RUSSIAN “ FREEDOM.”

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 221, 26 January 1928, Page 1

RUSSIAN “ FREEDOM.”

SUPPRESSION OF OPINION. Speculation, says the Riga correspondent of the Times, continues among Communists in Moscow on the impression they gave to the unofficial delegation of American trade unionists which recently visited Soviet Russia. Discussion centres in a long interview the visitors had with the Dictator, Stalin. The Americans submitted to Stalin 12 questions, the most awkward of which, oerbaps, ivas why only one party was allowed to exist in the U.S.S.R., and how, notwithstanding that, Communists could know that the masses sympathised with Communism.

Stalin replied that the people expressed their confidence ir the Communist party of ten years ago, when they helped to seize power, and that the -masses supported the Communist I party during the civil war and now elected Communists to Soviet and trade union offices. Stalin was asked whether differences of opinio;, existed among the workmen and peasants, and whether loyal Soviet citizens enjoyed opportunities to organise or express opinions such as they would enjoy if the ; Communist part'- did not Lave a “ monopoly or legality.” He admitted the existence of h’frerences, but declared that the workmen and peasants agreed with the Communists party in ail essential matters; therefore, any reason to legalise other parties did not exist. The delegation asked whether any local non-Communist g»:cup might be allowed openly to advocate for instance, the abolition of the State monopoly of foreign trade. Stalin replied that loyal citizens must necessarily support this monopoly, as only nepmen (private traders) and count-er-revolutionaries could desire its abolition. /

Stalin burked the question of what differences of opinion existed between himself and Trotsky by referring his questioners to the speeches of Bukharin which nearly resulted in his expulsion programme which Trotsky and the opposition presented to the Central Committee of the Communist party, and Rykoff. When the Americans requested a copy of “ the platform of the j 3 ” Stalin flatly refused to supply them with one.