The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1927. “A WORLD OF SHADOWS.”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19994, 10 November 1927, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1927. “A WORLD OF SHADOWS.”

The world is not likely to be seriously impressed "by the Soviet’s stage-managed display in celebration of the anniversary of the Russian revolution. Military parades and sabrerattling accord so little with the revolution’s professed aim of making Russia a better land to live in, and the condition of the people generally is known to be in such sharp contract with that of the well-paid and well-fed soldiery that the celebrations, as an exposition of what has been done for Russia, are a failure rather than a success.

It will be noted from the cable messages that a British Communist made a speech in which he assured his Russian audience that the workers of Britain were with them, and that if Russia and Britain went to war, the British workers would turn against their own country and fight for the foreigner. Such an absurd declaration carries its own denial, but it may be asked how this Mr Gallagher, the British Communist referred to, squares it with the annual report of the British Communist Party, particulars of which are just to hand by mail. That report deplores the immense falling away in membership and the lack of interest which the British worker displays in Communism and urges members to further efforts to arrest the decline. It also complains that there is nothing but the smallest demand for its literature, that its selling agencies are not paying promptly for the pamphlets and books supplied them, and that some of them have sold none at all. So the British worker evidently takes little stock in Bolshevism, despite the Gallagher assertion.

There have been many accounts of conditions in Russia, some impartial, some partisan. Perhaps the workers of New Zealand will be interested in a recent report by one who cannot be regarded as possessing any Tory prejudices, but rather as one inclined to be favourable to the revolution. This report is by a well-known member of the German Socialist Party, Dr. Otto Friedlaender, who, during the past northern summer, was allowed to travel through Russia without supervision by officials. He visited numerous factories and found that they were using antiquated machinery, as there was no capital to purchase modern material. Wages he found terribly low, the average factory worker making, at the most, even with overtime, the equivalent of £5 pel 1 month, though he had various benefits, such as reduced rents and free medical treatment as a set off.

Social conditions, especially as related to the juvenile population, Dr. Friedlaender found “very bad.” Two families often had to live in one room, and were separated merely by a chalk line on the floor. The number of unemployed, who received a very small grant, was over a. million. The misery among which the working classes lived had had terrible, effects on the young, for it had resulted in an army of uncontrolled and homeless children who lived by begging, stealing and prostitution. Dr. Friedlaender remarked, as others have done before him, on the anomaly of the Soviet spending gigantic sums of money on foreign propaganda, while taking no steps to reform this generation of criminals which is springing up.

The whole social position, he concludes, is bad. Freedom of opinion is absolutely suppressed. Intellectual depression lies over the land. Further economic shocks are threatened. “Russia of to-day,” he says with palpable moderation, “is no paradise and no hell, but a world of shadows in which the working masses lead a hard life.” None of these, facts, it is needless to say, are disclosed by the anniversary celebrations.