THE CASE FOR SOVIET RUSSIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 73, 17 June 1927, Page 12

THE CASE FOR SOVIET RUSSIA

DREAD OF TSARDOM REV. MONCKTON'S ADDRESS The Women's Political Association held a meeting on Wednesday evening In the Priscilla Tea Rooms, when the president, Miss Ellen Melville, presided over a large attendance o! members. During the evening a most interesting address was given by the Rev. W. G. Monckton, who took for his subject “Russia and Its Political Influence On Europe.” Mr. Monckton began by saying that it was very difficult for the English peoples to understand the Russian character and point of view that has been evolved under dreadful conditions such as have never obtained in any other country. Most people, as do most British papers, with the exception of the Manchester “Guardian,” and one or two others, said Mr. Monckton, are content with regard to Russia to follow the policy that "it’s time we had a smack at the blighters.” When the Russians entered the war whatever the ideas possessed by the ruling classes, the motives governing the masses were purely idealistic. Mr. Monckton vividly traced the factors that had gone to the moulding of the Russian character, commencing by pointing out that under the rule of the Tsar the peoples of Russia were 80 per cent, peasants, who could do little more than earn a bare living. Often they could not do that, for there had been plenty of cases In which whole villages had starved to death.

Always the spectre of starvation was before them. They had no education and no means of bettering: their condition. In the cities of Russia there were not more than 30 per cent, of the people who could read and write, while in the villages the number who could read and write was as low as ten to twenty per cent, of the vast population. There was no means of communication between one part of the country and another, so that each little village was completely isolated from all others. Living under conditions that barely enabled them to live, practically in prison, and always in intense cold, with no recreation, in fact, leading a life little better than that of the lowest animals the Russians began to dream sombre and sinister dreams. Hemmed in by their immense forests and trackless frozen wilds, listening to the sighing of the wind and the howling of the wolves, was it any wonder that they began to breed discontent? asked the speaker. To them the vision of a golden future appeared as a day when a peasant might own his own little plot of land, when he would not be compelled to drag the boats along the Volga, as through the cheapness of human labour compared with that of horses, he was forced to do ‘•through the centuries before the revolution. AN ICE-FREE PORT Whether under the Tsarist regime or under Soviet rule the aim of the Russians has not changed. They are still seeking and will continue to seek a good sea port etiher on the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea from which the wealth of commodities that could he produced in the/.r country may be shipped to every part of the world. Naturally the other powers want to block Russia from becoming such a powerful trader and so have continued to block her from securing such a port. Mr. Monckton referred to the term ••Communism” and said that to. the Continehtal mind it meant something entirely different from the things usually associated with it. One of the main things that people fail to was the fact that to the Russians the recent war was essentially a war against Austria not against Germany, with whom they had no shadow of a quarrel. A great deal of misunderstanding had existed on that point for few people realised that there were two separate and distinct wars, the war between Russia and Austria and the war between Prance and England on the one side and Germany on the other. The Russian armies were left with insuiflclent food and suffered all kinds of outrageous privations, and while these masses were waging the war of the Cross against the Crescent the despots who ruled them were waxing fat . ARMY’S REBELLION Finally there arose the military rebellion, when the soldiers refused to fight any longer under such conditions, and from among the disillusioned soldiers there grew the Nihilists, whose aim was to destroy the class that had been exploiting them. After the first violent revolt of the militia, the ranks of the discontents were strengthened by the navy, and soon the Tsar was left with none but the police behind him. After that the revolution was accomplished easily, practically without bloodshed, for the revolters had become so strong in numbers that they simply stepped into power and set up the Soviet Council, or the rule of the Commune. • Mr. Monckton declared that the Russians had never believed that a revolution could be successful. Those who were afterwards destined to become the leaders of the revolution had so often seen their relatives condemned to die in Siberia, or submitted to all kinds of torture and cruelty that the sense of oppression had been almost ineradicable* ground into their souls. FEAR OF TSARDOM The few faithful adherents of the Czar had quickly made an effort to restore him or at least to restore a Tsarist regime, and so the Russian peoples had always that fear before them that there might be a return to Tsardom. Even though the form of self-govern-ment they have now may not yet be ideal it is at least preferable to the form of administration that prevailed for so many years, and they jealously guard it lest such freedom as they have attained should once more be taken from them. In a country with a population of 1-0 million. Mr. Monckton declared that it was unreasonable to suppose that if their present Government was not in their opinion the best protection they could have from a return to Tsarist rule, the masses, who are now conscious of their own power, would not put up with it for a moment. At the present time Great Britain is the power that most frightens Russia, for she always has th€r idea that Britain will endeavour to reinstate the rule of the Tsar, or a similar bureaucracy. Russia, therefore, with that fear ever before her eyes, has been trying to secure a guarantee from the Asiatic and other nations around her that in the event of a war they will remain neutral. WORLD REVOLUTION The Russians believe that the masses of the world are oppressed. Naturally with the keen remembrance of their own oppression they see similar conditions obtaining in many places, however they know that China never can be a Commune, and it is not for the purpose of spreading their doctrines that they have sent an emissary con-

stantly there, but merely with a view to securing the promise of China’s remaining out of any future war in which Russia may be involved. In concluding his address, Mr. Monckton stressed the fact that what the peoples of the world must do to ensure international peace is to try to understand the point of view of other nations. What the world needs is the international outlook.