Russia From Within.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1922, Page 1

Russia From Within.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY. The following Is from “Red Dusk and the Morrow,” by Sir Paul Dukes, K.8.E., late chief of the British Secret Service in Soviet Russia; One day there occurred in Petregrnd a startling event that would haw made foreign protagonists of prolet i inn dictatorship, had they been present, sit holt upright and dilegently scratch their heads.

A ro-registration of the party took place, the object being to purge its ranks of what were referred to as “undesirable elements” and “radishes”, the latter being a happy epithet invented by Trotsky to designate those who were red ollly on the outside. A stringent condition of re-entry was that every member should bo guaranteed by two others for his political reliability, not only upon admission, hut in perpetuity. Such were the fear and suspicion prevailing even within the ranks of the party. The result was that, besides those who were expelled for misdemeanours, many Communists, disquieted by the introduction of so stringent a disciplinary measure, profited by the re-registration to retire, and the membership was reduced by more than 50 ]M?r cent. A total of less than 4000 wgs left out of a population of 800,000.' The problem of how to increaso the patty membership liecame vitally urgent. With this end in view a novel and ingenious idea was suddenly conceived. It was resolved to make an appeal for party recruits among the workers 1 Amazing though it may seem, the Communist leaders, according to their own accounts, thought of this course only as a last resort. To the outsider this is almost incredible. Of whom then, hnrl the Communist party consisted for the first- two years of the “Red” regime? The question is not easy to answer, for the systems of admission have varied as much as the composition of the party itself. The backbone of the rank and file was originally formed by the sailors, whom I hear Trotsky describe during the riots of July, 1917, as “the pride and glory of the revolution.” But a year or so later there was a good sprinkling of that typo of workman who, when lie is not a Communist, is described by the Communists as “workman bourgeois”. Though these latter wore often selfseekers and were regarded by the workers in general, as snobs, they were a better element than the sailors, who with few exceptions were ruffians. Further recruits were drawn from amongst people of most varied and indefinite types—yard-keepers, servant girls, expolicemen, prison warders, tradesmen, and the petty bourgeoiso. In rnio instances one might find students and teachers, generally women of the soft, dreamy, mentally weak type, and perfectly sincere and disinterested. Most women Communists of the lower ranks resembled ogresses.