CHANGING RUSSIA.

Shannon News, 30 August 1929, Page 4

CHANGING RUSSIA.

A STATEMENT OF THE POSITION BOLSHEVIKS 'DESCEND FROM THEORIES TO FACTS. SIGNS OF PROGRESS. • The phenomena of Russian affairs were dealt with by the Rev. W. Beckett, Levin W.E.A. tutor, in the sixth lecture of his series on "International Relations." Following is a summary of his remarks: —■

■The civilisation of Russia began about the time of the downfall' of James 11. of England, in 1688. Until then it was a barbarous country, but . Peter the .Great made a successful effort to introduce civilisation. Russia is a land of enormous distances and of great natural differences, from immense rolling plains to plateaus and mountainous country. Nevertheless, her population is characterised by a remarkable similarity. She has great natural resources i-iron,.cooper, gold, platinum and other minerals being found in great quantities, while her oil wells are among the largest in the world. In the pre-Reyo-lution days nine-tenths of the eultiv- - able land" belonged'to the great nobility, and on these broad acres lived 47 million serfs; who were bound to* the soil and forced either to serve in the household of their lord or to cultivate , the land. In the 16th century Russia pushed out towards the-East via Siberia. The Cossack methods of foraging, pioneer work, and the forming of military settlements consolidated the Muscovite conquests. The Cossacks are not a race, but bands Or communities, partly military, partly nomadic or agricultural, as the case may be. They can be traced back to bands of outlaws who, in time of Russian weakness, roamed about on the verge of her settlements, plundering indifferently their Slavonic , kinsmen or the Tartars and Turks further south. They were the men of the plain, who had fled from the villages of the Slavs or from the caravans of the Tartars, owing to private feuds or from love of a freer and more lucrative life than that of the village or encampment. In 1847'the Tsar inaugurated a forward Asiatic policy; in 1851 he acquired land on the borders of Manchuria; and in 1853 a station on the mouth of the Amur was established and control was gained over part of Saghalien Island. , Russia was active in pushing out east into "the Chinese Empire. She sought an ice-free port in winter —one that at all seasons of the year was open. She cast longing eyes on Port Arthur. Vladivostock, her only port, was frozen for months, while Port Arthur was open all the "year round and ■ capable of being made into a permanent and formidable naval base. After the first Anglo-Chinese War (1840-42), with the cession of Hong Kong to Britain and the forcible opening' of five

ports for trade, Russia posed as the protector of China. In 1861 Tsar Alexan- . der 11. declared serfdom totally abolished—they were now. tenants or peasant .proprietors. The great landed.estates, however, were not done away with . altogether until the Bolshevist Revolution. Much of the oppression thatmade life in Russia hard for the individual was unknown in Siberia. Beyong the Ural mountains there was no recruiting for military service, no serfdom, and no " religious compulsion for the unorthodox. In many cases Russians committed crime on purpose to be exiled there. In 1850 and following years the voluntary emigration was considerable.

WHAT CAUSED THJS REVOLUTION Government in Euasia was maintain- •■ ,ed, not in respect of the governed, but for those in authority, on a steady, Oriental plan of fear and oppression. .What was for the good of the people was of minor importance compared with what would benefit the land-owner. Grand dukes and members of the Royal House were the deadliest enemies of any reform, however much the Emperor himself might be disposed for it. Nihilism''was the revolt of the individual against the religious creed and patriarchal customs of old Russia. The fundamental principle of Nihilism was "absolute individualism." It was negation, in the name of individual liberty, of all the obligations imposed upon the individual by society,,by family life, and by religion. It grew rapidly, and had startling success. Alexander 111. lacked his father's quick intelligence and personal charm, and inherited none of the generous impulses which had led to the emancipation of the serfs'. The court lived in impenetrable seclusion, and the Government was carried on by a corrupt and reactionary bureaucracy. The Nihilists were executed or banished to horrible Siberian prisons. The' Press was muzzled, the privileges of University -' students curtailed, and the powers of the Zemstvos (County Councils) limited. Russia was in the grip of a deadly obscurantism, and the Intelligentsia either threw themselves into Socialism or looked on in dumb despair. In 1891-93 half the country was faced with starvation. The reign of Alexander 111. was a period of national paralysis, and his only service to the country'was the maintenance of peace. The accession' of Nicholas 11., in 1894, at tho. age of 26, aroused hopes of a change of system, but the new Tsar declared his intention of, maintaining the principles of autocracy inviolate, and dismissed all appeals _ of the Zemstvos for a share in drafting ■ the laws. Socialism spread, strikes ■ among factory workers became numerous, and the unrest in the universities and the;boldness of the Press increased. Indignation was aroused by the discovery of .unblushing peculation and shameless incompetence, both at , the base and the front, during the Japanese War. The Zemstvos demanded inviolability of the person, freedom of epriscience, of speech, of meeting, of association and instruction, the aboli- - tio» Qt exceptional laws, amnesty for

