution play) showed superbly artistic collocation of scenic efforts.

Moscow they thought far more progressive than Leningrad, showing evidence of civic planning on a large scale for its population of nearly four millions. Everywhere they saw blocks of workers’ apartment houses being erected. At various factories they inspected the communal schools, where the children averaged 800 in number, and appeared bright, happy and certainly healthy and well looked after. Each factory utilised to the full its cinema hall, clubhouse and theatre for evening social life. The visitors travelled to Rostov, and on through Ukraine. Their general impression of the new social order in Russia was favourable. “It has huge drawbacks of ignorance and degradation to contend wfith, but on the other hand has succeeded in enlisting the confidence and support of the workers. It is a gigantic social experiment of epic possibilities, but so colossal are the forces of inertia and ignorance to be overcome that no one can yet predict its assured success.” IN GERMANY. From Russia the party went on to Germany where they enjoyed the music and drama of Berlin. They were deeply interested in the outlook of German youth, and in the new developments in German education. Being able to speak German they had perhaps a better insight into public feeling. They felt that Hitler had established ’an unquestionable ascendancy, and that the national despair over Versailles conditions, French policy and the hopelessness of securing national parity by negotiations had precipitated a real national landslide of opinion in favour of forceful realisation of the national destiny with Hitler as the impersonation of the new national cult. Berlin gave the impression of luxury and opulence after their Russian experience. Superficially life in Berlin seemed gay and prosperous, and there appeared to be no indication of any imminent crisis, political or economic. Through the agency of another New Zealand Rhodes scholar, Geoffrey Cox, of Otago, the tourists were introduced to a representative young German, Secretary of the Berlin Hochschule fur Politik. He had been an enthusiastic Storm Trooper and was a keen supporter of the Nazi regime. He showed great concern about the vilification of Nazism by the foreign Press, and ascribed it to the influence of Jewish capital. In reply to queries he maintained that the concentration camp atrocities were faked or exaggerated in the same quarter. He opened out strongly on the malign influence of Jewish capital in Germany. His exposition of the principles of National Socialism showed invincible nationalistic bias as also did his explanation of the Nordic race ideal for Germany. Hitler seemed to be regarded as the Godinspired prophet, and leader of the German race, infallible and sacrosanct, and Germans accepted unquestioningly Hitler’s justification of the bloody coup of June 30. SENTIMENTS OF 1914. At a huge public meeting late in September, the New Zealanders heard Rosenberg, Home Minister, and Dr. Ney, leader, of the Workers’ Organisation. There was a vast audience of more than 6000 present, who were worked up to a great pitch of excitement by the singing of the massed Hitler Youth. They broke into “Deutschland Über Alles.” Dr. Ney's speech might have been given by

Treitsche in 1914. It was militant, chauvinistic, rabidly nationalistic, they write. It sublimated the Teutonic race as the super race of the world. Rosenberg proved to be a glib orator and had quite good matter. He claimed that the National Socialist movement was a spiritual force with a world outlook destined to triumph over all economic obstacles. Germany had found her soul and was conscious of a new unity and a new destiny. Rosenberg repudiated the Russian cosmopolitan communism as the ravings of Moscow barbarism and also rejected the mushy internationalism of the Social Democrats.