RUSSIAN PROBLEMS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 400, 8 December 1932, Page 2

RUSSIAN PROBLEMS

NEW ZEALAND LADY WRITER TELLS OF SQVIET CONDITIONS. , Miss Nellie Scanlan, the New Zealand writer, who has, returned to the Dominion for a brief visit. was enabled some months ago to visit Russia. Talking to a Wellington Post reporter about her experiences, she admitted that she was shown only what the Soviet officials wanted her to see, and that tshe had to take their word for many things. However, she kept her eyes and ears open, and was extraordinarily well treated. Russia, she said, could not be compared with other countries, for it was the only one which had really applied the Communistic doctrine's. While other countries were floundering in an eeonomic mess, Russia was permeated by an element of hopefulness. "We have a plan axxd an objective," they said. Th'e people were taught that the accomplishment of -the Five Year Plan meant the realisation of Heaven n'ow: they wqre told not to wait for the hereafter, and all religion was ridiculed. Their god was a radiant youth driving ia tractor; that was the god of the future, and magnates, the clergy, and all such people were represented as hindrances to the attainment of that object. "But you cannot get away from hurnan nature," said Misa Scanlon: "It is as variable as the weather in Wellington. Of course, there is no real freedom in Russia; they have only changed one set of masters for another, and they still have human nature to reckon with in their problems." meam -