political prisoners, and an elected national assembly. The court was torn asunder by conflicting counsels. A strict censorship was revived, and the tide of reform began to ebb. Early in 1905, while a salute was being fired, a shot fell close to tha Tsar. He left the capital at once and when, three days later, Father Gapon headed a gigantic deputation of strikers and their families, the unarmed crowds were shot down by the 'troops. Mutinies broke out in the army and the fleet. A revolt in Moscow was savagely repressed, and things went from bad to worse. . The .live years following the Japanese War were a period of military impotence. Army reform only began in 1910, and in 1914 Russia was even less prepared. Germany was aware of the situation, and decided not to wait, for a collision of the peoples of Europe was inevitable sooner or later. Tsar Nicholas appears to have been' a kind good natured sort of man, earnestly desirous of doing right, but not master in his own house. He was completely dominated by his wife, whose influence waxed with the growing peril of the State. She came under the evil power of Rasputin, "the black monk," an illiterate, filthy, drunken and immoral adventurer, whom the 'neurotic Tsant-: "sa worshipped'and obeyo/d. , CRISIS HASTENED BY WAR. Russia, in with the Allies at the outbreak 6f the Great War, and made .a very valuable contribution for the first two years. In the.autumn of 1915 her'armies suffered a retreat, and Russia's ally Roumania was crushed. Meanwhile the "'temper of the people was rising fast against the Tsardom, and on March 8th,,1917, there were strikes in Petrograd, followed on the 13thby strikes in Moscow. Troops mutinied, and shot their officers instead of the strikers,' and by the 15th the Tsar was forced to abdicate. A coalition Government wa a formed of Liberals and Right Socialists, resting part of its power on the Committee of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils This coalition was replaced in July by a Socialist Government under Kerensky. Lenin was then in exile in Zirich; he reached Petrograd on April 3rd, 1917 Trotsky came from the ends 'of the earth by October. . ' ' ' , When the Americans entered the War* in 1917,. the Allies brought pressure to bear on Kerensky to rally his war-weary army to a. new offensive. The result was a renewed attack by the Russian armies in Galicia, under General Brusiloff. But the move failed; the Germans counter-attacked, and the Russian troops fell back demoralised to face the horrors of a hopeless winter.

PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP,

On November 7th Kerensky was overthrown and "power was seized by a workers' dictatorship under the leadership of Lenin, which preceded to socialise the banks, transport and large Industry, and to organise through the Soviets resistance to the forces of Korniloff, who had succeeded Brusiloff. The Russian soul surged to the surface, and the anarchy that so long had hidden in the dark now burst forth. Lenin became the dominating force. A man of ascetic temperament, with no inclination to pose before the footlights, from boyhood he had been against Capitalism. His practical labours were accompanied by extraordinarily fruitful literary activities. Lenin's internationalism is'essentially akin to PanSlavism. To-day, in every workshop, club and schoolroom in Russia is reserved a "Lenin comer," and there has clustered around the man, as a pivotal personality, a kind'of holy order,'with vows of obedience and voluntary poverty/ A visitor (Miss Thompson, states that she went to a cathedral, where there were only twelve people, while outside, in Red Square, 50,000 were in line before the tomb of the dead 'Communist. The name of the capital was changed from Petrograd to Leningrad in recognition of his great services to the Republic. The dictatorship of Russia began with pure Marxism. So thorough-going at first were the assumptions of the practicability of applying the system wholesale and immediately, that money was abolished. Every man was to produce goods, not for himself alone, but for the community. The peasants were to pour their produce into a common pool, and so on. But Lenin soon saw the impossibility of building up a society on a mere mechanical and exclusively economic basis. So Leninism has replaced Marxism. The earlier views have had to be abandoned, after bitter,experience. The method of enforcing socialism by coercion, terrorism, the Cheka (political police) and the Red Army have all broken down in the case of 96 or 97 per cent, of the Russian people. Lenin was one of the first to recognise the fact, and said, in 1920, "Capitalism lias, in Russia, a solider base than Communism." The new economic policy, in 1921, permitted the peasant to sell his produce to private buyers, and to buy his goods from* private sellers. In June, 1921, two decrees were issued, one giving the cooperative societies the right to possess and to handle money, the other abolishing in general all limitations on the possession and handling of money. Private capital has captured the market. In the short period of three years, 4(50,803 village shops were (licensed. The State-controlled trade is completely absent. Sixty-four per cent, of the entire turnover in the cities is made up by private traders. The progress of the Soviet- State has nothing to do with any special feature of Communism. One after another of the classical Marxist claims has been abandoned. The Russian Government is composed of Communists, but as a Government it does not propagate Communism, for its energies are so absorbed in the practical work of internal reconstruction which is being undertaken and by the network of foreign "diplomatic and trading relations which are being created. An aspect of Bolshevik foreign policy is expressed in the phrase, "The right of every nation to self-deter-

