W.E.A. GROUP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1943, Page 3

W.E.A. GROUP

DISCUSSION ON RUSSIA. DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. The W.E.A. group met last night to discuss the development of political institutions in Soviet Russia. In considering the treason trials and purges that marked the transition from a revolutionary state with a limited authority to that of a state in which authority is not seriously contested, some members felt that the ■ infliction of the death penalty was wrong; and that some form of reformative detention would have been adequate. Others felt that the existence of men convicted of treason would form a focus for discontent and plotting —-and remarked that in this war Russia had no Fifth Column. English history perhaps affords a parallel in the Roundhead s execution of Charles I. The vast untapped resources of the world and the discoveries of modern science made the group hopeful of the realisation of the Communist ideal of “to each according to his needs.” It was observed that man’s needs tended to increase, the luxuries of one generation being the necessities of the next. After considering the extent of the U.S.S.R., which occupies nearly one sixth of the land surface of the earth, its enormous population of 170 millions, belonging to about 180 different nationalities, and speaking 150 different languages, one member observed that Russia was in reality a League of Nations. This was felt by members to be a hopeful augury for the future, when Western European peoples might make their League of Nations a great reality.