IN SOVIET RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 190, 7 May 1919, Page 8

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

ORGANISED "GRAFT" CURIOSITIES OF CORRUPTION (From tho "Morning Post.") In a room in the handsome new building of the Ministry of Trade on the TutchkolV Quay in Petrggrad, whither now come citizens interested in the Soviets' Nationalisation of Industries, hangs a very edifying official notice, which reads:— "Commissaries, he honest! "Do not steal like Tsardom's functionaries!"— Speech of Nicholas Lenin, of May 19, 1917.

The room, which was formerly occupied by the first Provisional Government's wry able Assistant Minister uf Trade, ll..Paltchinsky—a sworn foe to all Socialistic experiments—is now an antechamber of the institution called the "Vuischi Soviet Narodnava Ivhotzaistvn" —that is, the Supreme Council of National Economy. In this council's strong hands lies tho great - nationalisation work. The story of the "Be Honest!" notice is apposite to an account of the unheard-of corruption of Bolshevism's officialdom, because the newspaper Pravdtt declares that the Supreme Council is the most honest—or the least dishonest—State institution of Soviet Russia; and implies that all the other institutions are at least as dishonest as they were under (he Tsardom.

■The relative cleaning up of the Supreme Council is due—precisely as all cleanings up of Tsarist Russia were due —to the blunder made by certain official embezzlers in going . too far.' As. the satirist Gogol said of one of Nicholas I's functionaries, these Sqviet officials wero caught "stealing above their rank." Tho Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Eevolution and Sabotage, unde- tho guidance of tho bloodthirsty but personally incorruptible Pole, jteerzhinski. thereupon seized.five of the Council's guiltiest officials and, shot them incon•tinently. This was part of a general campaign by Dzerzhinski against official corruption.

The campaign might, have succoeded had not too much zeal been shown. During the early autumn Soviet newspapers published almost daily curt notices to tho effect that "The Commission for Combating _ CounterEevolution yesterday "shot the citizen X for stealing"; "The bourgeois A. was yesterday sentenced to death for a corrupt export deal with the Banish citizen B."; and so on, until'at. least two hundred thievish functionaries were in their graves. But in his passion for power and rectitude Dzerzbinski snubbed Lenin himself; and, as a result, llie Commissary of the. Interior, 'Petrovsky, passed a "reform" cutting down drastically the inconvenient Commission power: its members in Moscow (liheio the head office occupied a house on the Lubiank'a, froin whoso windows machine-gun muzzles ' protrude) were lunde subordinate to the Central Soviet; and its local branches were made subordinate to local Soviets. Since then executions for corruption linve been few; and though Dzerzhinslci by his special rigour pureffied—■relatively—the Supreme Council of National Economy and embedded grimly in its memory Lenin's "Commissaries, be honest!" all other Soviet institutions remnined rbout as corrupt as they were before.