mination." The statement has been used as a weapon of controversy in Western Europe, and it is partly on the foundation of this phrase that the new boundaries of Western Europe have been drawn. Full and free recognition by the Soviet Government of the validity of the principle of self-determin-ation is given in the eases of. Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The friendly relations of Russia with Turkey, Afghanistan and Mongolia, also, depend to a large extent on the recognition of this natural right.

THE ECONOMIC BLOCKADE

•In 1920 Russia was cut off from and isolated by practically the whole world. Great Britain earnestly attempted to dissuade any of- her subjects from entering Russia. By 1924 the situation had so changed that it almost appeared at one time that there was a scramble to be the first to recognise Russia. The recognition by the Labour Government in Great Britain in 1924 broke the diplomatic ice, so that now most countries have 'representatives or ambassadors in Moscow, and at the beginning of 1925 a definite treaty was concluded with Japan, with whom there had been more serious cause for disagreement than even with France or Great Britain, inasmuch as Japan had remained in occupation of some Russian territory up to the time when negotiations began. The year of 1924—the year of. the death of Lenin (January 21st) —has' thus become for Russia the year of recognition. She. has completed treaties with many nations, and how soon the complete linking-up of Russia takes place depends very, largely on Russia herself.

\RETURN OF PRIVATE TRADE. The two matters with which the world at large is chiefly concerned are: Russia's repudiation of her international credit obligations, and the Russian Communist Party's efforts at revolutionary propaganda outside Russia. The Soviet Government is. prepared to 1 go far on the road to compromise. Her treaties, with outside nations indicate that she is willing to abandon her attempts at living outside the normal economic system. She Avishos to be united with other Great Powers. The demand of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was "Peace, bread and land"; the demand of Russia's new economic policy of 1925 is "Peace, trade and capital." The agricultural industry of Russia is overwhelmingly the most important, alike on account of the number of persons employed, the amount of the products, and the amount of the exports. The methods of cultivation are primitive, even simple; agricultural implements are lacking, and there is a great shortage of live-stock. But these conditions are rapidly improving. The control of industry in the Soviet Union is the particular concern of the Government and is expressed in its policy of nationalisation of large-scale industry, Government control of foreign trade operations, and nationalisation of the means of transport and'communication. When to this is 'added the fact that all land is regarded, a* the property of the State, and that-the occupiers of the land have only the right.to occupy it so long as they use it for farming by means of their own labour, it is clear that the Soviet Government is carrying its Socialist'principles into practice to a considerable extent. Foreign trade with the Soviet Union is a State monopoly, and all export and import is carried on by State Departments specially organised for the purpose, or by special companies ereated.for the purpose, in which the State has an interest and whose operations it controls. A very great improvement has taken place in trade. The exports are increasing, and go to almost every country in Europe, also to Persia and the United'States. The imports from Great Britain, before the break in diplomatic relations, were more important than before the War. The chief competitor with Great Britain is Germany. There are German engineers, chemists, business managers and experts ; to be found in all the industrial regions of Russia. German goods;, books and machines are displayed in the shops of Moscow conspicuously. With a population of over 130 million in the Soviet Union, Russia is potentially one of the greatest markets in the world. The standard of life in Russia was never so high as in Western Europe. The vast bulk of the peasantry live in primitive villages, and their needs arc of a restricted kind. Since the World War and the Civil War, the needs of the population of Russia have been clamor-

