SOVIET POLICE

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1933, Page 6

SOVIET POLICE

DETRIMENTAL TO PROSPERITY,

CREATING CLASS ELEMENTS

LONDON, May 13. Before the Soviet can be happy and prosperous the O.G.P.U. (secret , police* must go.-

I believe that it wTI eventually disappear as a tragic and terrible relic o* ■a transitional phase, writes a.sPecjal correspondent, of the “New»-t>.»-...-, ■ who remained in Moscow after the tmij of the Vickers to study the Russian riddle.

Until the Soviet deprives this sister body of its peculiar power and transforms jt into civil police, in Accordance with the modern civilisation, Russians .will never 'feel secure, nor will ,the Sov : et. command the world’s confidenceThe fact' is that essential liberties ore non-existent in Russia, whose revolutionaries liberated- the land of one tyranny end imposed another more, deadly, replacing the exploitation of man by man with the exploitation oi man by the- State. Moreover, the suggestion that the Soviet is evolving an ideal State, without classes, is an ilnwion. On the it is creating claffie, 8 ph fast as possible. Already there are 85 in existence, The only classless elements are the outcasts, who are in an infinitely worse plight than the “bottom dogs’’ in Britain, because of tile passport system

The people, whether commi-sars or factory workers, are more robots, and are subjected to iron discipline Their, actions are easily construed ,a« “wrecking” or “counter-revolutionary” if the O.G.P.U. wishes,, hence its p«w e r. In millions of homes all literature is mere Soviet ideology, th e . newspapers arc State gramophones, the courts echoes of the 'Soviet’s policy. I believe that Russia will some day become a. n industrial .State, with a stAn dard of living comparable with the best in the world, hut not on a basis of pure Communism.