RUSSIA’S INNER CONFLICT

Hokitika Guardian, 12 April 1929, Page 7

RUSSIA’S INNER CONFLICT

The inner conflict among the men at Moscow assumes daily a phase of which the only logical outcome, as some see it, lniiot he Lhe sanguinary extermination o. “the 'Trotsky crowd” by “the Stalin crowd.” It is a possibility, but no more, that the followers of Trotzky may snatch victory from their present defeat. The great Herman daily, the “Hamburger Nachricliten,’’ which follows Russian affairs closely, says: “On its right hand, the peasants are pressing the Stalin faction hard. The Communist system renders any orderly economic life impossihe for the peasants. On the left of the Stalin faction, the seductive emblems of Trotzky, through his pamphlets and his papers all under the ban, still flaunt themselves in the red revolutionary atmosphere.

“These last enticements have their effect upon the industrial workers. They feel with growing intensity the lowering of tlie scale of existence. Life gets uglier and more intense for them all.

“Stalin is getting the consequence of his blunder in not Having sent Trotzky and the Trotsky crowd into the Great Beyond by methods as usual ns they are familiar. The crowd now in power did not feel strong enough to venture so far This squeamishness—a thing that in all revolutions is hut the beginning of the end—now forces the men in power at Moscow to stand on the defensive in all directions.”

Nothing is more surprising to wellinformed German newspapers than the failure of the Western nations to realise that the world crisis that is to shake the globe will originate in Eastern Europe. “Some Russian Communists hint at Germany’s disposition to join a warlike comhinaton against the Soviet Republic,” says the “Allgemeine Zeitung.” “Such an idea is very remarkable. Friendly relations with Germany at present seem to be the strongest pillar of Moscow foreign policy. Germany, in fact, taking advantage of her new envoy’s reception at Moscow,, has expressed the firmest determination to develop friendly relations with the Soviet.

“The waves of a Communist world revolution are ebbing. All relations with Moscow may Ik? viewed from simple economic and diplomatic standpoints. Now we Germans must conduct a world diplomacy. What we seek is a connection between the interest of other nations and our use.”

It is satisfactory that people in authority are beginning to think seriously once more of the advantages In Rritish trade and industry of reopening relations with Russia, and of the fntnlity of waiting for ideal social ami political conditions to be established there. Ro long as we do not eome to a working agreement with the Russian Government the loss of business to this country will continue to he enormous. Tt. was Russian orders that, enabled the Germans to keep their electrical and machine tool works in full output.