ous for agricultural implements, ' for household necessities, for clothing, for machinery of various kinds, and for many other things. INDUSTRIAL IMPROVEMENT. Professor Douglas, of Chicago, admits that terror has played its part in maintaining the Communist regime, but says it would be a great mistake to conclude that it owes its present dominance solely or even principally to terror. As an economic expert, he states that factory workers' wages have increased by 152 per cent., and though the cost of living has purchasing power of the monthly pay envelope is 13 per cent, higher. Other gains relating to insurances b'rintf the industrial workers to a position, where they are 30 to 35 per cent, better off than they were 14 years ago. It should, of course, be realised, adds Professor Douglas, that the absolute level cf real wages in Russia is still low, amounting to approximately only one-half the level of Great Britain, and one-third that of the United States. But. the important point to bear- in mind is that wages in Russia always have been low, and that, in terms of these past conditions, the Communist regime has begun to pay substantial dividends to the workers.

Russia has actually restored her prewar production. In spite of Revolution, blockade, civil war and famine, she has done relatively better than England, for Britain's production is thought to be now 90 or 95 per cent, of the pre-war level. , Since the advent of the present Lab-

our Government in England, much has been heard of its intention to resume diplomatic relations with Russia at the earliest possible moment. The severing of these relations' on May. 26th, 193'/, was immediately followed by a serious decline in Anglo-Russian trade. One of the striking effects of the Revolution has been the nationalisation and municipalisation of houses. In Moscow 70 per cent, and in Leningrad V'4 per cent. a,re liationaJised; the larger portion" of them' are re-let to private individuals. In most of the towns of Russia the proportion houses nationalised is only 20 per cent. Russian women, once the moist backward, illiterate, enslaved women in' the world, have made rapid strides ahead since the Revolution. In technical schools 31.1 per cent, of the students are women. Thirty per cent, of the voters in Soviet elections are women, and they have-146,000 members of village Soviets. VAST EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. The Soviet system aims at the creation of a unified type of education' for all children, subdivided according to age, and in order to provide for the various necessary lines of specialisation in later years, such;as teaching, agriculture, engineering and medicine. All schools and educational establishments are Government institutions; no private schools are permitted. The elementary institutions are divided into: (1) Pre-school education, up to eight years; (2) lower elementary, from j 'eight to twelve years; and (3) higher j elementary, comprising the first sec- j tion, from twelve to fifteen years, and the second section, from fifteen to seventeen years., Attendance at' school is compulsory from eight to fifteen years of age. All. education for children between the ages of eight and .seventeen is' co-educational, no difference being made between the sexes. The education is entirely secular, the teaching of any religion or the performance of any religious ceremonials being forbidden. The curriculum of the secondary school is laid down by the Commissariat of Education. The basic work of the school is stated to be the study of the productive activities of the work-, ers and their organisations. The work of any particular school must be relat-, ed closely to the form of productive activity prevalent in, the place where it is situated, and the plan of school work is drawn up In relation to that form of productivity. The whole work of the school must be directed to build up the proletarian class-consciousness and proletarian interests, and to strengthen the feeling of the solidarity of the. workers in their struggle with capital, as well as to prepare the pupils for useful productive work themselves and for useful social and political activity. THE CHILDREN FOR THE STATE. Soviet law does not recognise that the parent has any right over the child, only that he- has duties towards it. ; The State is a supreme guardian of all children, and only delegates its authority to the parents, who are regarded as 'the most suitable guardians after the State. The obligation is laid upon parents (both together) to support, protect and guard the personnel and property rights of their children up to 18 vears, and to prepare them for a useful, productive life. If the parent does not fulfil these functions, then the Government takes the 'children over.. Soviet law regards the guardianship of the Government as the best form of guardianship. The State cannot look after all, so appoints parents as guardians. The child is allowed to/indicate its preference. Any person appointed must accept and. discharge the duties of guardian, except in casfe of old age or illness. Special attention is given to the villages, where the problem of illiteracy i s most acute. There were said to be 17 million illiterates in European Russia, all of whom will have received instruction in. reading by I^9.

