The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1929 TAMING A RED BEAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 814, 7 November 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1929 TAMING A RED BEAR

THERE are two schools of British thought on the question of resuming normal relations with Soviet Russia. They agree as to the political perfidy of the Bolsheviks, but differ almost to opposite points of view as to the necessity and manner of breaking the ground of their agreement. The Conservative school looks upon the Bolshevik continent as the source and centre of fanatical desire for world-revolution and “that sweetness of meditated rancour, that bitter scorn for the dogs and swine of mankind, that fire of silent and intoxicating revenge” which nurse in wrath the declared purpose of the Red Army to deliver the international proletariat—therefore a place and a people to be cut off from the polity of European nations. The other school, representing Labour and Liberal political sentiment, confirms that indictment, but urges a different verdict. It contends that the only -\t T av to tame the infuriated bear is by treating him kindly and teaching him patiently to sheath his talons in the cause of world peace and in the best interests of democracy. Sentiment has prevailed in the House of Commons, where the Labour Government and the Liberal Party have overwhelmed Conservative opposition to the Government’s revived movement toward a resumption of full diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Russia as a desirable end to a bitter business. The sentimental parties also secured approval of the procedure for a settlement of difficult questions outstanding between the two countries, these principally being the adjustment of Russia’s debt to Great Britain and the cessation of Bolshevik propaganda for world-revolution, the path to which (as “The Times” observes) is still “across the corpse of the British Empire. "Whether the majority of the House of Commons has done the right thing or the opposite can only be taken at the moment as a matter of opinion and left to time for a definite decision. ’There is no doubt at all, however, about the character and purpose of Red Russia. The Soviet Government has been in power for twelve years, and still has to prove that it possesses any good quality of rule or reason. It has never swerved from or faltered in its dual purpose to maintain its ruthless power in its own way at home, and to bolshevise the world and bring about the downfall of every bourgeois government in existence and the final grand smash of the capitalist system. This was Lenin’s dream and it now is the policy of his visionary successors. And its greatest desire is to see the ruin of the British Empire. The gloating cry of Russian propagandists is a fantastic assertion that “the British Empire is preparing to crack.” All this nonsense may be mischievous and menacing in sound, though actually harmless in effect, but it remains the policy of a country which seeks free and full relationship with British nations. The Soviet Government’s ambassadorial visitor to London appears to have assured the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Henderson, that Russia will cease its propaganda throughout the Empire, but past experience has not encouraged much belief in the strength and honesty of the Soviet’s promises. Quite recently, Stalin cynically declared that “what we are concerned with are not the reforms, compromises and agreements, but with the use they can be put to and the advantages to be gained.” In other words the Soviet, with one hand, will accept concessions and advantages from the bourgeois governments it despises and seeks to destroy, while with the other hand it will press forward its scheme for achieving world-revolution. Perhaps the resumption of full diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Russia will prove less dangerous than a continuation of political and economic hostilities, but it seems regrettable, to say the least, that a complete change of character in Russia’s fanatical policy had not preceded the British Parliamentary decision to open the door to trade and diplomatic friendship. It is all very well to talk (as many British sympathisers with Russia have talked) of Britain’s duty to assist the evolution in Russian mentality, but it should not be overlooked that the belief in Russia is all for the devolution of British mentality, to say nothing about revolution. Meanwhile, the MacDonald Government, which was firm in 1924, has softened with time and is now willing to accept the Soviet Government’s promise of better political conduct. It is to be hoped that British Labour and Liberal confidence will hot be betrayed.