AMERICA AND RUSSIA

Evening Star, Issue 19659, 12 September 1927, Page 10

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

COMPARISON BY TROTSKY FELLOW COAIAI.UNISTS ANNOYED, RIGA, August 21. An American delegation which has been investigating conditions in Russia, propounded for Al. Trotsky twenty questions, many of them extremely awkward. They included inquiries as to why there was no freedom of the Press or of speech, and whether democracy existed in Russia. Al. Trotsky, replying evasively, according to his custom, declared that American democracy was a sham and veiled capitalist dictatorship, while the Soviet dictatorship was unveiled, as it was unnecessary to deceive the workers. American freedom of the Press and

American freedom of the Press and speech, as in other bourgeois countries, were also shams, because the bourgeois owned the printing presses ami paper stocks; it was impossible lor the workers to obtain balls lor tree speech, because they, also, were owned by the bourgeois. ‘‘The Soviet,” added Trotsky, ‘‘is unable to permit freedom of the Press, because when life is threatened a person us lists, knees, heels and teeth. The Soviet is'not going to allow its enemies to take advantage of so-called democratic freedom.”

Trotsky’s replies have incensed the members of the Polit Bureau, who declare that they were badly chosen. The ‘Pravda’ characterises liis. replies as a feeble and disgusting performance. “Trotsky has let down the party again,” it complains. “ Any conscientious Bolshevist could have replied to the queries without being tied in a knot and making such glaring blunders. Trotsky admitted that the Russians might be discontented, which is incorrect, as only the counter-revo-lutionary faction is discontented. “Trotsky missed a great opportunity. He should have told the American delegation that Russians enjoyed 'the best form of democracy and full freedom of opinion, that discontent was impossible: On the other hand, he gave a false impression, thus assisting the Soviet’s enemies in spreading malicious slanders.”