Child welfare and physical culture are receiving 'much attention. World War, the Revolution, and post-' Revolution conditions left a terrible child problem for solution, but it- is being courageously tackled, and a large number of institutes exist for the treatment of the various ailments to which children are liable in all countries, as well as those that are the special product of the conditions of distress.

CONFIDENCE OF THE WORKERS. In a book entitled "Life Under the Soviets," Mr Alexander Wicksteed states that the Soviet ' derives its strength from the fact that: most of the "workers" and the best of the younger intelligentsia feel that the Dictatorship is governing in their interests. In his view no Government i» Europe i s established more firmly in the saddle than the Russian. He is not a partisan biassed in favour of the Soviet Government. His description of housing conditions in Moscow, for instance, is utterly ruthless. It would hardly be an exaggeration, lie states, to say that no one in Moscow is living under proper conditions with regard to housing. It appears, however, that the Russians, fortified by their inher-, ent fatalism, submit fairly cheerfully to these intolerable conditions. Mosl of the people in Moscow live in tenements consisting of blocks of flats five or six storeys high. Each of these houses is governed by a Committee which collects the rents and keeps the buildings in repair. The rents are low, and almost nominal for a student, or a man out of work. The number of private traders has steadily decreased since he settled in Moscow in • 1923, though the new economic policy introduced two years earlier provided for a system of free competition between private enterprise and the Government and co-operative shops. Compared with their old standards, the restaurants are improving, but, to judge from Mr Wicksteed's description, the quality of the fare would revolt an English .palate. Drunken orgies are commoH in the public restaurants, and the Russian worker has not yet attained to the standards of temperance exacted

from members of the Communist- Party. Much has been heard of the hordes of outcast children infesting the streets of Eussian cities. Most of them have been rounded up'by the police, and Mr Wieksteed believes that the authorities have dealt successfully with this peculiar problem. In regard to the general penal system, he remarks that the whole idea of punishment has been frankly dropped and the aim of reformation is alone pursued. Solitary confinement is unknown. Every prisoner who is willing to work is taught a trade under the conditions which prevail outside, so that he is really equipped for civil life "when his sentence is. ended. Any work he does is paid for at trade union rates,.but Mi Wieksteed does not know wtien' and how the prisoner receives.the bulk of the money; some portion of it lie can spend in the prison canteen, where he can buy tobacco, but not alcoholic drink. Ifvhe has a long sentence, he is allowed h fortnight's holiday cv&ry year to visit his family, and —perhaps most important of all—no kind of stigma will attach to him when his time is finished.' *.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST RELIGION. The anti-religious campaign, of whieh. news appeared from time to time, seems to have ben largely directed against the tyrannical pretensions of the old State' Church. Wieksteed points out that the Baptists have increased their membership by some two millions since the Revolution. "I have never heard," he declares, "of any interference whatever in worship. . .All the stories that one hears about closing churches and converting them into cinemas are pure nonsense." Since the opening of the current year, however, a decided change has come: The Baptist training . school for preachers, in Moscow, has been closed, the license to'print Bibles has been withdrawn, many churches have been closed and pastors, arrested and exiled.: The attack on the Baptists is exceptionally fierce. They have a strong hold on the artisan and peasant class, which the Bolshevists have'endeavoured to sweep 'into Atheism. The policy of which the Baptists are the chief victims' ff not due to any special dislike of/their specific teaching; they are assailed because they are aggressive in evangelii sation.

A GIGANTIC EXPERIMENT. Soviet Russia is said to be "the world's greatest Communistic experiment." it should be remembered that maiiy of the reports of the appalling conditions of affairs in Russia are purely the creations of fertile brains. A so-called Riga correspondent has confessed that he worked in a London office and manufactured newspaper articles on Russia to suit the politics of his principals, these articles referring to such items as Bolshevik atro : cities, Cheka executions, Soviet economic difficulties, and dissatisfaction of the people with the Government. Bolshevik government is bad government. Yet it has remained in power to this day because it is a Russianspeaking Government, and the Russian people support it because it lias defended Russia against the. subsidised raiders of France #iul against the Poles, the Esthonians and the Japanese,; and against all sorts of outside interference with their prostrate country. They prefer fanatics to foreigners, and Bolsheviks to brigands. They are made to suffer because of the obstinacy of the Moscow Government, which'hesitated to ' acknowledge debts incurred by Russia,' very largely for'the military preparations which saved Europe—debts which it is now inconceivable that'Russia can, under any circumstances, pay. ■