The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) THURSDAY, JANUARY 21th, 1924. THE RUSSIAN EXAMPLE.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1924, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is in corporated the West Coast Times.) THURSDAY, JANUARY 21th, 1924. THE RUSSIAN EXAMPLE.

Bolshevik principles, comments a Sydney paper, have been considerably modified by the logic of events. When more than six years ago, M. Lenin and lus colleagues seized power, they took over what may be termed a going ctmccin. Russia felt the .strain ol tne war acutely, but so did all the t'cljigerentis. Rulssia was a land .ot enormous natural resources. Her rich soil despite rather primitive methods of agriculture, had made her the granary ol Europe. She had inexhaustible forests, fisheries, and oil deposits. Her manufactures were developing. In the background was ttie wealth of Siberia to exploit. Her peoplo were illiterate. but submissive, and tractable, and, on the whole', industrious. One would have supposed that a Government with any pretensions to competence would have made somctliing out ol the proposition. Nl. Lenin certainly had no doubts about his capacity. He was going to make Russia a heaven on earth in which everybody should share the good things except the capitalists, the intelligentsia, and the bourgeois. T hey were to have nothing. They were not oven to be allowed the possession of bare life. Accordingly, the upper classes were exterminated or diiven into exile. The middle classes, which, with all their faults, are the backbone of any community, were expropriated, and many of them were executed. The Comrades had the field to themselves. But somehow it did not work. The millcniuin did not materialise. On the contrary, it receded even further into the distance. Lenin discovered that by eliminating capital he find eliminated credit, and the lifeblood of industry. The wheels ceased tc revolve. The factories stood idle, Tlx: peasants, tired of having their grain requisitioned in return for worthless paper, refused to grow more than was sufficient for their own needs. They were quite indifferent fo the rebukes of the Government, which vainly protested against their unenlightened selfishness. The proletariat found the now rogune rather disappointing. The Comrades, deprived of all incentive to work, did not work, and gradually lost the habit of work. After all, a free seat at tho opera and a soup ticket were a somewhat poor reward for la hour. As an observer remarked, the Government embarked on a policy o 1 bread and circuses, but omitted to suppi} the bread. Tho proletariat could do better by speculating or foraging in the countryside. Production fell away to nothing, and epidemics and famine became an almost chronic condition. Lenin railed at the Western Governments because they would not help Russia by floating Russian loans. His resentment was decidedly naive, seeing that he had persistently reviled these Governments, that Russia had repudiated her foreign debt, and that the Soviet Government was avowedly, by propaganda and subsidies, working for the overthrow of constituted society in the countries concerned. As a matter of fact, it was the hated capitalists who came to the rescue of Russia in her extremity. They financed the relief organisations by which many mil-

lions of lives were saved. They got no thanks from the Soviet for their pains, although the recipients of their bounty Here grateful enough. The position went from had to worse, and industrial eonseription failed to improve it. The worker had become wemoralixed by his.idleness and the hand-to-mouth existence he had led. Russia was in the depths when M. Benin bowed to the inevitable and began to retrace bis stops. .M. Lenin, whose death is just reported, had always maintained that Bolshevik policy must in the first place, Ik> wholly destructive. The old order must he utterly swept away before the Soviet could begin to build the new fabric of ihs dreams. A favourite analogy employed by Red propagandists was that where the foundations and lower stones of a house are rotten, it is no use tinkering with them. The whole thing must come down. But what the Reds failed to see was that common sense demanded that provision r f some sort should lie made lor the inhabitants of the dwelling while the demolishers were at work, and pending the erection of a new home. Otherwise they’would be sure to .suffer acutely front exposure. .Even Nero realised this when he carried out his civic improvements in Rome; the evicted were supplied with other aeeommodatjhm. But the Russian people, to continue the metaphor, were cast into the streets shelterless and almost foodless. Moreover, there must he a limit even to destruction. If you destroy all that makes life worth living, all that stands fo- security and stability, all freedom, you also destroy all initiative, all energy. The people cower huddled among the ruins, incapable of eflort. So I enin found. Me was beaten, not by anything that the 'Western Governments did or left undone, hut by the fundamental instincts of human nature. And so, one by one, concessions wore made to individualism. One by one the institutions of the milch-maligned capitalistic system were restored. I’rivato property was recognised, and private trading permitted. Freedom ol contract was established, and piecework was reintroduced. Most signal recantation of all, rights of inheritance were admitted. Technical experts were imported from abroad. And from them onwards Russia began to recover. The process lias continued until now, although Russia lias very iar to go befero she reaches her pre-war figures ol production. Her exports may exceed tier imports, but that, as an article in a recent issue of the “New 5 ork Herald” shows, is simply because she has no money lo buy uiih. Neierthcless, the outlook i> less discouraging. Communism undiluted would not wore. But, with many of the cardinal •uiiH’iples of Communism jettisoned, Russia is moving forward again. r I he henomenon must lie profoundly distressing to stalwart Communists, who ainly attempt to explain it away, tin most logical comment seems the diagnosis that “the period of Communism can ho regarded as ended, and ti.o present phase is a gradual rover-,-jion to capitalism."