Moscow ... and Labour Party

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20150, 19 May 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

Moscow ... and Labour Party

Compromise Impossible

Ths renewed controversy over the Zinovieff Letter has left many people in doubt as to Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s attitude to Moscow and its British hirelings. Here Mr MacDonald explains the position of his party.

HPHE issue of instructions from Moscow that the British Communists A must put candidates into the field against those run by the Labour Party ought to put an end to the political fable that, when all is said and done, we are but a kind of Communist, and that, had we the chance we should do here w-hat the Communists have done in Russia. Communism is the native growth of reactionary soil; it is the scraggy and spiky bush that grows up under the political conditions of dictatorship, of an elaborate police and spy system, of exile and political prosecution and persecution. AN INVERTED AUTOCRACY. Communism in Russia is Tsardoni with the victims on the seats of authority, using both Cheka and Siberia for their ow r n purposes. As the responsible Government settles down to handle the practical problems of administration it departs from this, but the irresponsible revolutionary high priests of Communist doctrines who control the Third International have abandoned no delusions which possessed them when they overthrew the Russian Government ten years ago. This origin of Russian Communism goes down to the roots. Democracy and it cannot go together. When its ballot-boxes, and press, and courts of justice are open it may continue its name, but its spirit and its methods will have changed. Another unbridgeable difference between Communism and the Labour Party is the belief of the former that a radical reorganisation of Society must be preceded by a revolution of force in order to seize political power Upon that the Labour Party makes two decisive observations. First of all, what cannot be done by the ballot-box cannot be done by a revolution, and, secondly, what is sought to be done by a revolution cannot be done even if the revolution succeeds. The social and economic problems which the revolutionist has to face so soon as the revolution has given him power are just those that the successful democratic politician has to face, and they call from the revolutionist the same diplomatic and creative skill as they call from the politician. The Russians found that to be true when they decreed the nationalisation of land. The peasants would not have it, and no revolution could impose it upon them. Also, later on, they had to adopt a new economic policy because no revolution could readjust the economic laws of exchange and markets. Communism here teaches the absurdity that whoever has power can use ft just as he likes. Communism as a way of effecting social change is a vain show. It brings suffering which it cannot compensate; the paralysis which it effects whilst engaged in its revolution is not follow'cd by a new life; it has to retreat upon the old economic order so that it may begin its creative reconstruction. It is also curious how the Russian parentage of Communism is stamped upon the features of every Communist Party in the world. Its method is the revolutionary method under the Tsar. Policies have to bo plotted in the dark, and worked out on secret instructions given to small groups known as 4 4 nuclei.” These must be obedient to orders. The Moscow Committee is like the “Secret No. 1” of all conspiracies whose word must be obeyed. Communism is essentially a conspiracy. The allegiance of the Com-

N© Democracy Wndu Gmmunism

munist is not to the colleagues with whom he is working, nor to his own judgment. It is to his headquarters. No one, therefore, can work with him comfortably because no one knows what he is. In his pocket are his secret instructions. He is a tool, and tools are impossible colleagues. He is an alien using his enfranchisement in obedience to his foreign control, and an alien puppet can also be cast out. The old Russian revolutionists of the Kropotkin and Stephniak type were men who took their lives in their hands, and who accepted the conditions of conspiracy under the shadow of the executioner. Their surrender of liberty was of the heroic kind and the moral reaction was sublime. That is not the case when the secret plot is against men who live in the open and with whom one is supposed to co-operate. Conspiracy under the conditions of freedom of discussion reacts towards a mean and debased lack of scruple and honour. It selects its tools from the most worthless. The generosities of common action are stifled; the conspirators cease to care who their masters are, provided they find (employment, and they use any weapon by which they can do their work. In stressful times like these they use misery to make more misery and lead their followers to knock their heads against stone walls. They cover their failures by hot words and keep the pursuit after something not yet found by raising will-o’-the-wisp after will-o’-the-wisp. Where they have been trusted with administration they have invariably let their organisation down, or have fallen back in their impotence upon moderate policies which they gained influence by attacking. ’Thus, both in our Trade Union and political movements, Communism is an influence of personal deterioration and organisation of disruption. The opposition which I am Explaining is seen in the position of both the political and industrial wings of the Labour movement to-day. The orders issued from Moscow that the advance of the Labour Party is to be checked by the running of Communist candidates to defeat certain types of Labour leaders has its counterpart in the industrial policy of Communism. PARALYSING INDUSTRY The purpose is to bring industry to a standstill, to paralyse it by industrial civil w r ar on the assumption that after the wreck there will arise a now order. The General Council of the Trade Union Congress takes the Labour view. Progress comes from peace. Peace, however, does not mean slavery and surrender; it means negotiation upon conditions and a settlement that permits of acquiescence and of improvement. The two policies are irreconcilable. No compromise is possible between them. They belong to two totally different political inheritances. Our inheritance is the democratic one; theirs the autocratic one. Our method is that of changing public opinion under the influence of reason, conscience and imagination; theirs is that of the individual will hardened and sharpened by dogma, breaking its way through barriers and establishing itself by the exercise of dictatorial power. Thus, the conflct does not arise from diversity of remote aim or goal, but from the day-to-day attitude we take to our tasks. It is raised by every move we make either in Parliament or on an industrial council. That is why there is no possibility of accommodation between the British Labour Movement and Communism—and Moscow knows it.