. Tho Prevalnnce of Corruption. The famous. Minister of the Interior undor the Tsnrdom, Viatcheslav Plelive, once_ testified beforo a Government Com-' mission that "the official corruption was indescribable, 'but life in Russia would be unlivablo were it not fqr this corruption." A case lately handled by a Bolshevik Revolutionary Tribunal shows that this remark still applies. Soviet corruption has by no means always bad results; it sometimes even makes obliquely for restitution of stolon goods. A certain member of the proscribed paid 25 per cent, of his profits to a Soviet official on condition that the officii)! secured him continuation of a pension legally granted under the Tsardom. It leaked out ,that scores of bourgeois ob-' tain nonsions in the same way. The Bolshevik expropriation system admits of certain exceptions; pensions from the former Imperiol State which do not exceed an annual.3ooo roubles (a trifle in tlio present deprecated currency) are still paid under certain condition's; and to tho legislation limiting the taking of money out of bonks there are exceptions! In exchange for 20 or 25 por cent, of the receipts tho Soviet officials arrange the necessary "condition.?" and "exceptions." This system is almost universal. When the severe Dzerahinski learned of this kind of corruption, he tried to get tho culprits into his power, and promised a l'igdrous investigation; but the culprits wero merely discharged from' office with, ignominy, and were immediately s-pirited away, apparently in" order that tlio rigorous investigation, which would naturally havo involvod other officials, should not take place. The member of the bourgeoisie involved admitted that this was "organised robbory of the State," but added that it , was "merciful indulgence" at the same time. Tho bourgeois, who in cities is given no bread at all, and is further given no "check" to buy other food, maw--ages to live as a result of'the dishonesty of his tyrants. It is the same with tho thousands of Hussion emigres in Scandinavia. After being half-ruined by Bolshevik robbery, they profited from Bolshevik dishonesty in order to smuggle abroad vast sums in roubles. These roubles aro sold here at a third of their gold parity—an extremely profitable deal, as the purchasing power of tho rouble at home has fallen to a fifteenth or a twentieth of its normal value. The Soviets' frontier or port officials are bribed with 25 per cent, of the amount smuggled out. In November the Bolshevik supervisors at Petrograd caught the port officials in the act of allowing a certain M. .Trinoff, stated to have been a former District 'MiifSial of Nobility, to smuggle out a million roubles in 500 rouble notes. Irinoff was beaten, thrown into dock, fished out, and sent to gaol, where he died next week of exhaustion and hunger. Tax-Uollecting. ■ The Soviets' account of tho fulfilment of the Budget for the last half-year shows that'only one-fifth cf the estimated receipts from direct taxation was actually received. \ gloss on this is tho Finance Commissary Krestinsky's statement that the whole tax-collecting system is corrupt. This is inevitable, for except in two provinces, Orel and Saratoff, the Soviets havo no regular machinery for collecting direct taxes. .Tit these provinces, as the official "Finanzi i Narodnoe Khozaistvo" boasts, there is a corps of remorseless tax-collectors- who do not shrink from throwing ion-payers into gaol. Elsewhere "anyone collects." Sometimes the elected members of i:he Councils of- Workmen and Soldiers collect and "arbitrarily decide how much they will hand over to the Central Government." The balance into the collectors' pockets. The recent Soviet expedient of a "onetime levy on the bourgeoisie of ten thousand million roubles" is being foiled in the same way. This levy, the ailiL. of which was to get hold cf the supposed hoards of paper money in bourgeois possession, was decreed only < n October HI last;, but it was all to be paid before December 15. Every person with over 15P.0 roubles a month income was liable. The levy was locally apportioned; Hie City of Moscow was lo pay S.OOMMI.OOOr.. the City of Petrograd 1,500,f100.00f1r., and so on in a. scale down to fhe province of Olonelz, whose bourgeoisie were lo pity! only 15,000,01)31'. Of ihese >ui>U in f.'im'l d'li'ti'ie.'s only one-tcn-tho.usr"!th p-irl wai paid up to the close rf '"-it vea'-, I but the Bolshevik tax • inspector I'acharsky reports that two' or three times as much as the State actually 'received was pniil bv the bourgeois victims. Tho tax-collectors' pocketed the iest. This result, did not discourage M. Kresfmsky, he has since (if a cablegram to Stockholm is correct) announced a new levy on tho- bourgeoisie,- of 24,000,000,000 roubles. Vodka. Naturally Bolshevik ofiicial corruption is helped by the independence which the local Soviets have managed to maintain at;ainst the centralising efforts of the J oscow People's Commissaries. An instance is the new form of robbery established through tho vodka traffic. The Stato Vodka Monojioly, introduced by the late Count Witte, in 1895, was suspended during the mobilisation of 1911,

and was afterwards entirely abolished. Tlio numerous reports sent abroad that t'lio Moscow Soviet Government has forni- ! ally re-established the monopoly are untrue. But four or fifo local Soviets, led bv that o£ Saratoff, have granted monopolies to private individuals or firms, wlii - . pay 20 per cent. «f the violtl to the Soviets' members. The Moscow Government. according to the "Zhisn," frowns at this abuse, but has not the power to prevent it. The same newspaper describes the utilises which prevail in the granting of "checks" for the purchase of food and clothing. These are so hard to get at any price that a "check" is often more valuable in money than the food or clothing itself. "Soviet" bureaucrats secretly sell for 600 roubles a "check" to buy a suit of clothes which costs' GOO or 700 roubles; a permit to buy a pound of bread sometimes costs in bribes five roubles. There is a special class of middlemen. . known for some reason as "butchers" (miasniki) who for a consideration put through all sorts of corrupt deals with the officials. One profitable branch consists in arranging for bourgeois citizens to remain in their_ houses, despite the legal right to expulsion possessed by the Communes of the Poor. The "miasnik" arranges that an imaginary branch office of some State Department shall requisition the dwelling in question; in reality the State office occupies only on& room or perhaps merely needs a notice on the hall door, and the bourgeois can live in peace in the rest of his house.

The propaganda organisation is, of course, corrupt, for its expenditure in foreign countries cannot be controlled., "Fat as a Bolshevik" is now a Scandinavian proverb. Tolerant as the Soviets are of robbery, the chief practitioners of which they are themselves, they regard embezzlement by their propaganda agents as a particularly heinous offence. At Dorpat the Red Guards shot three of . the Soviets' Esthonia'n employees who Jiad falsely entered in their accounts bribes alleged to have been paid to local Social-, ists. . According to the "Pravda." "a Court of Terror and Chastisement" is impending over other propagandists who "sullied the name of Bolshevik by stealing vast sums entrusted to them for the betterment of the world."