SOVIET CRISIS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1928, Page 2

SOVIET CRISIS

OVER INTERNAL TRADE. (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 29. The Daily Express publishes the first of a series of articles from its special correspondent who is after making a tour of Russia. '

The correspondent says: “Red Russia is faced with the gravest crisis since the Revolution, which may come to a head in a few months, if the harvest is had, or it may he postponed if the harvest is good ; hut the end must be the same. Communism will either have to acknowledge defeat, or have to sensationally change its policy. Outstanding features are a shortage of money, which has practically forced the officers and men of the Red Army and the Civil Servants to take part of their pay in loan stocks. The Kremlin is struggling hard to support the trouble, and is trying to force upon the business men and small holders higher payments, though they now pay sixt.v-two per cent, of the taxes. The late Nicolai Lenin had to acknowledge the partial failure of the Marxist theory, and he permitted and encouraged private trading. M. Stalin (the present head of the” Soviet) has changed all this. Within the year ended last October, 103,000 private businesses were closed. Out of eleven thousand private shops in .Moscow, four thousand have closed in the last six months.

“The peasants are dissatisfied. They claim that they cannot obtain goods at the Rural Co-operative Shops, in exchange for their wheat. The Government has gone the' length of putting barricades between the villages and the markets to prevent the peasants from selling their wheat to speculators. It has imprisoned thousands of peasents, and lias confiscated their lands; it has even executed some.

“The rupture of Anglo-Bussian relations hit Russia very hard, and the Soviet is using the economic situation to stir up the bitterest hatred against Britain, which is represented as a villain trying to ruin Russia.” The Daily Express special correspondent. in a second article, examines the Russian wheat problem. Ho points out that, despite three successive good harvests, Russia is only able to carry on without extending her cultivation. He visted the Ukraine, to find out the cause and he discovered that a severe conflict has been proceeding there between the Sltate and the peasants. The latter are being forced to sell their wheat to the former for 2s Gd per pood, (weighing .flirty-six pounds avoirdupois). The cultivators say that this is not enough to buy their requisites from tlie Rural Co-operative Stores. Some time ago the Rural Stores were practically empty and the Soviet then forced city shops to send goods to the country. As the result, the Leningrad shops are short of supplies still, and they are only open for a few hours in tlie middle of the day. Then they are besieged by queues, similar 'to those in war time at the food shops in Britain.

The correspondent, says that the Soviet have, managed to reduce the rural store prices to the extent of six per cent., .and they are-now launching a great industrial campaign in an attempt further to reduce the production costs.

The Soviet are spending 150 millior pounds sterling each year in modernising the mines, oil wells and factories, under British, American and German experts, but it will take from three to five years to complete this gigantic scheme.

'i'he correspondent’s first impression was that Kharkoff was the most prosperous city seen in Russia, with good buildings and good roads, well dressed men and women. Later, however, 1* found that side l>v side with this prosperous element, who are all Jews and Jewesses, there are literally armies of lieggars. Kharkoff and Kieff have the largest Jewish populations in Russia. The Revolution freed them, ami when Lenin allowed partial private; enterprise in Russia, they as the cleverest business folk, repeated the reward. All went well till M. Stalin came into power. He is at the same time an anti-Semetie and an anti-piivnte enterprise dictator, and Iwfore long all the Jewish shops will lie closed, as had already been done in the North. AA'orse may follow. It is only twenty-three years since there was a terrible antiSemetie pogromat, Kieff.

A REPORT FROM RIGA

LONDON 3lay 29

Plio Times’s” Riga correspondent says: Moscow reports the discovery of further serious eases of economic sabotage in White Russia, Ukraine, Trans-Caucasia, and at numerous towns in Central Russia, resulting in the intensification of the campaign to sweep out the socially-alien elements that are occupying controlling positions. Numerous officials of the Denugel Coal Trust have been dismissed. Sixty have been arrested and will be tried. Thirty-five have been arrested at Smolensk. Five ex-industrialists have been arrested as the creators of the present financial difficulties of the Kaluga Textile Trust. Many have been arrested at Leningrad, Bakhinut. and Nvovrossisk, and also in the Ukraine and in Siberia for sabotaging the Soviet building plans, and in some cases for even building twostoried houses without stairs. The