AN INTERVIEW WITH LENIN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 231, 24 June 1919, Page 5

AN INTERVIEW WITH LENIN

, 4 BY A FRENCHMAN SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE WESTERN POWERS M. Ludovic Naudeau, tho special correspondent of the Paris "Temps," has bad an interview- with Lenin, of which the following- is the substance. Tho interview seems to have taken place in February or March last. Lenin said: We aro exceedingly anxious to adapt ourselves to circumstances during the period of transition through which Europe is passing. Can a communal Stale liko ours, surrounded by capitalist States, exist? Why not? Of course it is very difficult for a people like the Russian people, and little developed, to live without numerous ties with the neighbouring and more advanced nations. Wo need technicians, .scientists, and all the apparatus of universal industry. Particularly to-day, when the productive powers of Russia are destroyed, we are unable alone to develop (he immonse resources of this country. "Under such conditions, however disagreeable the admission, we must admit that our principles, though applying within our own frontiers, must beyond our frontiers give place to political agreements which will allow us Jo Jive. Thus we very sincerely propose to recognise (fiat wo must pay tho income on foreign leans, and, as we have no money, we shall pay it with corn, oil, and all kinds of raw materials, of which we shall have enough once norproduction is resumed. Wo have decided to grant timber and mining concessions to the citizens of the Entente Powers, on condition that (ho essential principles of Soviet Russia are respected. Further, we should be resigned to ceding territories of the old Russian Empire to certain Kntento Powers. We know English, Japanese, and American capitalists are very anxious for such concessions. As for Franco we are not clear. There seem to bo two opposed currents in France so far as wo aro concerned. W r e shall not resist any reasonable demands that will give us peace. If too much is as>k«l wo shall fight and defend ourselves. The Western Poweis are beginning to see that it is not quite so easy to make war oil us asllioy thought at first. An honest peace would be tho best thing for the whole world. We are ready to make a bargain. To show our sincerity, I can tell you (hat we have granted a concession to an international company for the building of the Veliki Sevcrni Pout—that is (o say, the 'Great Northern Railway. It is a line three thousand vorsts long to run from Soroka, a station on the middle cf tho Murraan Railway, via Kotlas and the Urals, to tho junction of tho Obi and tho Irtish. Immense virgin forests of eight millions of hectares and all kinds of unexploited mines will fall within the domain of the construction company. As we hnve not (lie. nieans to develop these ourselves there is no harm in giving the job to a foreign company. It is a ease of ceding property of tho State for a fixed term, probably eighty years, with the right of repurchasing. Our conditions will not.be hard. Tho laws of the Soviet.fixing the eight-hour day and controlled by workmen's organisations will be respected; and that- will suffice. Of course, this is a great departure from pure Communism and there has been much controversy over the project, but we have decided to accept what the period of transition through which we are passing renders necessary. Tho Bolshevik Government will keep any bond it signs. The State of the Future. You ask me about the future of the world. I am no prophet, but of this I am sure—that the old State of the Capitalists and of Free-trade, such as England was. is dying. The State of (he future will monopolise everything, buy everything, sell everything. The evolution of the world is moving inevitably towards Socialism. There are vario.is transitional forms and phases, but- die goal is one. Who would have believed a few years ago in the possibility of the nationalisation of railways in America, or that this Republic would buy up all the wheat to put it to tho use "most convenient to the State? Thc'League of Nations will be extremely difficult to constitute, but, out of these experiments a new form of civilisation will in the end emerge. Clearly our Communist- experience here is not a decisive proof. Russia is a nation apart, whose intellectual culture does not correspond at all to Western culture. Tho land question here Us problems unknown to you. Remember that private Tural property was created only a few years ago by Stojypin, In Russia when the old autocratic Government foundered there was no power to opposo the explosion of the Social Revolution. In Germany and in France, where the ancient niilars are enormously more solid than they were with us, a revolution) is much more difficult to i.bmmuuco than was the case in Russia. Oil the other hand if a Socr list legime established itself in Fivnce or in Germany; it would bijmnch easier with them than with us to perpetuate it. Socialism would find in tho West tho staffs, the talents, tho organism, every variety of intellectual and- material help which' we lack here. I sum up by saying that experience proves that every human proup is mo*-1 i ii" towards Socialism by its own road. The old worlft can no longer exist. Jhe economic situation engendered bjr the war will precipitate its downfall. Ail that has been said, all that urn be said, against the State as employer has not prevented or checked this evoiu.ion. lo remedy the defects of the State eri.ployer we shall have to strike out new forms ot control, but to-day it is boneless to prevent the State becoming the employer. That it must happen will come as by its .own weight.